They presented their research projects on famous Koreans. Their Korean teacher, Ms. Kang, sat in the back of the classroom and watched with a proud smile as they discussed famous Korean historical figures such as Park Jeong Hee, Sejong the Great and Yi Sun Shin. They were the most dedicated group of students I have yet taught. I will miss them.
There will be no more H1 Saturday classes, either. As most of you read last week, the senior middle school students, the 3E1s and 3E2s graduated from ESS. Normally, these graduates would return to ESS on Saturday to further improve and polish their English skills. When I asked Ms. Kang about the 3E’s, she shook her head.
"They are not right for the H class," she said with an embarrassed smile. "They are not good enough students."
I thought about the 3E1s and nodded. A much more apathetic group, at least when it came to English. There were a few standouts, such as Yeo Jin and Seong Hoon, but on the whole the students were not as dedicated to the study of English as my former H1 class.
As a side note, I remember once talking to my friend Jennifer about her graduating high school class. We both remarked on how charismatic and strong the personalities in her class tended to be, including Jennifer herself. As a class, the Decatur High School class of 1996 was distinguished by their irresistible creativity and magnetic charm. My own graduating class was distinguished by its extraordinary academic achievements (present company not included, sadly).
During my tenure at ESS, I have begun to appreciate the way a group of students can take on a distinct set of characteristics built from the amalgam of all the wildly unique individuals contained within the classroom. Every class is different, and it is difficult to link the set of traits to tangible elements such as age, class size, designation or social class.
The form a class might take is an incorporeal feature, as unforeseeable as the future, as difficult to grasp as the ocean. I come to know my classes the way a farmer might come to know a plot of land. Through the long passage of time one gains an awareness of the land wholly separate from the rocks, roots and soil from which it is composed, and it is when one grasps this subtlety that one can decide what to plant and how to make it grow tall and strong.
As mentioned before, the last two weeks have seen things end and things begin. I began teaching new classes last Monday. In truth, the new classes started the previous Thursday, but I had no syllabus. Many of my classes have different names, but with the same children. My 5A became my 6A, my TC class became 1G, and my quick-witted Advanced 3 became Advanced 4. There are a few new children who have either moved up or moved down in rank, but on the whole, I have had these classes for a few months now. I know these plots of land well.
Other classes are wholly new to me. My 1-2B class has two students, one of which I know nothing because she never ever spoke up while in 1-2P last semester, and one I don’t know whatsoever because I’ve never laid eyes upon her before. Ji-hyun and Ji-eun.
Now that she is free of the overpowering loudmouths in 1-2P, Ji-hyun is beginning to show her true colors. She is both ridiculously bright and disturbingly apathetic all at once. When I pick up my ‘numbers’ flash cards, eight-year-old Ji-hyun rolls her eyes like she’s 15.
"Teacher, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10," she rattles off quickly. The other girl gapes at her in what I take must be amazement.
The 'other girl' is Ji-eun, who is visibly dumbstruck by the sight of me like I am some sort of exotic beast. Her jaw drops open and her mind appears to shuts down as I cover vowels. Her mouth doesn’t appear to move and her voice is barely audible when she answers my questions, like a baby bird. After teaching these two little girls the alphabet one day, Ji-eun’s mother bought me a cup of coffee from a vending machine and bowed repeatedly.
I also help run the hour-long 1-2 auditorium class, which is currently little more than twenty students big. An hour is a long time to ask a group of eight-year-olds to sit still. Soo-hyun fills the time with games, dancing and singing. At the beginning of the first class, we sat the kids according to height. Soo-hyun lined them all up and then sat them shortest in the front and tallest in the back.
More video you will never see: Me performing the hokey-pokey with the children of 1-2. I really didn't want to do this, but Soo-hyun gave me the 'you'll do it because I said so' look common to all women over the age of 14. I got my revenge by singing the first round with a rising intonation. You stick your right leg in? In what?
It was fun dancing with the kids, even with Na-ri laughing at me. Their simple joy is a happy virus.
Sadly, one of the tallest boys in the 1-2 auditorium class, Jeong-han, is racked with a classic case of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD. While the other children sit bolt upright and quiet, Jeong-hand rolls around in his desk, frantically doodles or runs up and down the aisles laughing hysterically.
The first class, Na-ri used her break time to occupy Jeong-han. Like many ADHD children, Jeong-han is very intelligent. He learns fast in a one-on-one situation. The numbers one through ten were no sweat to this smart boy.
The following auditorium class, I spent the entire class with Jeong-han, teaching him how to write the English alphabet. At the beginning of the class the boy didn’t know an R from a K, but by the end of class he could take letter-by-letter dictation. I worry about him. Soo-hyun is taken up by teaching the rest of the class, so if no one is there to personally steer him, Jeong-han usually relegates himself to the back of the auditorium where his imagination fills sheets of paper with fantastical doodles.
