My Korean friend Jackie took my friend Lydia and I to Mee Dam, a Korean traditional restaurant, and it proved to be one of the highlights of her visit. This was to be no ordinary Korean culinary experience, for Jackie informed me that the food we were about to eat was the kind that Korean nobility once dined on. We slipped off our shoes and opened the sliding wooden door and stepped inside our private dining room. The table was in the center of the room and raised above the floor so that we westerners could unstretch our legs while we ate. We ordered beef bulgogi from one of several set menus as our main dish and sampled from the wide variety of panchan (side dishes) which came with it. Our server was a regal woman dressed in hanbok, the Korean traditional costume, who very quietly yet warmly served them to us.

Lydia and I spent last Saturday in Gyeongju, the ancient capital of the Silla dynasty. This picture was taken at the entrance of Bulguksa, possibly the largest Buddhist temple there. Gyeongju is about fifty minutes away from Daegu by express bus. We also spent many moments sipping coffee in various places. Lydia is seen here, at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in downtown Daegu, where we shared a slice of rich, authentically and intensely flavored green tea cheesecake.

Guess who I spent the weekend with? My friend Lydia from my hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin! She decided to take a month off and travel to East Asia before starting her new job as a union organizer in Pennsylvania, so she made a stop in Daegu to visit me! I took Friday off so that we could have a long weekend together. But that's all for now as it's late and I have to get to bed....so, more details later!

It's winter vacation time now for many Koreans and last week many students were absent from my classes, including this little one seen above, Lina. I wrote about Lina in one of my very first posts. She was the cry baby. I assumed that she went on vacation with her family since she was gone for three days straight and nobody said anything about it. But when I returned today and found that she was absent once again, I asked Penny about her.

.
" Actually, Lina doesn't go to this school anymore," said Penny with a hairpin in her mouth, her other hand twisting her long dark hair into a bun. "She's going to the Chinese school with her brother Charlie. Nobody told you?"

"No, nobody told me," I replied, feeling slightly angry but not at all surprised. Today was a sad day--I had to say good-bye to my favorite kindergarten student, and one of the most adorable children in the world.

This is my friend and co-worker Wendy and I. Today was her wedding day and she got married at Dinkum Wedding Hall. It's a place where more than one wedding can happen at once, and there is a Korean buffet restaurant on the premises. That's where the reception was held. Korean weddings are a little bit different from American weddings. First of all, there is no wedding party, and at this particular wedding, the bride and groom did not exchange rings. What I found most surprising was that there wasn't much of a to-do made about the bride walking down the aisle. One minute Wendy was at the entrance to the wedding hall, seated and posing for pictures, with family and friends milling about and then the next minute she and her husband to-be were walking down the aisle with people rushing up at the last second to get a look at them as they made their way to the altar. At the altar was a monitor where baby pictures of the bride and groom were shown to her audience of family and friends. For her friends at L&S it was standing room only, and I had to stand on my toes to watch the nuptials from behind the very last row. The couple exchanged vows, some through tears (aww) and sung to each other. The entire ceremony was in Korean, obviously, so I could only guess at what they were saying to each other. It's times like these that I know I'm really a foreigner and that even though I was there, participating in the wedding as a guest, I still felt like I was on the outside.

After the reception we moved into the restaurant to eat. The bride and groom were not present. I followed Ally, one of my other co-workers, into the huge restaurant that had tables lining the walls in a U-shape one long table in the middle, and two separate dining rooms on each side. I had some chapjae (noodles), fried mushrooms, spinach salad, fried rice, and some of the best kimchi I've ever tasted.

The Korean communication style makes doing my job well very difficult at times. Last week Thursday, December 28, was the day of the Lovely Festival, the kindergarten recital of dances and songs, speeches and plays performed in English. We spent that entire week rehearsing and making last-minute preparations for the big day. In the midst of the week's hectic schedule the teachers didn't create a weekly plan for the upcoming week which we make every Tuesday and send home with the kids on Friday. No one said anything about it so I didn't give it a second thought. We returned to school this Tuesday, January 2, after a four day break and when I sat down to do the weekly plan, I made it for the upcoming week, Jan. 8-12, like I usually do and since I had not been told otherwise. I had no idea that we were going to send the plan for the week of Jan. 2-5 home with the kids on January 2 and that I had to make the plan for that week! So imagine my surprise when, after I completed my portion of the plan and my co-Korean teacher, Penny, finished hers and made copies, I saw that she had changed the dates from the 8th-12th, to the 2nd-5th! I went to Penny to ask what happened and this is what she said :"Yes, but Sandy (our boss) said to change it so that we can give it to the parents this week." What she neglected to tell me was that we were sending that plan home that very day instead of on Friday like we usually did! Was I supposed to assume that? So, not knowing this, I just went about my business, thinking that my job was done.

