FALL HOLIDAYS

It's nice to check in after a long time. I've been enjoying the new semester at Dongdo Middle School and getting back into life in Korea. Living in an apartment has taken some getting used to, but after some time I now look forward to coming back to my home after school, turning on the rice cooker and settling down to do a little work or watch some tv.

We've had several holidays since I've been back at school. First in September we had Chuseok, a Korean harvest festival during which many Korean families perform ancestral rites and eat a lot of food together. Then last week we had a three day weekend and this week I haven't gone in to school at all due to a combination of midterm exams and vacation days. 

When Chuseok came around back in September I was in the middle of studying for the GRE subject test in literature. I had no spare brain space to make any plans for the long weekend and was, in fact, still unpacking some of my bags. Instead of making plans I sent my host mom a text message that Sunday asking her if there was some time I could come visit that week. I got the reply right away, "We are at home today! Come any time!" I hadn't been expecting to go quite so soon, but grabbed my purse and went straight to Dong Daegu train station. Chuseok is a notoriously bad time for traveling because everyone is trying to go see their families. However, the train station was not bad and after 40 minutes of loitering in the cafe car I found myself back in Gumi and catching the familiar bus to Shinpyeong. I spent the afternoon there with my host mom and sisters, watching tv, eating ceremonial food and peeling various vegetables. It was as if I had never left. I went home that evening, but they invited me back for a big lunch the next day. This time I was able to see my host cousins. Jun Hyun has started going to an English hagwon and his parents wanted to show off his new English skills. "Long time no see." He followed this up with a long litany of baseball teams and body parts: "Lions, Twins, Elbow, Eagles, Hand." I tried playing tag with the boys outside, but it was beastly hot and they talked me into buying ice cream instead. In the CU I wondered what the cashier thought as a random foreigner argued with two young boys in broken Korean. No, you have to choose one, the juice or the ice cream; no I am not buying you gum as well. It was sweet seeing them all again, seeing how sedately their lives go on.

The next three day weekend found me back in Gumi again, this time to see my friends. I had been meaning to get back to board game club for some time because I had a new game I wanted to try out "Resistance." Basically it sounded like a more intense version of mafia and great for a large group. In fact, it was both those things. However, it was also a terrible game to play with a highly competitive group of friends. After two rounds we really needed to unwind and finished the night by playing drinking games while watching The Room. I love cozy nights like this, surrounded by people I like. Nights like this can be hard to come by living alone in a foreign country, but I've been so lucky in all the people I've met here. 

I stayed over with my friends that night because the next day we were all going to the LG Dream Festival. As the name implies it's a celebration of LG including a local talent show ("Dreams do come true") and culminating in a big name KPop concert. We arrived at the stadium around 1pm in order to grab prime seats. It was a perfect day to be outside with a clear bright sun shining over the edge of the stadium walls. It was a real festival atmosphere with a booths selling fried foods, stilt walkers making balloon animals, carnival games to win packs of ramen and robot exhibitions by LG. We lounged our way through the afternoon performances which began at 4pm. Then began waiting anxiously for the Kpop to arrive. There was a long, patriotic rally for LG which promised to be interminable, except that the staff began handing out giant paper lanterns to members of the crowd to send into the sky. I've been wanting to send off one of these lanterns ever since I saw a picture of Taiwanese New Year's celebrations. One of my friends made a commotion and we soon got a lantern. It was about the size of a medium size suitcase, made of pale paper with a thin wire base where a piece of unburning paper provided the fuel. We held it together on all sides. It was much harder to do than I expected as the wind threatened to collapse the dome and sent sprays of hot fire licking around our hands. I saw smoke rising around the crowd and several people had their lanterns taken away in flames. However, as a gust of wind tugged the lantern we agreed "Let it go!" and sent it off into the air. We watched it rise up over the crowd, past the floodlights until it disappeared. My friend thought it crashed, but I think it just floated further than we could see. Hundreds of lanterns were still being raised around the stadium. One didn't catch a big enough burst of wind and went skimming over the heads of the crowd until one brave high schooler pushed it further up into the air. 

