Goodbye, Korea

July 13th was scheduled to be my last day at Jukjun Middle School. On July 12th, I went out with some of the teachers at my school. We had dinner, then went to a coffee shop for a while and wrapped things up at a bar. It was a sentimental, emotional experience and I struggled with bittersweet feelings. On one hand I want to stay in Korea. I would have liked to learn more Korean and experience Korea a little more. On the other hand, I felt it was time to go back to America and take the next step in my life.
When I got home on July 12th, my host family and I exchanged presents and cards. My host family bought me a hanbok, as well as several gifts for my family back in America. In the end, after only a year, I really felt like I was part of their family. My homestay experience in Korea was hands down the best part about Korea for me. Between the casual moments after dinner, the trips and all the laughs, I'll certainly always consider them a part of my life.
I had already given my bike back to my school so on July 13th my host Mom drove me to school. About halfway into the 20 minute trip, I started to tear up. My host Mom looked at me and said "What's wrong baby?" Even though I knew exactly why I was crying, I could only cough up the words "I don't know." When I got to school, I donned my hanbok and the school took yearbook photos of me. I taught just like I normally do and my host Mom came to pick me up and take me to the bus station. I was headed to Jungwon University to teach at Camp Fulbright, a 2 week intensive summer camp that Fulbright holds every year to allow for new ETAs the opportunity to get in a classroom a few times before they go to their placements. I would teach them during the day and participate in all kinds of activities ranging from club classes to full group activities. The new ETAs would have classes with the students in the afternoon and I would peer evaluate them.
Camp Fulbright was an amazing experience. I was able to to teach a class of 8 highly motivated, intelligent, active students who genuinely wanted to learn English. I could do lessons that I wasn't able to do at my placement school because of the small class size and how active all my CF students were. While it was also a tiring experience due to working 16, sometimes 20 hour days, I never regretted signing up for even a moment. It was a perfect capstone to my grant year in Korea. Yesterday we departed Jungwon University and Dave, Tim, Kate, Kate's sister and I went out in Seoul for one last time. Dave and I spent most of the day eating kimbap, street food and walking around Seoul. Now I'm getting ready to head to Incheon and fly back to America. I'm stopping in LA with Tim for 5 days and I'm flying into JFK on August 7th.
The last 13 months are impossible to summarize in a mere blog post. That's why I created this blog. Sometimes I neglected it but generally it reflects the good, the bad and everything in between about my experience living in Korea as a native English teacher. I went through periods of self discovery, learning about my Korean heritage and also clarifying my own dreams and desires. I learned about living as an expat in a foreign country and about the role of teachers in society. I have plenty of memories and made life long friends. It has been real Korea, but you'll always be the mistress I couldn't marry. I'll come back to you if the time is right.
-Mr. G

Mokpo English Contest

This past weekend I traveled across the peninsula of Korea to Mokpo for an English competition. The winners of this contest will have their fees for Camp Fulbright paid by the Jella-do education office. Camp Fulbright is a 2 week long intensive summer camp that Fulbright puts on for elementary, middle and high school students from all over Korea. There is an English-only rule and in addition to it being taught by experienced former and current Fulbright teachers, the new Fulbrighters all have the opportunity to get some experience in the classroom.
As for the Mokpo contest, it was a pretty competitive contest with most of the participants being pretty good at English. The upper echelon of students were near fluent and I was impressed with their preparation and poise considering I was judging the middle school level.
Since I'll end up seeing the winners at Camp Fulbright (I'm one of the instructors) I'm excited at the prospect of teaching a whole room filled with highly motivated and near-fluent students.
Yay!

Final lunch? dinner? brunch?

On June 26th, all the Fulbright grantees gathered in Seoul at the Dragon Hill Lodge on the Yongsan Army Base for the final time. The buffet food was good, but the company was better (that was a cliche that I couldn't resist using, regardless of its truth value). Really, it was a great event from the food, to the ETA performances, to the unusually short speeches.
Here are some pictures, due to my Mom's request of the other stuff I did while in Seoul that weekend:

북촌한옥마을

북촌한옥마을

This is Seoul's mascot. I'll let it speak for itself...

