Post Japan 2014, initial reflections on an amazing experience

I've always considered visiting Japan.  Even before I decided to teach English in Korea, I imagined I'd at least drop into Tokyo see the sights and check it off my bucket list.  Though Tokyo still remains to be seen, I have had the chance to check off a city much higher on my "must see" list, Kyoto!

Though my detailed experiences will come later, I feel compelled to begin with my initial impressions of Japan after being in the country a few days.

WOW!

Since Korea is the first nation I've visited in Asia, I tend to compare other countries against it's feats and faults.  It has molded my expectations and shaped biases as I hop from country to country.  After learning some of the close and tumultuous history between Japan and Korea I expected them to be similar.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Japan and Korea are practically night and day.  I was jaw droppingly stunned at what I saw and was able to do while in Japan.  I was never anything other than impressed, excited, even awed by even the smallest things.  Here a few key differences between Japan and Korea that pleasantly surprised me:

-Cleanliness:  Japan is remarkably clean!  Traveling in Osaka and Kyoto there were hardly any scraps of litter to be found.  In Korea, public trashcans don't exist, so littering is necessary to dispose trash.  Unless one lives in a large apartment complex, one is forced to deposit trash on any street corner and eventually public services will pick it up.  Yet, that doesn't prevent people from littering constantly.  Japan had none of these issues.  Every street I went through was incredibly clean!

-People obey traffic laws:  This is one that took me wildly by surprise.  Every other Asian country I've visited has had some wild drivers.  Not Japan, cars stay in their lanes and drive considerately.  More importantly, scooters (the bane of my existence) also obey traffic laws and STAY ON THE ROAD!  In Korea, scooters will drive ANYWHERE: in lane, between lanes, sidewalks, driveways, shoulders, anywhere!  Just to get where they are going as quickly as possible.  It doesn't matter if they mow you down along the way.  However, Japan didn't exhibit this issue!  Scooters were more rare in Japan, and those I did saw possessed considerate drivers who managed to follow traffic and mind pedestrians.  

-Politeness in general:  One of my greatest frustrations in Korea is being bumped.  We expats joke that the only way to say "excuse me" in Korean is with your elbows.  Old people are especially notorious for rudely shoving past people in public, ignoring lines and other peoples' personal space to get where they are going.  Japan was not this way at all.  People minded each other, did not bump into one another and often said "shimasen" (excuse me) when in public.  Perhaps this is because the Japanese locations I visited possessed fewer people in a small location (as is often the case in Korea), or perhaps I only encountered decent folks.  In either case, I adored having my personal space respected in a way that is impossible to find in Korea.

I've greatly enjoyed my life in Korea.  Korea is an easy place to become an expat and live a comfortable lifestyle.  For all it's quirks and qualms I've enjoyed it.  Yet, visiting Japan has allowed me a long overdue repreave from those little things that drive you mad about being in a foreign country.  Japan is everything I'd heard of and hoped for, and yet more!  I look forward to writing about it more here and on my other website: http://octavrianpress.wordpress.com/ 

Doing Dalmaji Hill.... drunk....

The weekend is always a wonderful time to get out and explore the city.  With the warm weather of summer finally upon us, my girlfriend and I took it upon ourselves to explore.  So several weekends ago, we went in search of Dalmaji Hill.

Dalmaji Hill is a scenic walk near Haeundae beach.  Known for spectacular views of the sea and the moon, the sidewalks here are wider and more accomodating to foot traffic.  A pleasant change to most streets in Korea.  On the weekends, Dalmaji Hill is the site of a logcal arts market, where local craftsmen peddle their wares in the open air.
Intrigued by this prospect, my girlfriend Carrie and I resolved to find this market.

The following account is our ridiculous experience:

Our journey began on a Saturday (the arts market is only open Saturday and Sunday 2-6 pm) a poor choice as Carrie and I are not known for our ambitious approach to Saturdays.

Cantankerous Carrie demands to know why she's awake at 11am

However, we managed to rally ourselves and clamber onto the subway towards Dalmaji Hill.  The hill is most easily accessed by taking the Green line past Haeundae to Jung-Dong subway stop.  From there we left Exit 5 and walked directly out of the exit and down the street.  It leads straight to the hill.  The walk to the hill isn't far, maybe 15-20 minutes before one begins to walk on the wider promenade the artsy hill provides.  Along the way Cantankerous Carrie and I armed ourselves with some soju tonics and snacks from a local 7-11 and set out on our search for artsy things!

The climb isn't difficult, and is no more strenuous that other hills in Korea.  We ambled our way up, enjoying the views on the coast and beach below, laughing, talking and drinking our soju.

Cantankerous Carrie enjoys a nearby garden overlooking the beach.  See how happy she is?

The weather in late May is hot, but not incredibly smothering like later in the summer.  The breeze is always strong near the coast so we were able to enjoy being outside without sweating through our clothes.  The climb was relaxing and we easily wound our way up to the top of Dalmaji Hill.

Upon reaching the top of the hill, we found this small plaza with local arts.  It was certainly less extensive than we'd anticipated, but by this time the soju was working is menacing magic and we pressed on for more sights on our Saturday afternoon.

Merry Michael is clearly more of a morning person

There are lots of fine restaurants and shops here on Dalmaji Hill, as well as unique hotels overlooking the sea.  Rumor has it, Dalmaji also possesses a large open air amphitheater that local thespians use to perform Shakespeare in the summer.  We never found the theater but amused ourselves with taking funny photos with the local sculpture:

EAT ALL THE GUMMY BEARS!!!!

My own attempt at devouring gummy sculpture via forced perspective failed miserably.  I merely look like a laughing cartoon villain! Though local Koreans were amused at us attempting this shot! 

Unsatisfied with the arts we found, we clambered back down the hill and down to the beach.  Though it was still too cold to swim we enjoyed walking in the surf and laughing at ourselves.  It wasn't much of an adventure, but it was enough to remind us how lucky we are to live in a great city with silly things to do on Saturdays.

Add ocean to Cantankerous Carrie to induce elated smiles!

It's that Holi time of year!

This last weekend was a flurry of activity and excitement!

My best friend James was in town for his birthday.

St. Patty's Day was celebrated on Saturday with tremendous excitement!

Sunday was Holi Hai on Haeundae Beach!

Exciting, exausting, incredibly fun!

Holi Hai, the Indian festival of colors, is by far one of my favorite holidays.  It's a celebration that often coencides with the coming of spring, and we were blessed to find that spring arrived just in time for Holi!  Sunday was bright, sunny, and warmer than it has been in weeks!  I'm once again hopeful that it may be warm and stay warm at long last!
I love the spirit of Holi as it turns a group of strangers in white to a massive of friends covered in bright colors and brighter smiles.  There is dancing and drinking and a fundamental loss of the quiet anxiety that often keeps us from speaking to strangers.  But in the festival everyone can be family and dance and throw color on people.  It's a fantastic time to enjoy life and remember that life is a joyful experience and its too rare that we get to come together and just enjoy ourselves for its own sake.

Here are some snapshots of this year's Holi festival on the beach!  What and awesome time!

Yes, I am that classy

Colors everywhere!

Beach and a random swimmer in the background

in the midst of the fun!

Thief in the night... a Philipines tale

So the Philipines was my first experience in being robbed.

Well... attempted robbery... let me explain.

Our time in the Philipines was spent on Boracay, a tourist island well known for it's White Beach.  We spent two weeks there at a budget hostel called Trafalgar Cottages.  Trafalgar is a well known spot and is quite charming, I enjoyed my stay.  It's located near the less developed side of White Beach, making it a good budget travel location.  I have no complaints about Trafalgar Cottages despite it being the location of our robbery.