Later we saw Vixx, BAP, AOA and B2ST. Each group performed three or four of their most popular songs and did a short interview for the crowd. None of the groups were my favorite, but seeing them was still a lot of fun and the dancing was awesome. I knew somewhere in the crowd my host sister was going crazy. BAP is her favorite, favorite group and she got special tickets close to the stage just to see them. 

In a quick turnaround I met up with two of my Fulbright friends in Busan the day after the concert for the Busan International Film Festival. I missed this festival last year and knew I couldn't miss it again after hearing stories from my friends who had gone. Perhaps one of my favorite things about now living in Daegu, I was able to take the KTX (Korea's high speed train, 300km/hr) from Dong Daegu Station to Busan in just about 45 minutes. It took about another hour on the subway to meet my friends and then we bought tickets for that day: a Korean film called Venus Talk and a Vietnamese film called Gentle. Both movies were showing in the Shinsegae theater at Centum City, the largest shopping mall in Asia. Venus Talk turned out to be a Korean style Sex and the City following three middle aged women as they navigate their increasingly complicated sex lives. My friends and I loved it. After the showing the director and three main actresses came on stage for an interview and photo shoot. 

The second movie was darker and more experimental. The director was born in Vietnam, but raised all his life in America. When he was 26 he went back to visit Vietnam for the first time and since then has spent a great deal of time there. The movie we saw, Gentle, was his third film made in Vietnam. It was based on a short story by Dostoevsky in which a widower reminisces over his married life while sitting next to his wife's corpse. The wife has committed suicide and throughout the movie the widower reveals the ways in which his own arrogance and weakness led to her death. Like any good Dosteovesky story it is subtle and full of religion. Interestingly, the director told us that reading this story for the first time he had such a strong sense that it was a Vietnamese story that he had to make the film. 

After all the movies and interviews it was late enough for dinner. We went back to our hostel so I could drop off my backpack and got dinner at one of the nearby grill restaurants where we ate some mediocre beef. Then we hung out on the beach listening to the live music that must have been part of the festival. On the beach with the wind it was very cold. Eventually we met up with some other fulbrighters and talked for a long time before heading to bed. 

Our final day in Busan we checked out of the hostel and got tickets for one more movie: a Spanish film called Magical Girl which we hoped would be quirky and charming. It was anything but. Although it opened as promised with the daughter, dying of leukemia and her obsession with the Japanese anime character Yukiko, the relationship of father and daughter soon became a secondary concern of the film as the diegesis focused further and further on the bizarre woman Barbara who the father attempts to blackmail in order to buy his daughter a magical girl outfit. The plot which had sounded so goofy at first vacillated between implied sexual abuse, the corruptions of the spanish government, mental illness and prostitution. We left the theater feeling stunned and a bit trampled. 

To cure ourselves we went to Spaland, my favorite place in Busan, where we ate lunch at the spa restuarant, nearly fell asleep in the relaxtion rooms, soaked in the baths and received full body scrubs from professional ajummas in black lace lingerie. It was my first time getting the full body scrub and it. was. great. It was like getting a massage except at the same time I could see beads of dead skin rolling off of my body in great swirls. I can't tell if my skin is more glowing now, but it does feel marvelously smooth. After our scrubs we rinsed once again and parted ways.

The rest of this week has been wonderfully restful. On Monday I visited my old school in Gumi. I had a kalguksu lunch with Jung Nam Suk and my ajumma friends, practiced my Korean and gossiped over coffee. That evening I went back to Daegu for my first NKD meeting of the semester. Wednesday was Club Day for our school so I joined my coteacher, Hyeon Young, and her club class to make choco muffins. I worked with the third graders who were very silly. We ended the afternoon at Beomeo Library where I found a really wonderful collection of English books. I don't have a library card yet, but I sat down that afternoon and, with no classes Thursday or Friday, read The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. Looking forward to visiting that place much more often in the future. 