We have a new Korean teacher at the hagwon, Eun-hee. Actually, she is not a stranger to the blue steel doors of ESS. She taught for three years at ESS, but left to attend graduate school, where she studied education and history. Her english is some of the best in the school and she has a high-energy, engaging personality.
One of the things I like about Eun-hee is how she contrasts sharply with her coworkers. First of all, she took an unexpected interest in Gavin and I, where as most of the other Korean teachers were very cautious in getting to know us. Eun-hee also demonstrates a deeper awareness of the outside world and a set of surprising viewpoints.
In the middle of the teachers office during a conversation about the tipping habits of American restaurant-goers, Eun-hee revealed that she has friends who are lesbians. Ms. Ha didn’t flinch, but I saw Ji-hyun and Na-ri shift uncomfortably in their seats. To be openly gay in Korea is to commit the most painful form of social suicide. It is a non-topic in Korea, and is rumored to be grounds for dismissal at most hagwons. Eun-hee didn’t appear to care about any of this. She was visibly proud of her forward-thinking attitude, and we talked about it for a few more minutes. It was the second time she’s mentioned it to me.
For a going-away present to the departing teachers Ji-hyun and Ms. Kang, we all went to eat Samgyupsal together. I sat by Eun-hee and Ji-hyun and Ms. Ha sat across the table from us. The disparity between the three women was inescapable. Eun-hee talked excitedly, setting the table for mirth and laughter with her rapid-fire, high-energy persona. Ms. Ha and Ji-hyun sat across from her like two lounging tabby cats, listening attentively, preening between bouts of highly composed laughter. What I liked most about the scene was how well these different personalities seemed to mesh.
There is a new Native teacher, too: A married high school history teacher from Ottawa, Canada named Dave. This is Dave’s third tour in Korea. His wife works down the street at ESS Adult, and according to Dave, she is a gifted teacher. Dave began his Korean teaching career in Dadaepo, living above a kimchi factory. Actually, listening to some of his stories, I feel luckier and luckier to have the job that I do.
He once worked at a hagwon where the director regularly came in drunk and beat his receptionist (who was also his wife), sometimes so badly that she would bounce off the walls of the office and shake Dave’s classroom. His kimchi-smelling apartment in Dadaepo was infested with cockroaches and the teacher before him said there was a giant rat living in the couch.
Dave asked many questions of Gavin and I his first week, focusing on the mechanics of ESS: Where is this, how do they organize that, what do I do with these? Eventually he settled into the job with the self-possessed familiarity of a grizzled veteran. He asked repeatedly if we had been paid on time, and maybe he didn’t believe or hear us when we told him ‘yes,’ because he asked again a few days later.
I got the impression from Dave that being ripped off or deceived was just part of the hagwon system. He recounted story after story of hagwon directors cheating teachers, both native and Korean, as well as other hagwons. He didn’t seem convinced that ESS was the reliable, accountable institution that I claimed it to be. I hope for my sake as much as his that I am correct in my assessment of the school.
The recently-departed Ji-hyun made an appearance at ESS to collect her last paycheck Friday. She bragged to Gavin and I that she had 'gained weight.' Considering the Korean teachers' normal feminine obsession with weight and appearing thin, this seemed at first an unusual, condradictory statement. Then Gavin pointed out that Ji-hyun probably left ESS to have a baby. Beginnings and endings. With the ending of a job comes the beginning of a baby. Here she is getting ready to go.
Spring is in the air! The season for beginning is beginning. Old smells from when I first arrived here have returned. One afternoon while crossing the elevated footbridge into Nampo-dong, the distinct twang of the ocean reached my nostrils for the first time since November, bringing back memories of riding to Haeundae on the back of Julie’s bike (now my bike). Other, far less pleasant though still notable odors have returned or gotten stronger as the warming weather has given strength to the bacteria that inhabit the sewers, drains and gutters of Busan. There is a one-hundred yard stretch of the road leading to our favorite restaurant that is so rank Gavin and I cross the street to avoid it.
On Saturday I mounted my motorcycle, strapped on my helmet, and set course for Jangsan Mountain north of Haeundae. The weather was warm, humid, and impossibly hazy. CNN.com said the unusual haze was due to a duststorm that had blown over from China. A friend of Gavin’s joked that it was the dandruff from a billion people.
A pale sky hung over my head as I carefully picked my way through the hazardous Busan traffic. My bike vibrated at a high frequency, giving me the impression that it might jump backwards in time at any moment. “1.21 jigowatts!” I yelled periodically as I slipped in and out of traffic. The humid air made the sooty stench of automobiles seem to cling to me. By the time I reached Daechun park at the base of Jangsan Mountain I felt like the human muffler.
I parked the bike by some drunk rent-a-cops who pointed at me, said something about a “Mi-gook” to each other in Korean and laughed. I waved, smiled and did my best to hold my tongue. The park was awash in people: People skating, people biking, people out for a stroll or a moment alone with the one they love in the lukewarm, hazy sunshine. I passed a massive sculpture of ocean waves where children climbed and chased each other under and around the frozen stone and tile whitecaps.
