Ups and Downs of the First Month

September 27, 2016

Ups and Downs of the First Month

A few mornings ago as I sat down in the kitchen, my host father asked me a question. "Do you know what day it is?"
"Monday?" I said, not really wanting to talk. It was my first day back after a 5-day holiday weekend, and I was cranky. I poured myself a cup of coffee.
"September 19th. One month." He smiled.
I paused and smiled back. He was congratulating me.

(Actually since starting this post another week has passed - my moments to write are rare.)

It seems like the past couple weeks or so have been a turning point for some ETAs, and I've started to see blog posts and messages that are more frank, honest, and rooted in challenges now that the gloss of our new placements is beginning to wear. My general experience here in Iksan has been positive so far, but definitely a mixed bag of good and bad moments. When I fully registered the fact that I have been here for a month, it didn't feel as momentous as I thought it would. Part of that is probably because I am still adjusting and mentally preparing for the long haul of the rest of this year here.

Teaching

So I was really lucky to be placed at Wonkwang Girl's High School. My girls are very sweet, and some even wrote, "I love you" to me on their introduction English surveys. They're also hilariously weird, with some sharing fun facts about moles on their faces and others choosing interesting English names such as "Captain Korea," "Lava," "Jellyla," and "Big Mama" (I gave them a choice between using their Korean name or using an English name). The extent of my discipline is just getting them to put their phones/mirrors/food away, listen to what I am saying, and come prepared for class. Although my students are chatty, I usually do not need to tell them twice. However, many schools in South Korea heavily emphasize listening and memorization, and by the time students reach high school they are used to being silent toward the teacher. This means that when I ask questions, almost no one volunteers to answer. It takes a lot of effort to get them to participate and ask for help, and many students are afraid of saying something incorrect. I have to use creative strategies such as tossing a stuffed bunny around and rewarding them with a point system in order get more people talking, and sometimes asking them to raise their hands squanders all participation. Thankfully, it seems like some of them are becoming more and more comfortable as the weeks pass, and I am learning which topics they respond to most.

Communication at the school is also sometimes a challenge because my assigned co-teacher (more a liaison than someone who actually works with me), while very kind, often forgets to do things. Setting up my bank account and phone here was a communication/language barrier mess, and once we were done I had a lot of unanswered questions about how to use them. Thankfully, several other staff members have given me support including two women, 정현 (Jong Hyun) and 승현 (Seung Hyun), who reached out to me during the first week and have since become my lifelines at the school. We have lunch dates each week and Seung Hyun and I also discovered that we both live in the same apartment complex! She is one of the rare working moms and has two little kids who are 3 and 4 years old and are both very sweet to me. So far, she has had me over for dinner and lunch at her home, and we go on walks together when both of us have a free moment. I am so thankful for her and Jong Hyun.

The rest of the teachers and staff members in my 교무실 (teacher's office) are also kind, although my lack of Korean skills means our interactions are mostly smiling, simple sentences, and hand gestures. I have started doing some Korean self studying and informal lessons with other foreigners, but the progress has been slow, especially since the adjustment period here has taken a lot of work and energy. Hopefully down the road I'll gain enough confidence to have some actual conversations with my co-workers!

I am also starting to get to know some of my students a bit more, and several have approached me to chat about music, celebrities, or places that I should visit in Korea. One student who is practically bilingual is also hoping to go to college outside of the country, perhaps in the United States or in Europe, so chatting with her and helping her prepare has felt really rewarding for me. These moments with my students have been some of my favorite, especially because I see 480 different faces each week.

The Host Family - Walking the Line Between Guest and Family Member

I was also very lucky to end up with my host family. I have heard some horror stories from previous ETAs, including one school that placed an ETA with host parents who were about to get divorced because they thought adding a foreigner would somehow ease the tension (spoiler: the parents still got divorced and the ETA got a new host family). My host parents on the other hand are clearly happy to have me, they offer to do things with me like take me to the beach and go hiking, and overall things seem stable enough for me to be there.