During the second week of our vacation, I'd come down with a terrible stomach illness (which turned out to be a bacterial parasite... no fun).  This illness made it so I couldn't sleep through the night without diaherra, gas, and stomach pains.  Yet, it's gastric distress that saved us all in the end.

Being ill, I'd gone to bed early that night, trying to recover on my own (unaware of the bacteria eating my intestines).  I slept lightly and left the door to our little cottage unlocked allowing my friends to stay out later.  My compainions, Ryan and Daniel, came in later that night.  The last one being an inebriated Daniel, who slumped into bed without locking the door behind him.

You can tell where this is going I'm sure.

So after Daniel returns around 2am, I'm rolling around in bed wishing my stomach would leave me in peace.  Lying still and unsettled on my foam mattress I desperately pray for sleep.  As I lay there, I barely hear the cottage door open.  I glance over to see a slight hand reach in through the door from outside over to the nightstand by the door.  The hand gingerly plucks something from the nighstand and retreats.
My immediate thought was "why would the girls need their cell phones this late at night?" (Note: us boys were travelling with two girls who were staying in another room.  However, since the boys had the power adapter, we were in charge of cell phones).  Innocent though my thought was I immediately sat up and wrenched the ajar door all the way open.  I was met with a surprised Philipino man wearing his T-Shirt on his face.  He immediately turned about and dasked off, his flip flops slapping on the pavers outside our cottage.  Without thinking I shouted, "HEY!" at the top of my lungs.  Leading both boys in the room to jump up from their sleep.

At this point the thief was long gone, but my friends and I were hardwired for a fight.  To be perfectly honest I'm amazed how quickly they went from dead asleep to ripped and ready to rock.  However, the thief  in the night had long since vanished into the dark corridors of the nearby mall.  We flicked on all the lights and searched the cottage, thankfully only one thing was taken.
"My cigarettes!" Ryan cried when he discoverd their absence.  "That M%$^& &*%3 stole my cigarettes!  I'll kill him!"

So gastric distress saves the day!
Had I not been awake to hear the door open, the thief could have easily made off with several cell phones and some money.  Had he decided to enter the cottage and root through our bags who knows what else he'd have made off with!

Needless to say it was a lesson in caution that I was able to share with our hostel neighbors in the morning.  I realized then why we'd been targeted for robbery.
Primarily, I'd made the mistake of turning off our porch light before turning into bed that night.  The staff at Trafalgar makes a point of turning on all the cottage's porch lights.  As a sensitive sleeper, I'd deactivated ours.  I hadn't realized how these light deterred crime, discouraging thieves from being seen.
Secondly, we'd forgotten to lock our door.  Having spent a week at the cottage we'd grown too comfortable with the atmosphere.  Trafalgar is a great spot to stay, friendly and cozy.  However, it is near a destitute local population, without an exterior gate or CCTV, anyone can come and go from the premesis.  I don't find this as a fault in the hostel, it's a great place to stay in Boracay.  However, it is a cautionary tale not to get too comfortable when travelling in South East Asia.
Had I slept through the sound of the door opening... Had the thief been violent, drunk, drugged, or more desperate... Had any one of a million possiblities occurred other than me waking up to scare him away, this cautionary tale may have been a horror story.

So lock your doors
Keep tabs on your travel buddies
And don't leave your cigarettes by the door

The world's worst airport, my nightmare in Manila

We all have nightmare stories of getting through airports, hectic experiences of mind rending stress.  Tales of time sensitive terror, not knowing if it will take one minutes or hours to check bags and pass through security.  Before last week my worst airport experience was in Paris.  However, after trying to escape the Philipines after two weeks in Boracay I can honestly say:

Manila's airport is the worst airport I have ever experienced in my life.
I pray I never encounter it again.


So here's what happened....

After our vacation in Boracay my friends and I were eager to get home.  Though we had suffered long layovers and delays little had gone contrary to plan... until Manila.  Flying into Manila we claimed our baggage after arriving late on an Air Asia Zest flight.  To our joy, we discovered Manila possessed a free airport transfer service from various terminals for passengers with connecting flights.  A service we were eager to employ, given we had reached the end of our vacation fund (Previously, we'd had to pay over 1,000 pesos to get from one terminal to another).  I myself was down to my last 50 pesos (equivalent to about 1.05 USD).  We spoke with the dispatcher there and was informed our connecting flight was in Terminal 1.

After waiting a bit for the bus to arrive we were hurried onto the transport bus labeled "Terminal 1/3" to take us from where we'd landed in Terminal 3 to our connecting flight.  To our confusion, we were taken to Terminal 4, where we were informed our bus would not take us to Terminal 1.  After an exasperated conversation, the driver begrudingly agreed to take us to Terminal 1.  We eagerly rode there with a few other displaced passengers for a roundabout ride to Terminal 1.  At Terminal 1 we happily disembarked to find our flight.  However, we were stopped by security before entering the building and asked for our boarding passes.  The guards were rather confused that we did not already possess boarding passes despite the fact that we still needed to find the Air Asia desk (which was housed in a terminal building).  After another esasperated conversation, we discovered we'd been misinformed and were redirected to Terminal 4.
We slogged our way back to the free transport service to have an accusatory conversation witht the dispatcher there who was reluctant to help us.  After snidely inquiring why we came to Terminal 1 when our flight is in Terminal 4, my friend was forced to raise his voice to inform him we were not from Manila and could only go where we were told to go.  The dispatcher folded instantly under the pressure and let us onto the bus.  Wearily we waited as other misdirected passengers were taken to Terminal 4.

Finally arriving at our gateway to salvation, we climbed to the departures desk on the 4th floor.  Happily navigating to the Air Asia desk we joyfully claimed our tickets back to Korea.  This simple transfer between terminals had taken the better part of two hours!

However, our joy was short lived.  For as soon as we checked our bags and claimed our tickets were were halted before immigration by none other than a 550 Peso terminal fee.

That's right, only AFTER having claimed tickets already paid for does the Manila airport demand you pay an additonal fee to use it's airport.

My friend Daniel right cried out in indignation, "How much is it going to cost me to leave this country!?"
Having already been reduced to 50 Pesos by other Terminal fees and charges along the way, I was also indignant for being nickel and dimed at every transit turn on our journy home.  Thankfully, I still carried an emergency $20 in my wallet that could cover the fee.  Unfortunately, they could not give me change in USD despite having accepted it as payment.  I was able to use some of the change in pesos to help my friends through the toll gate into immigration.
At immigration we found it empty, devoid of exit forms and more importantly, pens.
Every immigration form must be filled out in ink.  Yet, in spite of charging each passenger an additional fee to use the terminal, they can't supply those passengers with pens to properly fill out their forms to leave.

Why?????

Thankfully, I had a pen hidden in the bottom of my bag or else my friends and I may have been forever trapped in transit limbo at Manila's airport.

Once slipping past immigration, we managed to find our gate with a few minutes to spare.  Had our flight not been delayed more than two hours, we'd never have made it.
I have never been so happy to cram myself onto a plane.

In summary here are the faults I've found in my experience at Manila's airport:
-The entire airport is one inconvienent tourist trap.  Each terminal is separated and passengers are ushered to take local taxis with substantial fees to get to their flights.  Those who take free transit services are often faced with delays and inconvience found in no other airport facility I've ever encounterd.
-The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.  Nearly every employee encountered in the Manila airport gave us contradictory information.  Be it the location of our flight, the flight time, and how to get there.  I have never seen an airport staff so inept or inefficient.
-Here, the customer is always wrong.  Everywhere we turned to try and get to where we needed to go we were halted by security guards, dispatchers, and drivers who blamed us for going to the wrong terminals!  Nevermind that it was their employees that misdirected us in the first place!
-"You're foreign! Give us your money!" Terminal fees are everywhere in the Philipines and I can understand why they exist, and exist only for foreigners.  As tourists, we are there to stimulate their economy, and they facitiltate the maintence of structures by charging tourists extra to use them.  However, when it comes to an international airport, where customers arrange and purchase services ahead of time, sneaking in addtional fees for terminal use is underhanded at best (especially for such horrible service).  Souldn't the cost of using an airport be met by the airlines who operate there?  Or as a customer am I expected to believe the airport doesn't get a cut of my ticket price to use the airport?  It just seems that everywhere your turn in Manila's airport you're met with someone trying to milk you for every peso you possess before letting you leave.