Fast forward to Friday, January 5th. I am sitting in the office sending an email before my first morning class when Penny arrives, says hello and asks me: "Stephanie, did you do the weekly plan?" I'm thinking, yes, I did a weekly plan, the one I already did earlier in the week, the one we talked about, remember? I said, slowly, "Yes, I did one." Penny replied: "Oh, you did the one that you showed me?" I nodded. " You had to do another one for next week," she informs me, a little too late. Inside, I am quietly seething. Why didn't she tell me this on Tuesday? I heaved a quiet sigh, suppressed an eye roll, and, mustering up my courage asked her: "Why didn't you tell me this?" In typical Penny fashion she didn't answer the question, but said simply, a minute later, "Don't worry, I'll take care of it."

But I wanted to take of it, I wanted to scream! There are times when I've felt like the Koreans I work with try to sabotage my efforts on the job by not communicating directly what they want me to do. But I know it's nothing personal. I get the feeling that Koreans are just afraid to communicate in a direct and straight forward manner with me because they don't want to be perceived as demanding or pushy and want me (and other foreigners) to see them in a good light. But when they don't communicate, the opposite happens. All Penny had to say to avoid this situation was something like this: "Stephanie, please do weekly plans for this week and next week today." I simply cannot assume everything. When I do assume something, sometimes I'm wrong, and I end up upsetting one of my co-workers. This can all be avoided if we speak clearly and honestly to each other. It's what I've found works best--there's really nothing to be afraid of.

After work this evening I found out that my day was not quite finished. My boss informed me that I had to finish recording some educational materials for Sakwan Academy that I started last week and thought that I had finished this Tuesday. It turned out the people over at Sakwan decided at the last minute, that they wanted to add something. Sakwan Academy is a group of private schools owned by a man by the name of Mr. Kim, whose son Henry, by the way, goes to Letter and Sound Academy, one of the academies in the Sakwan group. All the schools in this group are called Sakwan Academy but Letter and Sound is so named because it is the only school that is strictly an English School--all the other schools offer math, science, and computer science ,in addition to English. Letter and Soound is not the greatest school to work for because there is no structured curriculum. This means that for my kindergarten and elementary classes I have to create all my all my own materials to use along with the books that are provided for me, and, I am not given any timelines as to when the textbooks need to be finished. I am not given any course objectives, told when to give tests, nor am I given tests to give to my students. So when my boss told me she thought I had a pretty voice and would I like to do some voice recording work, I jumped at the chance to do something new and something that I had always wanted to try.

When I arrived at the Sakwan Academy headquarters for the first time on December 27, I was introduced to Lana, who would be recording the Korean translations of the English words and phrases along with me. All Korean English teachers take on English names for the purpose of simplicity. As Lana didn't hesitate to point out: "My Korean name is too difficult to pronounce." How I wish they had used the same system in Thailand! When we sat down to record, Lana began complaining about the quality of the recording equipment we were going to use. I couldn't beleive my eyes when she showed it to me. It was a tiny white device you could easily slip into your pocket with a miniscule hole for a microphone at the top. Lana was shocked that given the importance of this project, that the company didn't at least spring for some suitable recording equipment. She told me that we were going to be recording new and improved profiency tests for all new Sakwan Academy students in order to more accurately place them. I was overjoyed! Wow, they do care, I thought. They do want the students to learn! I was excited to be part of this change. I was also pleasantly surprised to meet a Korean who wasn't afraid to criticize the flaws of the Korean educational system.