청계천 in Seoul

It runs right through the heart of the city

The guards at 수원 행궁

Looking out over 수원 행궁 from the fortress walls

A series of "lasts" in Korea

I never really experienced the culture shock, home sickness or aversion to Korean food that befell many of my fellow Fulbrighters. However, as I start to watch the calendar and see my grant year dip below a month remaining, I am starting to experience a mixture of feelings about going home.
Uncertainty - What awaits me back home? How have things changed? Are my friends still the same? What about my favorite local eateries. Are they even there still?
Joy - New York is home. My family and friends are there. I miss eating at diners and being able to communicate with everyone about anything. People know that I love to talk and sometimes in Korea simple conversation can be difficult with my limited vocabulary.
Sadness - Daegu was home. My family and friends for the past 11 months were here. I'm going to miss eating rice and spicy food at every meal, playing basketball on Saturday afternoons at Kyungpook University with my Korean/foreigner friend group, riding my bike to school every morning and back home every afternoon, and even being recognized as a celebrity by almost any Korean I meet from my former volleyball team all the way to my local Kimbap Heaven. I'm going to miss my host family more than anything else from Korea because of how kind they were and how they took me in as a member of their family from the onset of our relationship. I'm even going to miss my school. I'm going to miss the relationships I had there and the way that Chul-shik, Han-jean, Jung Do-hwan and Hong Jin-il treated me as just another teacher. They weren't afraid to talk to me.
Early on when I arrived in Korea I felt like I would never fit in. Expats were seen as novelties. Now, one day shy of the one year anniversary of setting foot in Incheon Airport, I know this is true. I would never be accepted into Korean society because I look different. When I use chopsticks, receive something with two hands or say anything in Korean, it draws a crowd because foreigners are stereotyped as being completely ignorant and unaware of any of these things. In America, most people view me as Asian-American but in Korea I'm just American. At least in America people don't stare when I twirl my spaghetti like I've eaten it before.
Just as I get used to living in Korea, and more importantly, comfortable with my place in Korea, it's time to leave. Staying another year was never really an option and it's for the best. Another year wouldn't have the same allure and luster as this one, nor would it be the same type of experience living in my own apartment instead of a homestay. It seems that Korea is ready for me to leave, while I might not be ready to leave it. One day I'll return and just as I hope that NYC is still the same a year later, I hope that Korea doesn't change.
This weekend is my last one in Daegu, this week I'm teaching my finale farewell lesson to my kids, and yesterday was the last time I'll play basketball with my KNU friends. I have 32 classes left and with 28 classes at Jukjun Middle School, that means I'll see the majority of them just one last time. As I ride to school every morning, I get a little closer to the last time I'll dodge the busy morning traffic and insane taxi drivers.
In the end I'm not really sure how I'll say goodbye. I may never return to Korea. I want to, but I don't know if I will. Just as I've begun to build a life here, I'm going to leave it behind. Since I love metaphors, it's like building a house and then moving away before you ever get to live in it.
Well, Korea. It has been an awesome ride. 

Jeju...again

This past weekend a few other Fulbright ETAs and I went back to Jeju. The first time I was there for the Spring Fulbright conference, we were busy inside the hotel on the days when it was sunny and it poured on us during our one day off. 

We arrived on Jeju Friday night and it promptly started to pour. Nick and I had planned to hike Halla Mountain on Saturday but the weather forecast said it would rain. When we woke up at 7 on Saturday morning, a combination of heavy clouds, light drizzle, and the effects of soju told us that hiking up South Korea's largest mountain wasn't going to happen. We woke up again at 9:30 however, our luck had changed and the sun was starting to poke through the clouds so we made the rash decision to take a taxi to the starting point and give it a shot. Our main motivation was that if the weather ended up being nice we would be kicking ourselves for not going.