They say "alls well that ends well," and ending an otherwise pleasant vacation by leaving through Manila was as awful as putting my hand through a meat grinder.  I can honestly say that it completely sapped me of any desire to ever return to the Philipines, if not actively avoid it in the future.

I don't write this to say the Philipines is a bad place, it isn't.  It's an incredibly beautiful place and can be a relaxing place to vacation.  Yet, my god, Manila airport is far and away the worst airport I've ever experienced.

Hopefully, you never have to yourself.

First fist-fight

I've imagined fights lots of times.  As a writer I envision how these scenarios would go down as exhilirating action sequences, and as a teacher I consider how to mediate them.  Yet, for all my imagination, I could never have anticipated it happening as it did.
I work in a connected classroom.  My main co-teacher and I share adjacent rooms connected by a set of glass double doors.  While working at my computer nearby, I heard two kids come crashing into those glass doors.  The doors swing freely and often bump into the whiteboard I keep in front of it.  I use this board to give space between classrooms and provide a barrier to keep kids from being distracted by activities in my colleague's room.  It's not uncommon for kids to peer into my room or even push open the doors to sneak around my whiteboard.  However, when kids push hard it makes a loud crash.
The crash drew my attention, and the average "YA!" is often all it takes to show students my displeasure and send them on their way.  Yet, as I saw two sixth grade boys grappling each other I knew this was different.  I jumped from my desk and pushed into my co-teacher's room.  She was absent between classes as she often attends the teacher's meeting in the passing period between 10:20-10:40.  I quickly stepped up to the boys and began pushing them apart.
It's not easy separating two boys who have each other by the shoulders, pushing and punching at each other's faces.  But I shoved anyway and got between them.  I told the one nearest the door to leave and kept the other behind.  This boy promptly broke into tears and the other three kids in the class were deathly quiet. I pulled the boy into my class and sat him down to cool off.  I had to pull out the student photos to make sure I got his name and his combattant's name.  Which I used to do the only thing I could do, tell my co-teacher in a email what had happened.
After 10 minutes or so, my co-teacher had returned to her class and replied with a "Thank you" email.  The boy I held had stopped crying and cooled off so I sent him back to class.
That was 15 minutes ago.
I honestly still feel a bit shaken by the experience and I realize so many things about fighting that  I never knew before.
1. Fighting is messy, awkward, and unsettling.  The boys were pushing each other and struggling to keep standing.  They only managed to throw punches as I stepped between them, reaching over me.  Yet, most unsettling is how no other kids made move to stop it.  They just watched and stood silent.
2. Mediating fights is not empowering in any way.  I was practically invisible to them until I had physically separated them.  They didn't seem to hear my voice, or acknowledge I was there at all.
3. The presence of violence stirs up a myriad of emotions, many of which I had not anticipated.  I always imagined an actual fight would cause me to get angry and loud, but I didn't.  I could feel the excitement of the situation in my chest and I acted accordingly, but I wasn't angry or loud.  I was calm, even tempered and not aggressive.
Rethinking it now I see how I could have been more forceful in pulling those boys apart, perhaps preventing some punches from landing, but I didn't.  I acted solely on instinct and it was calm and direct.  I suppose that's a good thing, but I sit here with a looming sense of insecurity and deep concern.  Not for my well being, these kids couldn't physically hurt me.  Yet, I'm bothered that they do fight in my co-teacher's empty classroom with me next door.  I can't help but wonder, has this happened before?  Even more unsettling is the realization that I have no way of reconciling this event because I can't communicate how it errupted.  I know kids say awful things to each other and often turn to slaps and shoves, Korean kids are extremely physical in their affections and slights.  Yet, there is always a present playfulness, one that was obviously devoid in this event.
In the end I suppose I hate that I have no way of protecting my students from themselves, let alone each other.  I have no way of mentoring them into better ways of handling anger or conflict.  I have only one other teacher I can consult on such conflict because I don't speak much Korean.  All thse these realities are crushingly apparent and I feel sad, shaken, disempowered.  More and more, I realize elementary school is about cultivating sociable behaviors and conflict resolution.  The kind of skills that make us functional members of the adult populace.  The more I realize the importance of character development in young kids the less I feel I have to offer them.  It's not a good feeling.
Hopefully, there will not be any more fights in school.  Hopefully, these boys will settle their differences and get along in a school that's too small for kids to avoid each other.  Hopefully, they'll all get along and just enjoy being kids.
But I've learned optimism is not often affirmed in such matters....

Teaching the game...

I'm certainly not the first person to say life is a game.  It is in many ways, not simply in the manner in which life is playful and beautiful, but in how we interact with each other.  We are all playing games with one another, many of them with particular rules.  Some rules are implicit, others explicit, and our ability to play by and bend the rules of these games is what makes up our social lives.  The games we play are games of etiquette, communication, affection, and attention.  Their rules tell us who we say "hello" to and how we respond to the question "how are you?"  They reinforce our relationships, be they friendships, love affairs, or family, guiding us in how to act and react.

I've come to see teaching as a misunderstood game, or perhaps, misperceived.

Mainly, because what mass education does isn't necessarily what we think it does.  Many of us come to school thinking of it as a place to acquire academic knowledge, but it isn't.  Schools (at least until university) are not simply places of academic development, they are centers of social reinforcement.

Schools teach people how to interact with their society.  They set standards (at a very young age) about what it is to be a good citizen.

When I started as a teacher, I considered my position as an academic one.  I was to nurture and impart knowledge upon learners, academic and practical communication skills.  However, now I'm coming to realize that academia is another social game.  It has it's unique rules, skills, and structure.  We are trained in high school how to play the academic game, how to study, read, and write research papers.  How to receive research tasks and carry them out independently of moment to moment guidance.  If we can demonstrate proficiency at this game, we graduate and are given the option to continue playing academia in higher education.  It is a game I admittedly enjoy, but a game nonetheless and it's rules and skills do not always apply outside it's walls.

These days I spend a great deal of time teaching young students.  Kids who are still learning the ropes when it comes to the game of society.  I find that my greatest trials as a teacher are not teaching, but enforcing the necessary behavior to teach in a classroom environment.  This is a unique challenge as a foreign teacher because the standards of behavior in class are quite different when it comes to Korea and the US.  Furthermore, my students' perceptions of me as a foreign teacher also contribute an enormous amount to their own conceptions regarding appropriate behavior.  Because I'm a foreigner the norms I expect in a classroom are not the same for Koreans.
For example: in the US, it is expected that when the bell rings, class begins.  You are expected to be in your seats and ready to start a lesson.  In Korea, students tend to be rushing to class after the bell rings.  It's not uncommon for students to arrive in class anywhere from five minutes before the bell to five minutes after the bell!  Yet, this is acceptable, and normal in the classes I've attended and taught in this country.  Is this one of the reasons many Koreans are notorious for being fashionably late?  I'm not sure, but it is curious to ponder.