It's still been an adjustment though, both in terms of lifestyle and culture. Getting up in the morning and heading to school with 'siblings' sometimes feels like I am back in school myself, and I have never had someone make breakfast for me every single morning. Thankfully, the food at my homestay is usually delicious and far better than what I ate at Jungwon University (my host mom makes some AMAZING bibimbap, kimchi fried rice, and pajeon), but I am also not used to having someone decide and cook all my meals. Most people who know me know that I love to cook, and it is often a stress release to make something by myself in the kitchen. For a long time, that did not really seem like a possibility, and one of the toughest adjustments has been eating whatever my host mother cooks for breakfast. For South Koreans, breakfast is a full meal just like any other and it is often food that we would only consider for lunch or dinner. Sometimes, my host mom makes western food like fried eggs or french toast, but breakfast can also include rice with seaweed and dumplings, fried tofu and acorn jello with soy sauce, many different kinds of soup, and kimchi. On one particularly dark Tuesday morning, breakfast was an entire strong-smelling mackerel fish to be picked apart with chopsticks.

My go-to breakfast is usually yogurt and granola with fruit, so the Korean breakfast has been a tough change. On the first grocery shopping trip with my host parents, they asked me what food I wanted so I picked out some yogurt and cereal (I tried to explain granola with limited success) and was offered a couple opportunities to eat it in the days after. My host parents continue to buy cereal and yogurt for me, but I don't get to eat it very often because my host mother continues to make breakfast and I feel rude making something separate, especially because they might not communicate if they are insulted by something (for reference, my host father was upset one weekend because I left to lesson plan in a cafe and he had wanted to go on a hike with me, but he never told me that he had wanted to go on a hike and I only found out later from my host mother). On the other hand, to my host mother's frustration, my sisters will sometimes decide they want cereal instead of whatever my host mom makes and they do not care if she has already cooked. So, while I am picking at seafood or beef, they get up and pour themselves a bowl.

Over the first month I also repeatedly offered to help cook and make food for the family (honestly, more for my benefit than anything else), and for a while it seemed like I was politely barred from the kitchen. I wasn't sure if it was because the kitchen is my host mom's domain and no one else's, or if they didn't trust my cooking skills, but in the end it seems like my host mother thought I was just being ridiculously polite and didn't actually want to cook. After a couple cancelled plans to cook together, she approached me and said that if I ever want to cook something, don't hesitate to ask. When I offered again to make dinner she said, "Really?? You can?" And that was that.

So on Friday, I finally cooked! Dinner was pesto pasta with sauteed vegetables and a salad with apples, nuts, gouda cheese and craisins. After some initial hesitation, my picky little host sister proclaimed it delicious and ate enough to get a stomach ache, so I would call it a success. My host mother also excitedly took pictures of me in the kitchen.

This past Saturday I also got to go apple picking a fellow ETA's host family's beautiful orchard, and as a thank-you for helping them they are shipping a box of 32 apples to me and my family! I told my host mother that I can make many apple things, including the all-American apple pie and some cider, so when they arrive I will be on a welcome cooking spree. The breakfasts continue to be a challenge, although I have become comfortable enough to eat a small amount and grab a piece of fruit on my way out the door, so it's not the end of the world.

Chuseok Holiday

One of the most significant experiences I've had in my placement is celebrating Chuseok, or Korean Thanksgiving, with my host family. Chuseok is a harvest holiday that involves traveling to one's parents' house and eating a lot of food. Typically, only the women cook and the wives are at the whim of their mother-in-laws, making it a stressful time for them. When I asked Jong Hyun about typical Chuseok food, she showed me some stock photos she found on the internet. All of them included a woman (wife, presumably) presiding over the table or cooking. "Look at her face though," Jong Hyun laughed. "Look. She is not happy."