After we had finished recording for the evening, we talked about the lives of Korean students, at all grade levels, and how painfully and unnecessarily stressful they are. Korean parents start putting their children in hogwans (private academies for English, math, art, etc) beginning as early as kindergarten! As students advance into the middle and high school levels, so does the amount of required supplemental studies. In other words, in addition to going to middle school or high school, these kids also attend hogwans that their parents pay for for English, science, math, and computers, and more. These kids don't even get to go home for dinner--they have to eat a cup of instant noodles and call it a meal, and don't return home until 11pm or midnight! So, what's all this hard work for, you want to know? It's so they can take the university placement exam, score well on it, get into a good university, and get to the university and slack off. Yep, that's right. Apparently Korean universities are places where students are rewarded for all their hard work by not having to work hard. Students attend few classes that aren't the most academically rigorous. Now what kind of sense does that make? And what does the prestige of the university matter if you're not going to do much once you get there? According to Lana, it's all about status and image in Korea. Parents want to boast that their child got into a good school, and it's important for getting a good job. But what about knowledge and critical thinking skills?

"Teacher, teacher, heat," said Andy, pressing a tiny plastic zip lock bag to his cheek.
"Yes, it's hot, you did it right," I replied.
It was science day today for the Annie Apple class, my class of five seven-year-olds, four boys and one girl. For today's project I demonstrated how to make an exothermic reaction from four substances--charcoal, iron powder, water, and salt. It was, to my relief, almost too easy. All I had to do was mix the chemicals together in a plastic bag and shake them for two to three minutes, to make the bag warm. The science projects are made by the Little Einstein Company based in Seoul. Ironically enough, no one at this company seems to possess enough intelligence to assemble even the simplest science kits for children. Many times the kits come with missing or defective parts, or the projects are simply inappropriate for the age and ability level of the kids, which has frustrated me to no end. Imagine teaching science--trying to explain scientific terms to seven-year-old children whose first language isn't even English, with no Korean assistant teacher! You know what it's like? It's utter chaos, but I'll have to save that for another post.

But today was a lot of fun. This was a project that the kids could do without a whole lot of assistance from me, which they love, and they got to see the result of their efforts, which was great for me. As a teacher my approval means a lot to them. When each of them finished shaking the substances that they had carefully spooned into their tiny plastic bags, their eyes lit up when they discovered that they had actually created heat.

"Teacher, teacher, me!" said Eric, motioning for me to touch his bag.
"Mine, mine, teacher!" said Tony, his hand outstretched.
"Yes, excellent job," I said with a smile on my face.

The clean up is definitely not the most fun part of science day. Anticipating the mess they would make, I gave each child a sheet of newspaper on which to put their materials. However, they still managed to spill bits of charcoal all over the table and the floor, and--oh joy--tiny grains of salt!

"Teacher, heat," repeated Andy, putting the bag in his mouth.
"But you don't want to eat the heat," I said. Ah, kids.

My cabinets are stocked with spices from India--cumin, cardamom, curry, garam masala and fenugreek and as I walked into my apartment this evening after work, it was these aromas that filled my nostrils. I wanted to be organized this week, so to save time I spent some of yesterday afternoon cooking two dishes that would be ready to eat for dinner this week--yellow lentils and chicken curry. The lentils are from a fellow teacher friend who, upon preparing to leave South Korea two weeks ago cleaned out his cabinets and gave them to me. I seasoned them with curry powder, flavored them with fresh ginger, garlic, spicy green Korean peppers, onions, lemon juice and salt. My chicken curry is a personal favorite of mine, one I found in a lowfat Indian cookbook. It's made with cubed chicken breast pieces, yogurt, onions, cumin, slit cardamom pods, ginger and garlic and garam masala, which is a mix of spices consisting of black pepper, cloves and more. I listened to the dishes simmer and smelled their scents as I lounged around my house on New Year's Day, feeling more at home in it than I had just a couple months ago. I took some time to decorate the place a bit and was it ever worth it. Now, instead of looking at blank walls, I've got a family photograph up,and a print of flowers painted in joyful shades of yellow, blue, red and green above the kitchen table. I've also got a funky, thin neck scarf with concentric circles draped in front of my circa 1985 eyesore of a television set and some postcard size black and white and color prints on the wall above my bed. The print in the middle depicts one of my favorite things--flowers. Three close-ups of roses--one white, one pink and one red. One of the black and whites is of Bulguksa temple in Gyeongju in the winter and the other is of a plank extending into the middle of the ocean. My place is beginning to have the warmth of a home.