I have never received any formal training as a teacher.  What I have learned I've learned on the job and from online courses in teaching.  Though classroom management is an important topic, I have yet to really learn of a teaching course that considers the cultural implications of teaching kids to behave in a classroom.  Being in education my imagination is inherently drawn to consider educational structure, method, and reform.  I wonder if we are fooling ourselves about the aims of state sanctioned education.  Academic skills are what we want to impart on our students, it's these subjects that teachers get passionate about and invest themselves in teaching.  However, what schools do (or implicitly aim to do) is not make passionate learners, but functional citizens.
I'm still in a personal debate about this.  I wonder if it would be better if we reevaluated our education system to explicitly teach students and parents about it's goals to make children into citizens, or if it should simply focus on academic skills.  Because if we ignore the moralizing aspect of our education system we are in tacit compliance to the values it passes to children with no dialog about what those values are and how they are transmitted into young minds.  Similarly, it cripples teachers with an enormous social responsibility that they are not necessarily trained to consider or carry out.  Furthermore it creates a biased standard for which the success of schools is based.  Schools are evaluated upon the testable academic ability of its students, not upon their ability to be good citizens.  Yet, what are the measurable traits of a functional citizen?  Political participation? Stable economic standing with a strong work ethic?  Clean criminal record? Are good students the kids who have strong academic skills, or simply the one's who have learned to play the game?  Both?
It's worth pondering.

Being an outsider in an education system it's easier to see the socializing characteristics of public education.  I try and think back to my own experience as a student and wonder how I thought of my experience.  It's hard to dial back my thinking to remember what I was like to experience school as a child.  I wonder what kinds of behaviors my education instilled in me without really noticing it.  I have to wonder as a teacher now what kinds of behaviors my teaching is implying to my students and how that may contribute to their academic success later in life.  I can't help but feel uncomfortable about the idea of being partially responsible for the moral and social development of children.  I'm much more keen on being a source of knowledge and guidance academically.  Yet, I suppose what makes teaching such a grand adventure is discovering these unexpected aspects of its execution. I never cease to be amazed at how much I don't know about what I do for a living.  It's perplexing.  So much to learn, so much to do.

Learning and Games and all that stuff

So recently I've taken to clicking a bit more freely on my idle internet time and came across PATv.  It's a series of channels and shows associated with the well known web comic, Penny Arcade.  It's always been a favorite comic of mine and I'm pleased to discover these shows, one in particular.  Extra Credits, is a long running program of short podcasts discussing ideas and issues in video games and video game development.  Which one might think would only apply to gaming enthusists, yet the folks working Extra Credits do an excellent job discussing very cerebral topics such as story creation, marketing, political issues, and gaming mechanics, all while keeping their shows short and lighthearted.  Among the topics I've especially enjoyed is an episode called Tangential Learning, from Season 2, Episode 9.  I'll provide a link below if you're interested in seeing it after reading this.
In this episode, the folks at Extra Credits remark on the divide between mainstream video game and educational game industries.  Though the focus of Extra Credits is on video game development and industry, I found the discussion to open up my mind to a great deal of questions about the use of games in education.
As a foreign teacher in South Korea, there is a great deal of emphasis on using games in the classroom to educate and motivate students.  In some cases foreign teachers are instructed to simply "play games with the kids" which seems well and good, but has some issues that Extra Credits has helped me consider.
In their presentation on Tangential Learning, they note how many educational games have the promise of fun but very quickly devolve into dry lessons where players get assulted by knowledge.  This is an experience I have a tremendous amount of empathy for because as a kid I experienced this frustration.  I can still recall the deep anger and frustration I felt for having been forced to play Math Blaster, as opposed to playing fun games like Super Mario World. Granted I know my parents were only trying to better my grades and get me to learn my multiplication tables, but man it sucked!
As a teacher using games in my classroom, I have to wonder if my students face a similar experience.  Many of us foreign teachers use games in our classrooms, especially Powerpoint games.  Many of these Powerpoints have great animations and themes that are from popular culture, but they're all basically the same.  Powerpoint games are almost all quiz games of some form or another, choose a box, answer a question.  Sure we may use a different theme, package, or soundpack, but for many of these Powerpoints it's SSDD (Same Sh*t Different Design).
Not that I'm criticizing these games for being quiz games, it's what they're meant to be.  I realize many teachers have devoted their time to developing incredibly elaborate and impressive Powerpoint games, games that kids enjoy.  I'm incredibly grateful for their efforts and skills in preparing these tools, and I will continue to use them in my class when I need an activity to spice of my lesson (and keep kids in their seats).
However, when a student finishes a bomb game(or any quiz game for that matter) do they really take anything away from the experience?  Sure we got to do something flashy and entertaining that provides and exciting break from the average class, but did they really get to exercise their English (or their minds for that matter)?
This is what I find most compelling about Extra Credit's episode on Tangential Learning: the idea that games can plant seeds of intrigue and information into their content that will inspire learning outside of the gaming experience.
As an English teacher in Korea, I can't go more than a week without hearing, reading, or noticing some discussion or article commenting on the struggles of the ESL program here.  They cover a wide variety of issues from training, to program goals, institutional structures, and cultural complications.  It's an enormously complex issue which I don't want to get into here.  However, if I can think of one thing that I feel my students desperately need to improve their English, it's the interest and opportunity to explore English outside of school.  I have met few students who have even the slightest idea of how vast and exciting exploring a language can be.  It's the unfortunate truth that school is hard work for Korean students, and mandatory English education is one of the most difficult parts of the experience.  I don't know anyone who likes be forced into learning something.  Hell I still resent learning about math and American history because it was required.  Not that I didn't benefit from those classes, but I loathed it.
I suppose what I'm trying to get at is a discussion of how we as teachers can develop our games to last longer than the time students are in class.  To create educational experiences that leave intrigue in our students' minds.  Now that certainly is no easy task.  Tangential learning in mainstream videogames is often accomplished through allusions or historical framing, games that refer to real world ideas and persons or are based on history.  Incorportating these little Easter Egg style tangents into a classroom experience is very difficult as allusions are based upon references that are often culturally specific.  If I were to refer to Ariadne's golden thread as a metaphor for education, none of my students would know that allusion is to the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.  (Or maybe they would, I've no idea how much Greek mythology Korean kids get exposed to these days)
Many teachers use cultural icons as a way of inspiring class participation.  Putting up picture of K-pop idols and cartoon characters to illustrate dialogs and grammar, and these techniques can be effective.  Yet, do these nuggets of entertainment carry the lesson beyond the classroom experience, encouraging kids to think and explore language on thier own?
Another option came to mind as I was pondering this idea the other day.  I recently discovered a free online language education website called Duolingo.  It's a free website that offers courses in French, German, Spanish, etc. structuring lessons and topics into short chunks.  It builds like a game, with various skills and lessons broken into short lessons where a learner listens, writes, and reads new words.  However, if the student gets questions wrong, they lose lives.  Lose three lives and you have to restart the lesson.  However, following the game structure, Duolingo also has a points system that can be redeemed for health potions to recharge hearts in a lesson, or ways of winning more points off of lessons completed.  When I first began exploring this I thought to myself, "man this would be great for Korean students!"  It's simple, free, and can be used on a PC as well as a moblie phone.  It'd be awesome to develop some simple lessons for kids to use outside of class, their progress can be objectively charted and schools can opt to reward students who accomplish their tasks.  Granted no such course currently exists, but it's an idea for encouraging students to utilize their skills outside of class and on their own terms.  Which is what my student certainly need, to incorportate their language skills in a sphere larger than their classroom life.
Tangential learning is a fascinating idea and has been forcing me to look at my lessons with greater clarity.  Asking myself, "what do kids benefit from these acitivites?  What can they take away at the end of the day?"  I'm willing to admit that many of my lessons at current don't have a great deal of well defined take aways, but now that I'm more aware I can change that.  It's a lot to think about and it has even greater potential for educators to anaylze their pedagogy as well as imagine more entertaining ways to teach.