There are 5 trails on Halla Mountain but only two lead to the summit with the other 3 being closed indefinitely at certain points to allow nature to regenerate. The locals apparently hike up 성판악 trail and down 관음사 trail but we decided to do it the opposite way per the advice from another Fulbrighter. Going up, 관음사 trail was 8.7 km and was fairly easy in my opinion. There were a lot of stretches of stairs and it wasn't too steep for the most part. There were also some breathtaking views of the valleys that we were able to enjoy. 

On top of the mountain it was too cloudy for us to see very far but we were able to see the famous crater lake on the summit of this volcano (백록담). What amazed me most wasn't the view but the number of people lounging around on the top of this mountain, feasting upon HOT meals of noodles, bento style lunch boxes and kimbap. Nick and I had a bottle of water and a roll of kimbap each, so maybe we were a little unprepared in comparison but in our defense we left pretty quickly when the weather changed.  

At the summit

Crater lake behind me

The course we ascended

The course we descended

Crater lake

Crater lake

At the summit

The descent turned out to be much more difficult for me because I was wearing running shoes and the rocks on the 9.6 km 성판악 trail were still wet from the rain. When we got to the bottom, we checked our time and it took us exactly 6.5 hours from start to finish. It took us about 3 hours up and 3 hours down with a 30 minute break at the time. In the guidebooks I read it would take about 9 hours so I guess we made pretty good time. 

After the hike we came back to our vending machine motel room, showered and went to dinner at a 말고기 (horse) restaurant, which was something we had wanted to try for a while. We each ordered the set and it came with multiple different courses, pictured below. 

Many of the foods I've tried in Korea are highly popular here but are frowned upon by most Americans. This is definitely one of them. I've seen protests on the streets of NYC about Koreans eating horse meat for its aphrodisiac powers. For me it was another unique experience part of my unique last 12 months in Korea. I'm not apologizing for doing it, just hoping that my curiosity is understood. 

Horse sashimi

Horse sashimi

Horse makchang

Horse bulgogi

Horse chuck steak

Horse soup (after we ate most of it...I forgot to snap the picture beforehand)

Horse steak

Horse steak on the grill

Horse steak

Second horse soup

Horse soup

Finished product

Visiting 안동 and 청량사 with my host family

This past Sunday morning, my host family and I took a trip to Andong. We used to take day trips  regularly but lately everyone has been a little busy. However, this would be our first overnight trip together. Sometimes I can hear my host dad and host brothers snoring from their respective rooms so I wasn't so enthralled with the overnight part but for the temple stay were were about to embark on, it was necessary.
First stop on our trip was Andong. We piled into the car at 8 am and I promptly fell asleep. Voila, we were magically in Andong. Andong is supposed to be a historically important site in Korea (along with every other small town). I was told that one goes to Seoul to see culture, Gyeongju to see history and Andong to see the Yangban (Korea's  upper class). We walked through a traditional village but there were people still living there so we couldn't actually enter the homes. In the center of that village was a 300 year old tree. Around the tree was a rope to which visitors tied little strips of paper with wishes written on them. I'm not a particularly superstitious person but it never hurts to cover all your bases so I tied a wish to the tree.
We also visited a museum dedicated to Queen Elizabeth's visit to Andong in 1999. Based off the pictures, she didn't look like she understood anything that was going on around her, but the Koreans were definitely excited by her presence. She was the first English head of state to visit Korea.