It’s just not SoKoNotes without an old guy shot. Western Kentucky, here I come...
I walked the road through the park, up towards the towering peak of Jangsan. The carefully manicured, 'civilized' shrubbery and hand-laid tile road ended by a garden, giving way to gravel and a more wild, taller assortment of pines and hardwoods. I walked the trail by a river leading down from the mountain. I passed scores of people as I walked. There were many families out.
I love how the Koreans make a point of getting outside and taking advantage of the good weather. On the other hand, I go to the woods to get away from the crowds. Luckily, most of the crowds pooled at the many ‘physical parks’ hewn into the mountain side. Basically, the government sets aside an area for weather-resistant fitness equipment, including weight benches, hoola-hoops, and stretching areas. It’s very thoughtful.
Periodically, one also comes across these ‘foot massage’ paths at the physical parks. Basically, it’s a sidewalk with lots of upturned stones and logs of various sizes embedded in it. The idea is this: A person gets a foot massage as they walk this perilous footpath. The idea always makes sense to me, but I can never get up the nerve to give it a spin. The Koreans eat these things up. They’ll walk them over and over again, sometimes stopping to chat while warping their feet around a knobby concrete-embedded log.
Exhibit A:
The other cool thing to see while hiking in Korea are all the Buddhist temples. After a little while the stream took a hard turn away from the footpath and I found myself at the entrance to a small Buddhist temple called Pokoksa. There were carved stone tablets set with hundreds of tiny statues of Siddartha in various states of repose.
In one corner of the compound was a grove of tall, elegant bamboo.
I stopped by a pagoda overlooking a small pool ringed with statues of Buddha and watched the fish languidly swimming under a small waterfall. A few people exited the temple, chatting as they walked up the mountain, and then I was alone. A soft breeze blew through the forest. The soft rustle of the trees mixed with the gentle sound of windchimes in the temple eaves and the air was scented with the sweet tang of burning incense. The sound of my mind faded into the background.
I stared out at the forest, fondly recalling my hike along the Appalachian Trail in 2003, an uncomplicated time not long ago when every day was spent in the splendid simplicity of a backpacker’s life. I didn’t worry about my purpose or my job or where I was headed or where I had been or my family’s expectations or my own. It was a place where perfect strangers genuinely cared for and made an effort to get along with one another. All I ever had to worry about was food, water, and shelter.
In the years following that sublime journey I had to learn to live in the modern world all over again. Compared with hiking the AT, life in the modern world seemed to me needlessly complex and confusing. Money, jobs, culture, clothes, cars, sex, friends, enemies, partying, debt. Nothing ever seemed to take on as much importance or fill me with as much joy as a day hiking in the mountains of North Carolina.
I would go to parties and find myself drifting away from the music, away from the girls, away from my peers and towards an empty balcony or porch where I could drink my beer and live in the past. I could never seem to get very interested in the things that occupied my life after the Trail because they never measured up to that night camping on a high bluff in New Hampshire, or the weeks I walked with Liteshoe, or standing on top of Katahdin. Those were the last days I can recall my existence filled with meaning. I can recall almost every day I spent on the Trail, and almost every person I met there. Nowadays I can barely remember what I did yesterday. In many ways I feel that I have failed to acclimate to modern living because deep down I think ‘modern living’ is a form of collective insanity.
I sighed. I have been here for exactly six months. Half of my time in Korea is finished. The second half is beginning. What have I accomplished? What will I accomplish? It took me six months to hike the Appalachian Trail, and every day was as important and fulfilling as the collective journey. I lived life to its fullest. Whatever happens, if I can live like that again, maybe I'm doing something right. Perhaps that should be my benchmark for success.
My brain went back to work reminding me of all the things I have to do. Some people joined me at the rail and took pictures in front of the fat, smiling golden Buddha. I continued walking up the mountain. Once away from the physical parks, the crowds thinned.
I scaled Anbu-uripong (peak) and soaked up the silence and peacfulness of the forest. The only wildlife I came across was a pack of feral cats and countless huge, blue-and-black magpies cackling in the budding trees.
As I crested Anbusan, I realized that I needed to get back home so I could get a shower before heading out to Kaeunsungdae to make another go at being a normal white male in his mid-twenties. Girls, booze, partying. Smile, Notes. Life is good.
OK, well that just about does it for...Oh, wait! I almost forgot...The Korea Files!
“A small flower shop in your hands that Antenna suggests” What other suggestions does Antenna make? --Wallet
“Emboli” ...sm. --Clothing store
“Grade AA eggs calculator.” Oh, God, what the hell? Does anyone actually sell grade AA eggs any more? --Notebook.
Also, here is the second installment of the Korean Notebook Scramble (new name). What the hell were they thinking when they wrote the following phrases in their journals?
“Second grade, I will I had a first school.”
“It was quite and looks like sad.”
“My dream is police officer and I will do hardly.”
“This year you are circular.”
“I must along him.”
Figure that crazy stuff out for fun and prizes. See ya next week. --Notes
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