For those of you gaming enthusists or who just want to see what kicked off this train of thought for me, check out the link below!  It's an interesting series of videos, I highly recommend them to anyone interested in games or media.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/tangential-learning

PHOTOTPOST! Geumjong Mountain... again

Geumjong Mountain is a modest mountain range that runs north to south near my branch of Busan.  In fact, the mountain itself is about a 10 minute walk from my house!  Atop the mountian are the restored remains of an ancient Korean fort with a circular wall that runs across the top of the mountain for many miles.  This wall is much like Hadrian's wall near Scotland (similar in that it's at the top of a hill and therefore is only three feet tall) Nonetheless it's a neat experience that I as able to enjoy with my friends Kat and Rosie.  We hiked a signgifcant distance from Beomosa Temple up the mountain to the North Gate, and from there all the way to the cable car near Onchanjang.  Not sure how far that is in kilometers, but it took all afternoon and we barely made the last cable car off the mountain as dusk fell.  Aside from the fierce, biting winter winds at the top of the mountain, it was a gorgeous day for hiking and I greatly enjoyed exploring the paths along the fortress walls.  Take a look!

Entering Beomosa Temple

More Temple

Looking down!  From the Temple!

At the top of Geumjong Mountain!

That's what I call a view!

On top of the world with Kat

Rosie is a champion!

It's another epic hiking adventure!

Not the best night shot, but still had to capture a bit of the night's city lights!

All in all, a great day.  Can't wait to hike it again!  Though I'll be sure to dress more warmly next time!

My first Korean ER experience

So I went to the ER last night, and I must say I am ambivalent about the experience.

Yesterday, I found myself struggling to breathe in a way I've never felt before.  Harsh coughing, raw throat, light headed, metallic taste in my mouth, all arriving in the span of five minutes or less.  Needless to say when it didn't go away after 20 minutes and I felt light headed I decided it was time to test 119.

Dialing 119 is easy and immediately gets a response.  However, when the Korean operator discovers you're a waygook, they automatically put you on with a volunteer translation hotline.  I admit, the transition was rough and it took several minutes of struggling to hear the operator over a glitch in the recorded message before I was able to speak to someone (there is something unnerving about calling an emergency number and not being able to get in touch with someone who speaks your language).  When we finally were able to speak the operator was friendly, understanding, and asked if I needed him to call an ambulance (turns out the translators are not connected to an emergency agency, but they will call one for you).  Feeling only slightly stronger than before, I decided I should see a doctor and asked my operator where to go.  He recommended Pusan National University Hospital.
PNU?  Hell that's next door!  I thought and quickly got dressed and hopped into the first cab asking for "Pusan Dae Beyong-won" the driver nodded and we sped off into the night.
Well, to my surprise, Pusan National University Hospital is NOWHERE NEAR Pusan National University (Damn you IRONY!!!!!)
No PNU hospital is near Toesong Subway... two stops from Busan Station, on the other side of the city.  But $15 cab rides aside, I was simply happy to be at a hospital.
PNU hospital is one of Busan's finest hospitals.  Yet, for a country so committed to English education, finding people capable of helping an English speaker after 5pm is surprisingly difficult.  However, after 20 minutes of miming and calling various translation hotlines, I got signed into the ER and verified my insurance.
Korean ER's aren't like those back home.  I was surprised by how many people were there.  Most of the beds were full of various patients, some old, some young, many with family members bringing them snacks.  The adjusshi in the bed opposite me nibbled on kimbap as he sat with his IV.
I've honestly had few encounters with hospitals myself.  So when I got set into a hospital bed in the ER I didn't know what to expect.  I suppose I should have anticipated the small bed size, but being six inches too tall for Korea doesn't always settle in until your feet are hanging off your hospital bed. 
There were a couple hospital staff members proficient with English.  They explained they'd do several tests to verify my symptoms.  Given how long it took for me to get to the hospital the wheezing had subsided, but I decided I'd come to far to not get checked out.  The hospital did several blood tests, some cardiographs, an chest x-ray, a CAT scan of my lungs, even gave me an IV drip for my time there!  All in all I was in the ER for about three hours.  By the end of it, I was feeling better, but no closer to finding out how I'd gone from healthy to fearing for my life in less than 10 minutes.
Given my hospital stay had already cost me $200 I decided I was healthy enough to go home and do all the follow up tests in the outpatient center the following day.  My ER doctor wanted to keep me for various blood tests over the next six hours, but I declined since my lungs were my concern and they were feeling better.  My doctor assured me she would make a note of my condition and invited me back the following day for tests with the cardiologist and a pulmenology specialist (which I'll write about another time).  I took the subway home feeling a little miffed that I'd come no closer to discovering what had suddenly sent me spiraling into a sickly state but I had a great deal to reflect on as well.

Modern Korean medicine is excellent and thorough, they don't waste time to test you and eliminate possibilities right off the bat.  Though learning what the results of those tests are is difficult with many doctors who do not speak much English.  In this manner I must say I'm extremely grateful to a PNU hospital cardiograph technician who said his name was Pill.  He was the only person that night who spoke fluent English and we chatted a bit about his time in Maryland as he showed me my cardiograph results and why the doctors were interested in them.  He not only was able to show my what they were testing, but also describe why they were concerned in a way I found reassuring.  Having answers is empowering and feeling like you know what's going on is very important in being comfortable in a medical situation.  Pill (if that is your real name) I salute you for the only person I felt had bedside manner (at least in my language).
Secondly, I'm grateful for my medical insurance.  Not that I didn't wrack up significant fees at the ER, but insurance helped cover a significant chunk of that.  In a similar vein, the expenses I did incur are very manageable.  I've heard horror stories of uninsured friends back in the states who found themselves in tens of thousands of dollars in debt over medical emergencies.  Though I don't have a strong stance on healthcare benefits and insurance, I am grateful it comes with my job here in Korea.
However, I've come to realize the tenuous tightrope I walk on here in Korea.  I've lived in Busan for several months now and I've taken my good health for granted.  I was totally unprepared for a medical emergency and found 119 lacking in the help I needed.  The translator was friendly and helped as best he could, but he was from Seoul and had no connection to emergency services.  This left him at a disadvantage for helping me in Busan find a hospital.  Though he did recommend a good hospital, had I known it was so far away I'd probably have chosen a different hospital.  I suppose the moral to me is one I'd like to pass to all my expat friends, do your homework.  It's scary living alone when no one near you speaks your language.  I realized if I had aliphatic shock in my apartment, no one could help me.  That is a scary, helpless feeling.  So I suppose, know your area, know your hospitals, and decide on what you'll do in an emergency before it happens.  (here ends my PSA for today)
Yet, more than anything I'm happy I had a cell phone.  Not just for calling 119 and looking up PNU hospital for the cabby to find, but for texting.  During my ER ordeal I was able to keep in touch with a close friend who kept me company throughout the experience.  Though that might not seem like much, just that little bit of company, of presence, is so reassuring and helpful.  Especially, in a situation where trying to communicate your needs is so difficult!  That meant the world to me then and now.

Thus was my Korean ER experience (hopefully my last) complete with konglish, cuts, scrapes, and the old ajumma cleaning lady sweeping up discarded plastic caps and tubes with her ordinary straw half-broom (not what you'd expect in an ER, but someone has to pick up).  Obviously, I'm doing better and went to my follow up appointments today (more on that later).  For now though I figured I'd share being in a hospital bed in Korea. 
Stay healthy out there kids!

The oft absent olfactory element

There is one thing that my writing often lacks and I feel it's because it's the one sense we forget most easily;  smell.

More than anywhere else I've traveled, Korea  is permiated by pungent and powerful smells.  The smell of kimchi in a supermarket, the reek of sewers and stormdrains, the sickly sweet rot of garbage and compost by the trees, or the clean cool rush of air off the mountains.
Korea smells.