Apparently the Queen knows Korean

A funky looking statue with the Yangban headwear

My host brother looking at the wishing tree

One of those traditional houses I mentioned

There were people taking boats across this river to view the river from the top of the cliff

From Andong it was a little over an hour to Chunglyang Temple. After parking at the bottom of the mountain, it was a 30 min hike up a steep but well paved road to the temple. We checked in, much like you would at a bed and breakfast and put our bags down in our ondol type room. We donned out temple stay outfits and from there, we explored the temple grounds and decided to hike up the mountain further to a point called "The Sky Bridge". My host parents had been there before and told me it was magnificent. My host mom and Sang-mook struggled up the mountain but when we all made it to the top, it really was amazing. The name really tells the whole story, and what impressed me most was how they built the damn thing up there. I had trouble getting my own slightly out-of-shape body to that point.

My host parents coming up the mountain to the temple

Sang-mook leading the pack

Just before the entrance to the temple

The Sky Bridge

Sky Bridge

Sky Bridge -  I was told I look good in gray

View from the Sky Bridge

More from the Sky Bridge

In front of the pavilion where people pray

The temple is behind me

Sang-mook wanted to see over the wall

Prior to going on this temple stay, my host mom said it would be like a resort and that we would just relax. However, when we arrived she unilaterally decided that I would enjoy the real experience much more, albeit only for one day. She decided to pack as much as possible into our visit, and I greatly appreciated this because this trip was one of the highlights of my almost-complete grant year in South Korea!

This leads me to the following: my host mom wanted me to experience the way that Buddhist monks eat so she booked a meal with one of the monks when we would eat just like they do. This involved receiving a set of 4 bowls, each with a certain purpose. We would prepare our table setting in a very specific way, laying out the four bowls, filling one with water, one with vegetables, one with soup and one with rice. Everything was very specific as to its purpose. Now, Buddhist monks don't eat meat but they also don't waste a single grain of rice. They don't even waste a single red pepper flake. Seems impossible to pull off right? Eh, wrong. They've got the methodology down. 
When the meal has concluded you use the last piece of yellow pickled radish to clean out your bowl. Eat the radish. Then fill your bowl with water. Wipe it down with your fingers. Stir the contents until they settle. Pour the majority of the water back into a communal pot. Be careful not to get any of the food particles in the pot because if even one is found in there through the monk's inspection, everyone shares that pot of water! Yipee! The monk told us that most people drink a lot of the water rather than risk getting a food particle in the pot during their first temple stay. My host family and I definitely became part of that statistic.

I'm trying to follow my host mom, until I realized she was doing it all wrong

The monk asked me to dole out the soup

With the monk

Pre-meal pray

Post temple

Later on that night, we had tea with the monk. The tea was made with flowers that the monk picked himself from the mountain where 청량사 is located. He continued the conversation from dinner about focusing on the task at hand, becoming one with mind and body and other philosophical strands of thought. My host mom would explain some things to me but I had trouble following this extremely high level conversation. I would like to think that my listening skills aren't too shabby, but my host brothers said even they couldn't follow everything the monk was saying because of how high level it all was. Oh well, I guess I didn't really have a chance.

That night it was my host dad, two host brothers and me in one room while my host mom slept in a different room with one other temple stay-er. I drew the short end of that stick because everyone snored extremely loudly that night.

At 5 AM we woke up to eat breakfast, followed by a morning stretch and hike to the top of the mountain where we would pick lettuce for our lunch. Except that once at the top of the mountain everyone started picking lettuce but no one told me why so I followed suit but all the while wondered what I was doing.

A completely peaceful existence

Tae-mook, Sang-mook

My host mom practicing the stretching we learned this morning

The temple grounds from above

Lunch

A tea house we stopped at on our way down the mountain

Back down at the temple, we sat outside in the shade, concentrating on our thoughts and then went inside the dining hall for a snack before lunch. Ddeokbokki and dduk cakes. Not exactly my favorite but I was hungry. This was followed by a lunch of the vegetarian variety.

Soon after lunch we started back towards Daegu. My overall impression of the temple stay was a very positive one. One thing that I want to point out is that the monk we spent the majority of our day with was unlike anyone I've met before. I saw true happiness and contentment with this man. He said he had no worldly desires and I believe him. He was right where he wanted to be and that deserves an applause.::claps::