TAKE 2

Back in Korea I’ve moved into a new apartment and will start my teaching duties today. It’s been extremely busy since arriving in Korea, staying at Jungwon University to meet the new ETAs and yesterday traveling to Daegu with my co-teacher and principal. Just dashing out a quick note to say I’m back. I renewed my Fulbright grant at Dong-do Middle School, a highly ranked middle school in Daegu. Moving into a new apartment is harder than I remembered. Shopping on my own after getting the apartment code I was overwhelmed by the number of things needed to set up a life: bedding, dishes, cooking utensils (so many!). I didn’t even buy food in the end because I had exhausted myself agonizing over frying pans and the high prices of cotton bed sheets. 

Trials of living alone aside I have felt and feel almost ecstatic to be back in Korea and especially to be back in Korea with these people. This weekend I was so impressed and warmed by my class of renewees and the new ETAs. I was reminded in Goesan (the small town where orientation takes place) how breathtaking Korea is. It has been a raining, misty kind of week here. Monsoon season is supposed to be over, but no one told the weather. Walking outside the university we could watch as moisture seeped up from the ground and met the wetness in the sky. We watched the clouds get caught in the cups of mountains, lingering and growing to cover the entire valley in fog. Coming to Daegu, about a two and a half hour drive, we drove through three separate rain clouds, each one lasting only a few minutes. My co-teacher and principal both seem like kind people. On the way back we stopped at a roadside stand to by steamed corn, famous in the area. I am filled with the feeling that I am in the place where I should be.

MILESTONES: ONE MONTH IN GUMI

I just read a blog post by my good friend Anna who is now studying yoga in Mysore, India. We both studied English Lit at Hendrix, but we also both needed a second major to round out our interests. Anna is an amazing writer and I would encourage anyone interested in India or travel in general to read her blog, balancing the world. Her meditations on life in Mysore capture the sounds and smells of that specific place, but also the general feeling of traveling. Living in a foreign country one can feel frustrated or lost — always on the cusp of inclusion but never included, always listening but lacking understanding. I've heard other Fulbrighters mention this feeling as well, a kind of malaise of communication. I myself have been lucky in that my family and the teachers at my school speak English admirably well.

This last week and a half I have felt more included than ever before: I visited my co-teacher's home and played with her 3 adorable children, brought home Baskin Robins and ate it with my host family to celebrate my first month in Gumi, met up with a Fulbright friend for coffee and gossip, and attended orientation for mentoring a North Korean Defector. It's been a very busy time as my relationships here begin to blossom.

My co-teacher's daughter and harmonica.

The first time I met my co-teacher she told me "Not all days will be good, but every day I will be with you." At the time it was highly reassuring and now, a month later, I know that she meant it. We share an office together at school, taking coffee breaks between our classes. We've also been taking walks behind the school when we find the time, but going to meet her family was a new step. My co-teacher has a daughter who is ten in Korean age (8 in American age) and two twin girls who are 2 in Korean age (20 months in American age). Since my co-teacher and her husband both work her mother stays with them during the week to take care of the twins. The twins talk to each other in a secret whistling language no one else can understand. One twin is a little stronger and more confident. She tries to take my earrings. The other twin is a little smaller, a little warier. She cries when her grandma is far away. Yet she's also musical, always burbling in her strange language and tapping her feet. Their older sister is in elementary school but seems older, acquiring some maturity from caring for her sisters. She loves swimming and riding her bike. I stayed overnight and hope to go back again soon.

Afogato: vanilla ice cream, rolled in almond slivers, smothered in an espresso shot.

Last weekend marked an important date — the anniversary of my first month in Gumi. I had hoped to get out a bit and hike Geumo Mountain. However, it stormed most of the weekend ruining my outdoors plans. Instead, on Saturday I took a train to the nearby Gyeongsan to visit my friend Sophia. I ended up meeting her host family then going out for coffee/desserts. We meant to do work while drinking coffee (in fact I meant to catch up on blogging) but instead we talked the whole time filling each other in on our own situation in Korea and those of our friends. It left me refreshed and ready to tackle the rest of the week before Chuseok.