It's perhaps one of the first things I noticed when I came here, yet it's often the first thing I forget to mention.  In the States we usually don't appreciate just how oderless our communities are.  I suppose that can be a good thing, but their is a profound element of life that is lost when there isn't anything to smell besides air and car exhaust.  Korea has those things, plus the many shades of reek that seem to slap you in the face every few steps in the street.

There are good smells and foul.  The foul seem to stand out more, but I love the smell of a galbi restuarant in the cool autumn evening that still throws open it's sliding doors and lets the scent of roasting pork and fermented vegtables out into the night.  Sometimes passing a bakery leaves you with the sickly sweet smell of exceedingly surgary Korean bread products, the kind of smell that seems familiar at first but makes itself distinct as you feel the sugar high kick in just from a quick whiff of it's near pheremone-like sweetness.

So many smells, even the trees smell from time to time.  Korea possesses some unique trees, one which I've been told (by Koreans) occassionally posseses the smell of "ripe semen." Needless to say I find this description raises more questions than answers.  From what trees I've smelled, "ripe semen" is not the nearest equivalent I'd come up with for the local foliage.

Recently I went hiking in the Children's Park in Busan.  A lovely large nature reserve in the midst of the city.  The Children's park has much more than playgrounds and meeting places, but it also sports an "aromatic forest." Here there is a large population of coniferous Korean trees, similar to Chinese Juniper trees.  Here the air has a vaguely pine scent.  My coworkers assured me that the air here was extremely healthy and encouraged me to breathe deeply as we walked through the woods.  I must admit I greatly enjoyed the aromatic forest in the Children's Park.  The trees there are unique and the trails are not nearly as rocky and treacherous as other trails I've encountered in Korea.

There are so many smells out there in the wide world, and though most of them will cause us to cringe, it's worth taking a moment to smell the roses.  This is particularly true in Asia, but I hope I never fail to appreciate all my senses have to offer even when I make my way back to the West.

teaching so far....

I sometimes imagine what it would be like if I tried to return to the States to teach English.  I find that it is difficult to imagine such a feat, as I don't feel much of my experience would translate (and not just because of the language barrier).
Though I am certain the dynamics of a classroom are relatively similar the world over, I believe my experience as an English teacher to be rather unique given the educational culture of Korea.  As a Guest English Teacher (GET) I am an outsider in many different ways.  Some of which I enjoy, other not so much.
Among the pleasures of being a GET in Korea are my freedom from many minute responsibilities around the school.  In Korea, many of the school's needs are balanced between staff and teachers.  A great deal of administration and maintenance can fall on teachers and even students who are expected to help keep the facility clean.  This I find an excellent practice, and in my previous Middle School, I enjoyed seeing students taking the time to mop the hallways every few days before afterschool classes began.  I feel it helps students possess a certain amount of ownership and responsibility for their environment.  However, as a foreign teacher, these obligations to help with the administration of the school are not expected of me.  Indeed I cannot aid my fellow Korean teachers as I don't speak Korean or possess the same training and standing as other teachers.  This gives me more needed time to plan lessons and prepare for classes, giving me undivided freedom to simply focus on teaching.  However, I am getting a one sided experience.  As with most GET teachers in Korea, I am not expected to grade my students or assess them in any quantifiable way.  Again, this gives me freedom to focus on teaching, but I am also only getting a slice of the teacher's experience as teachers back in the States are expected to provide plentiful and accurate assessments of their students.
There are also ways in which I feel my experience with not translate in a good way.  As the only foreigner in a Korean school I am somewhat of a fetish.  I am an obvious outsider in a community where I cannot fit into and I seem to carry some mesmerizing power that I am meant to impart on my students and co-workers (the ability to speak English well).  Somehow my presence is meant to impart this as few really go out of their way to learn from me or approach me about English outside of the classroom.  Culturally, I am different and exotic and though this makes me easily loved and adored by some students, it also excludes me from any real community.  Koreans are very friendly people and are very kind to most foreigners about living amongst them conscious of the language barrier.  However, I cannot help escaping the sense that I am perpetually the outsider in a world I cannot assimilate.  It makes me a celebrity at times (something I've come to loathe) or a leper in other instances (which is not much better).  I have come to experience my introverted nature much more in Korea (ironically, since in Korea I am much more social than I've ever been in my life).  I simply don't enjoy being stared at as if I were from space.  I've always had fantasies of being a writer in a secluded cabin in the woods, but never have those dreams appealed to me so much as when I feel a dozen eyes on me, shocked and amazed that I naturally possess pale skin and curly hair.
These first few months have been quite difficult to get established and find my way around all of the new material.  I've had moments of epiphany and excitement, and days of dread and woe.  Working with children is the most difficult thing I've ever done and I'll happily blugdeon the first idiot who scoffs at teaching children to my face.  Teaching is tough, especially young buggers, but for all the pain they've caused me things are starting to turn around.  Granted a few tend to wander from their seats and don't pay attention, as a whole there is great improvement with classroom management.  With the help of my first grader's homeroom teacher, my unruly first grade students are sitting in assigned groups and trying to keep my more problematic boys in line.  They're doing better, far from well, but things are... moving I suppose.  My other classes have been hit and miss with Mid-terms cutting into my teaching.  Rather than teaching regular classes I've been left to myself as my Korean co-teacher drills the students on the test material.  It sometimes seems silly to cram for a test at the last minute rather than leaving it to an honest assessment, but I've come to appreciate the extra time to plan lessons and unwind.  Especially with another open class in my future.  Almost two months in and I can say I'm far from settled, but things are moving... somewhere....  I am honestly more happy here than in my previous job, it certainly seems like this school actually cares about their English program.  It will still take time to adjust to the teaching style, and to help me cope I've signed up for online courses in teaching (yeah silly I know after doing this for a year, but there's MUCH room for improvement)
More from the trenches as things develop!

They're cute, but goddamn....

One month down!  Been Teaching a Hoedong Elementary School in Busan for a month!  Hard to believe four weeks could fly by so quickly!  It feels as if I just got here! (Of course I was saying that after having been here a year) Simply amazing!

So one month in, it's time for a status update:

Put simply,
I NEVER WANT TO HAVE KIDS!!!!!!!

I enjoy working with my students, they're young, energetic, they absorb information, and you can easily make fun of them when they get whiny.  Then they laugh and you get back to work.

Except first grade.

I'm losing my hair over first grade.
Sure they're cute, they love me, they run in screaming "MYKHA-ELL TEACHAAA!  MYKH-ELL TEACHAAA!" everyday.  They're cute, friendly, and LOVE to jump around with me.
But goddamn they know NO English!
Moreover teaching them 6 times a week with no Koran co-teacher is a special kind of 40 minute hell at the end of everyday.  When the bell rings for them to leave I'm so releaved, and wave goodbye with a smile as I survey the wreckage of my classroom.

Cute and maddening, I suddenly want to write to all my old Elementary school teachers and sincerely apologize for acting like a jerk in class as a kid.  Not that I did it often, but hey, as a kid you do stupid stuff that we learn to be ashamed of as an adult (at least while sober).

My situation at my new school isn't bad, in fact it's damn near ideal to what I wanted, but as with all good intentions you find them leading you to rather different locations than you'd anticipated.
You'd think that a school that invested in bringing a foreign teacher from the other side of the world who doesn't speak the local language would come up with a better way to utilize that teacher than to strand him in a class full of little kids unable to communicate.  However, this is exactly what they've done.
Anyone who knows me, knows I'm not a fan of kids.  Sure they're cute, but like wild animals, I enjoy them most from a distance.  I've never been comfortable with younglings, maybe that's a result of growing up the youngest in a big family.  I've always been trying to grow up and play with the big kids.  Now it's time to regress to grade school and I find I'm constantly drawing a blank for how to respond or act.  Sure smiling goes a long way, but I'm still at a loss for what to do and how to treat my young students.  I can't even fathom why so many of them are happy to see me, sure I smile, I'm foreign, and I give out stickers, but it's more than that and I just can't figure it out.  For some reason that bothers me, because I don't know what to do with these buggers.
Specifically, my first grade boys.  The girls are great!  They tend to listen and understand more, they participate in games and do worksheets well.  However, four out of six boys are recalcitrant and refuse to do any of the activities.  Granted the reap none of the rewards, it leads them to wander around even leave class while I'm teaching.  Granted my Korean vocabulary is rapidly expanding with classroom commands such as "Ha-jima!" (stop it!) "Iri-wa!" (Come here!) and "YA!" (hey!/shut-up).  This is bringing better results buuuuuuuuut still not a controlled class.  I'm experiencing just how green I still am as a teacher and how little I know about learning with young minds.  They're still learning the basics of operating in a classroom, learning English is far and beyond most of them.