We spent one night with my host father's relatives and one with my host mother's. My host father's family was very excited to see me and a few members of the family spoke English, which was comforting at first. However, my status as a special guest meant that there was also a lot of fretting over me and constant attention. For example, traditional Korean meals are usually eaten on the floor with a long table, and even though I had been in Korea for two months, they thought I would be uncomfortable sitting on the floor and gave me a cushion. When I tried to help set or clear the table my host grandmother shooed me away, and so all I could do was sit on my cushion. She also put a towel on my lap, perhaps fearing that I would get food on myself. At one point in the afternoon, I was told that I could take a nap, and my host mother set up a thin blanket and pillow on the floor in a separate room (Koreans also traditionally sleep on floor mats, not beds). I had just fallen asleep when my host grandmother came in with my host mother and had me get up. She changed the blanket to a thicker mat and pillow set I heard her say something in Korean along the lines of, "American people like the cold" as she opened the window and turned on a fan. All of this attention came from a place of genuine kindness and hospitality, but it was a lot for me.

During the meals, I sat next to my host father's brother who speaks a lot of English because he is an international businessman, but this also ended up being more of a curse than a blessing. While his English was good, he spoke quickly and with an accent so sometimes I still didn't understand what he was saying, and I almost felt like I was insulting him when I asked him to repeat things.
It is also possible that my opinion of him was biased from the beginning, because he began the conversation by complaining that his wife does not cook him a hot breakfast every morning. He also made a lot of generalizations about Americans, and asked me things like, "Is this food too spicy for you? Did you ever use chopsticks before you came to Korea?" and, "So when you are homesick you eat a lot of hamburgers, right?" I replied that I was a vegetarian for five years, but later in the evening he put still put a large chunk of fried spam on my plate, thinking that I wanted it because I was American. I smiled, thanked him, and forced most of it down.

When the conversation moved to education in the United States versus Korea, I tried to explain that in the States some students do not need to work very hard, but my own high school experience was rigorous and intense; it is difficult to generalize because the United States is very diverse and education depends a lot on location, resources, and wealth. He still pushed for blanket statements though and proceeded to explain that Obama praised Korean mothers because they care so much about their kids' education. (From what I can find online, Obama has not actually made any comments about Korean mothers, although he has praised the educational system in South Korea. But that is a topic for another post.) Trying to navigate these topics was tiring to say the least, although a lot of his questions were probably just curiosity.

For the record, the conversation that I had with my host father's brother was one experience - definitely not representative of many conversations I have had here. Seung Hyun and Jong Hyun both laughed and gasped when I told them that he gave me spam.

When we left for my host mother's family in Cheonan, my host grandmother gave me an enthusiastic hug goodbye, the first hug that I have received from a Korean. It really meant a lot to me.

Cheonan was a totally different and more relaxing experience. My host mothers' parents live in a rural area right outside the city and they have a traditional hanok house that has been in the family for generations. The house was absolutely beautiful and in the middle of hills, and my host grandparents grow tons of food including Asian pears, apples, peaches, peppers, garlic, and sesame. We grilled samgyeopsal (Korean pork which is actually delicious even though it's meat), eggplant, and kimchi outside. Almost the entire meal came from ingredients grown at the house. My host mothers' parents also don't speak any English, which was a relief for me because they didn't try to ask me any questions. They gave me strong pats on the back when I said anything in Korean and more or less left me alone. We spent about two days there hanging out and eating fresh fruit, and I spent a lot of comfortable silence with my host grandparents. My host grandfather has started referring to me as the "miguk onni" (American sister) and he personally invited me to his birthday party this weekend. Unfortunately I had already made plans to go to a lantern festival, but I definitely won't be skipping out of future opportunities to hang out in Cheonan.

I am now gearing up for a lot of traveling this month, so I will be sure to write updates on those trips soon! There is so much to say about my experiences here, and hopefully this has given a small bit of insight into what it has been like so far.