Yet, in spite of my lack of confidence and experience.  I trudge on, because I have to, and because life is about overcoming fears and challenges.  As sad as it sounds, learning to deal with kids is a fear I want to overcome, not unlike my fear of drowning, or falling to my death (and yes, these fears are on the same level that's how I feel about kids).  It's slow going, but I feel that as I continue to struggle I am formulating different goals and opportunities for my new set of students come January, when I'll have the chance to start fresh with a new batch of kids that I can train properly.  I'm reminded of how difficult it is to introduce new teachers in the middle of the school year, and how strange it must be to students to have a continuous cycle of new foreign faces in their school.
Teaching in South Korea continues to present new challenges, and though there are days I want to rip my hair out and scream bloody murder, my life here is still better than I could have hoped for!  Life here is exciting,  full of wonderful opportunities and friendships.  I am constantly busy with places to go, people to see, and things to learn.  I'm happy to begin my teaching career abroad because of these distractions.  Because nothing is quite as soothing as ending a bad day by meeting friends for beers and Korean bbq.  This place is still so strange and beautiful I can't help but wonder how I would cope with teaching back in the States without these wonderful friends and distractions.
For all the grief I give it, Korea is the perfect place for me to cut my teeth as a teacher.  One month down.... let's see how the next 11 go!

New home whilst on my roam...

After much work and worry and wondering, I am finally moved to my new home in South Korea.  Just two weeks ago I got word of my new teaching position in Hoedong Elementary School in Busan (Pusan), South Korea. 
Busan is probably third favorite city on the planet (so far), tertiary to Hong Kong and Chicago.  Though I imagine it may contend for a higher spot on that list over the next year.  I can already tell that this year in Busan will be incredible and exciting in a way that may even surpass last year's adventure!
Not to say that it won't still be the hardest job I've ever entertained in my young life.  My new position is with one elementary school on the poorer edge of Busan.  However, in spite of being an urban city, it is still modestly sized (composing of little more than 100 students).  Hoedong elementary school reminds me much of my former elementary schools, bright colors, lots of energy, and cute kids.  However, I am excited to see that despite being considered poor for Busan, this school has a considerable investment in English education.  Not only is it investing in my employment in teaching English, but it also employes one full time Korean English teacher as well as another part-time English teacher!  This is very exciting and I am pleased to be working with these new colleagues.  They are not only warm and inviting, but also eager to help me create a program that benefits my students.  I just wish I knew better where to start!
More shop talk as it develops.  Needless to say, it's going to be a challenging year, what with me teaching first grade everyday after school!  Like I said, they're cute, energetic, and I have no idea where to start with them!  However, I'm trying my best to keep my head above water, the kids happy and active, and hopefully they'll be less running around and screaming while we're trying to sing "London Bridge is Falling Down" in the future.

My new home is nearly double the size of my old apartment, including a kitchen I can actually work with!  With three gas burners, a refrigerator and an oven left by the previous owner, I'm very pleased to have already spent many a night at home cooking!
Not that I haven't gone out into by grand new city.  In fact, I've been mucking about the streets quite a lot lately.  My apartment is near the subway station Onchanjang, right next to PNU (Pusan National University), one of my favorite sections of the city!  In fact, I went out for supper with some new friends the other night and was very pleased to take the two minute subway ride back to my neighborhood.  Only two weeks in and I often find myself walking up the university area.  It's a grand spot, not quite as tall and overwhelming as Seomyeon or other popular parts of the city.  PNU has a great college town feel, but is still a part of Korea's second largest metropolis.  The university itself is quite a pleasure to walk around on, but more on PNU as I explore it over the next year. 

The main point of this new blog is not simply to revive my long neglected love of writing (and informing my family of my activities), but simply to express that... I'm happy!  Excited, and eager to get into the swing of my new life.  I've recently joined a gym to get back into lifting (I've taken up a fitness challenge with my best friend, one in which I aim to win), and I'm happy exploring my new city and learning how best to serve my new students.  I'm still green with the whole elementary school thing, but I certainly believe my time in Gangwon-do is invaluable to what I'm doing here.  I can't imagine I'd be as ready or comfortable teaching children in Busan as I am without last year's adventure.  Though I do miss being in Gangwon, and mostly miss my northern friends, I am happy to finally have a home here that I feel comfortable, if not excited, to host guests!  With such an incredible place to live, I'm sure to have visitors soon!  In the mean time I'm exploring and enjoying myself.  Learning all I can to occupy little kids (especially with the language barrier).  I can't say I'm successfully leading them in any way, buuuuut... each day gets a little better I think.  I can only hope that trend continues!

Photos of my new home are coming as soon as I work up the will to clean my place!  Apparently settling in involves sufficiently mussing up the place to make me feel at home!

Saturday stoic scribbles...

So this Saturday finds me with a curious combination of familiarities.  On the one hand I've awoken in my old room at my parent's house, nestled away in the cool of the basement, desperately trying to ignore the noise of my parents walking about keeping me awake.  On the other hand, I can't help but notice I've slept in until 2 in the afternoon, I'm still wearing most of last night's clothes, and my body is punishing my enjoyment of last night's libation with a classic hangover.  It appears that two distinct period of my life have been mashed together on this Saturday, pre-Korea and Korea.  Having been home for the past week I've been met by a myriad of realizations about my life at home and abroad.

And since there is no way I'm getting out of bed until I absolutely have to, may as well reflect on it.

Being home brings up a lot of memories about my life here before I left.  I've more or less been forced to confront the many ways in which I've changed since leaving a year ago, and I'm left to wonder in what ways I'll change over this next year in Busan. 
Traveling changes you....
Once I might have been naive enough to say that traveling changes you for the better, but traveling has changed that in me.  That is not to say that traveling changes you for the worse, that's equally naive.  My experience has shown that it simply... changes you.  It's neither good nor bad, those kinds of values are cultural expressions.  Such expressions begin to deteriorate as you make your way across the globe, seeing the similarities and differences in peoples' values.  Being an outsider forces you to analyze a culture and it's behaviors in order to adjust to your participation in said culture.  Yet, I've found that in coming home, I can't switch off that analyzing aspect.
I find myself critiquing my experiences here as I would in Korea, trying as I often did there, to explain it in my mind.  A fond past time I've had over the last few months is trying to imagine the conversations I'd be having coming back to the States.  I'd try my best to come up with the best explanations for how Koreans eat, talk, walk, structure their lives, etc.  Yet, while I'm home, I find myself looking at the lives of my family and friends and I try to explain it.  Not that I suspect I'll have to explain American lifestyles to many Koreans when I get back to the ROK, yet I am still analyzing.
I think it may have to do something with the question I'm often confronted with by everyone I visit.
"So when are you coming back (for good)?"
The answer is always a smile and and shake of my head, "I'm not sure I'm ever coming back! I'm having too much fun!"
Which admittedly sounds like a trite response, immature and adolescent, often followed with tales of drunkenness or travel.  Yet, it isn't a response I've come to flippantly, it is one that is constantly being reenforced by my experience here in America.
I'm not who I was four years ago... hell, I'm not even sure I'm who I was four days ago!  I have grown a great deal, and spent a significant amount of my cognitive energy to figuring out what decisions in life have been mine and which ones have been decisions I've been socialized into making.  There nothing wrong with choosing to participate in society according to its unspoken guidelines.  I admire people who have the courage to settle down in a marriage, house, job, offspring, etc.  It's a lifestyle I find increasingly unattractive in a manner similar that one finds a cheeseburger and french fries attractive one day, and would rather starve than eat it the next.  I suppose I mean that tastes grow, not just in culinary palette, but in lifestyle. 

Before I left I put a significant amount of thought into "What do I want?" What I came up with is really simple: freedom.
Sure 'MERICA is the home of the free, but the freedom I've been craving has nothing to do with political alignments.  What I've been craving is more along the lines of Moksha, or Nirvana.  We are all socialized into certain ways of behavior, certain ways of thought and belief.  Most of us take it for granted as simply "the way things are."  Because we are rarely confronted by something radically different, we struggle to call into question the ideas that we own ourselves as opposed to the ideas bequeathed to us from our community.  Living in a radically different context forces one to confront this issue.  Living abroad has changed me because it has finally provided me with a context to truly confront my cultural upbringing and see what I value, not simply what I'm raised to value. 
In this way I have the chance to really be free, to be released from the clutches of cultural impressions and prejudices.  To know and feel that my actions are the product of my own will and desires.  To know that the relationships I have, and the way I treat people, is a product of my desire to be genuine, not simply polite.  Freedom for me is about breaking from the subconscious cues that have motivated and manipulated my decisions in order to find a way of life that is truly my own.  To shed my inhibitions and shame, not to shock or rebel, but to dance and laugh like we all did when we were children.  That is freedom, and travel has given me the chance to really reach for it, in a way that my life in America never could.

This is in part because I'm living in Korea.  Korea is a wonderful place, with many friendly and generous people.  Yet, in spite of this openhandedness, in Korea I will always be an outsider.  Because of my nationality, my language, my ethnicity, I'm categorically "Waygookin" (foreign).  I'm not upset by this, and Koreans are always eager to show off their incredible culture to silly Waygookins like me, I love that.  Yet, I could never assimilate into Korean society in the manner that foreigners in America become assimilated into the melting pot.  Yet, I don't mourn this, being an outsider gives me the freedom I need to explore my own path without getting sucked into the cultural cues that have herded me in my past life.

Though my awareness is heightened in my visit home, I have to admit I've found myself slipping back into old roles rather easily.  At some moments it feels as if I'm trying to wear an old shoe that doesn't fit, at other times it's like putting on those ratty old jeans you love because you've worn them down into being the softest clothes ever....

It is a joy to be home... but only for a short time.  I've got the world waiting for me and I suspect she's as eager for me to get back to exploring her as much as I am!


...more ramblings to come...

News, booze, no time for blues! (a quick update)

So I've given up the notion that life here in Korea will ever slow down (except in winter when everyone is miserable, cold, and hibernating).  July has happened upon me (rather unexpectedly) with my life just as topsy-turvy as it ever was.  Not that I necessarily mind, a hectic life is a life full of adventure!

Having recently returned from a weekend excursion to Busan, I have to admit I'm more excited than ever to move there!  It's an incredible city full of amazing people and opportunities!  I wish I knew more about my placement in Busan, but sadly contracts and other such details will not be distributed until after mid-July.  An annoyance, to be sure, as I have a number of trips I'd like to plan for August, as well as gather information about moving south.  Yet, as always in Korea, everything that happens must happen suddenly (often without warning) no choice but to jump in both feet first and enjoy the ride!

Monsoon season has officially begun!  Rain in in the forecast for the next week(ish), in fact it's been raining most of today with signs of more rain tonight!  I love the sound of the rain and thunderstorms are a favorite of mine.  Though the skies here don't often flash with lightning, it is wonderful to escape the humid heat for a spell to the sound of rain.  Granted the humidity becomes thick enough to drink once the rain stops, but it's nice (so long as you keep your umbrella handy).

No rest for the wicked (also Michael)! My weeks and weekends are BOOKED SOLID FOLKS!  Between visiting friends in Seoul and around the country, and going on trips and tours I am SLAMMED with activities!  Granted I'm having an amazing time seeing all my friends and getting out of my sleepy little town, it is exhausting.  I can honestly say it's not easy rolling out of bed in the morning!  Even with the exhaustion, I'm looking forward to each weekend.  With Mudfest coming on the 20th and Ansan Valley Rock Festival the weekend after, it's going to be hard to not have an absolute blast during the month of July!

I acknowledge that I have mentally "clocked out" of work.  It's currently finals week and there are still two more weeks of school (plus English camp, which at current is mostly a mystery event that I am somehow leading).  I suspect the end of the semester will be full of games, rowdy students, and a few goodbyes.  My school knows I am not resigning with them next year, but my students are still in the dark (which I plan to keep them there, I suspect if they know I'm leaving they'll disregard everything I say).  Though I can honestly say I will miss my elementary school kids (they are impossibly cute) I will be less attached the the middle school I'm leaving.

On top of being insanely busy day in and day out, I've taken it upon myself it do Camp NaNoWriMo.  Many of you dear readers know I participate in November as National Novel Writing Month, well apparently the Office of Letters and Lights is sponsoring similar writing events during the summer months... July being one of them.  So in this hectic time of trips, parties, moving, teaching, and visiting the States, I will also be hashing out my next novel.  I have no certainty that I'll hit 50K words like I did last November, but I'm surely giving it a shot!

In any case, excitement rises!  Adventure is around every corner and it's only 4 weeks until I'm flying back to the States! (I should probably start picking up souvenirs for the folks...)  Everything is happening at once, but I wouldn't have it any other way! 

Tally-ho!

A future (slightly) less uncertain

After weeks of anticipation, aching, longing, waiting, wondering, and worrying about my future, an email arrived.

HOT DAMN!  No more worrying about not having a job when I come back to Korea!  At long last, EPIK has secured me a position in Busan!  One of my favorite cities!  Though I am extremely excited for this new opportunity, I feel a little conflicted about leaving my current small town.  I've been working towards moving to Busan for so long, it's a little hard to believe it's actually happening!
It's also hard to imagine that I've been in Korea for nearly a year!  Time has FLOWN by, and I hardly feel like I've adjusted to teaching, let alone living in another country.  Yet, here I am, preparing to finish my time at one job and embark on another.  Sadly, the program here in Korea is no different than before.  Information about my new placement is vague, if not out and out secretive!  I have no idea what grade level I'll be working with or what my living situation will be.  Hell, I may even have to go to orientation again!  Which isn't bad, just awkward.  Especially if they hope to pack me up onto a bus and take me someplace unknown. 
I've spent so much of my life wondering what's next, it's surprising to find that I've actually been living it this whole time.  It's been a blast, an adventure, incredible experience after incredible experience, and it's just beginning....
This letter takes me one step closer to another chapter in my experience abroad and though I'm expecting a heavy heart in saying goodbye to Hongcheon.  I know I've made memories and friends that I'll always cherish.
Almost six weeks until the end of the semester!  Another 10 and I'm out of this contract!  Can my time really be so short?  It's hard to imagine when time keeps spinning on at a relentlessly fast pace.  I feel the fearful knot of anticipation growing in my gut, I know it'll slowly rise to my throat and give me that feeling you get right before you leap into the open air.  Yet, I'm not resentful of this feeling like I have been in the past.  Perhaps I'm excited for it.  Excited for opportunity.  I'm not entirely sure.  Maybe I've grown braver than I was when I first came to Korea... probably not, but with anxiousness is the excitement of something new!