Sunday I ventured into Daegu for the North Korean Defector volunteer orientation. A North Korean Defector is (according to the South Korean Government) someone who has left North Korea, but still has some tie there such as an occupation, a home, a family and does not have any other citizenship. According to South Korea's Ministry of Unification, since 2008 almost 3,000 people defected to South Korea each year, the majority of them women. This number has fallen to almost half in 2012 most likely due to the death of Kim Jong-il resulting in stricter border control (to be clear, this is secondhand information from my orientation coordinator at the Hana Center).

Since arriving in Korea I have attended several talks about North Korean defectors (during and after Fulbright orientation). What motivated me to volunteer, though there are so many reasons to do so, was that on top of all the practical difficulties of arriving in South Korea from the North, these people often face exploitation along the way. There are several routes to get to the South, but the most commonly used route is by foot and bus through China, then a combination of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia into Thailand. Once in Thailand the defector goes to the South Korean Embassy and announces that she is a North Korean defector. Then she is kept in custody of the Embassy until paperwork is finished at which point she is sent on a plane to South Korea. In South Korea she is immediately picked up by South Korean intelligence officials and thoroughly interviewed — both to gain information and to ascertain that she is not a spy.

However, for many women this path ends, or takes a long detour, in Northern China where many women become subject to sex trafficking or forced marriages due to the imbalance of the sexes in this area. This also means many women arriving in South Korea arrive with half-Chinese children whose status' are particularly difficult to ascertain.

Our role as volunteers will be to act as mentor and English tutor for the defectors now living in Daegu. Each teacher will be assigned a mentee to meet with once a week for English lessons. However, on top of these English lessons we are encouraged to meet outside of 'class' time and have fun as a way of promoting cultural exchange. There will also be a fun group event each month that we are strongly encouraged to attend. Though it will be difficult for me to meet too often due to the commute time to Daegu I still hope I will have the opportunity to get to know my mentee and make her feel a bit more comfortable in her new home.

On my way home, feeling pleased with myself for successfully taking the train to Daegu, I picked up a pint of Baskin Robins for the family. (Baskin Robins is wildly popular here.) Seeing their happily surprised faces was great, but eating mint chip and quarterback crunch together was even better.

LOSING MYSELF IN DAEGU (대구)

Last weekend I traveled from my home in Gumi to the nearby city of Daegu for some much needed time with friends and American food. All the cities in Korea have unique (sometimes odd) English slogans and this weekend "Colorful Daegu" was celebrating its name with an international body painting festival. My friend Jina and I planned to meet around mid-morning, grab an American brunch, then go to the festival until about 7 or 8 in the evening. Unfortunately Saturday turned out to be one of those days when everything goes wrong.

From Gumi to Daegu it is only 30 or 40 minutes by train or an hour by bus. I had planned to take the train, but as I barely caught the bus to the train station I got a text from a friend saying there were no trains to Daegu because of a crash at the station. As the day unfolded I learned that a KTX train (Korea's fastest, going around 300km/hr) had crashed into a slower train somewhere between Gumi and Daegu. I doubled back to the bus station and quickly bought a ticket for Dong Daegu where I hoped Jina was also arriving. The station was a madhouse because of the crash and I just barely managed to grab a seat on the bus. From Gumi to Daegu the aisle was stuffed full of standing people. In fact I was glad I made it on the bus at all.

Arriving in Daegu went smoothly and Jina and I were able to find each other with little trouble. For the last two weeks I hadn't seen or really spoken to anyone from orientation beyond the odd Kakao, so meeting Jina was cathartic. There are some things you can only say to people you know well. There are some things you can only vent about when you've already crossed that bridge with someone. We both had a lot to say about homestays and teaching. It's good to hear, not just what is similar, but what is wildly different about our experiences. It gives us some scaffolding, some perspective to hang on to when our own lives are so new.

Meeting up also gave us an opportunity to indulge. Jina was craving bacon and I was starting to dream about french toast so we caught a cab downtown in order to find JJ's Bar and Grill, a notoriously delicious brunch spot for foreigners. Once downtown we knew we were close. However, between the two of us I'm pretty good at maps, but pretty bad at Korean, whereas Jina is quite good at Korean, but not the best at maps. So we took a nice long walk before finally reaching JJ's — only to find that it was closed. We stood in front of the sign that said "JJ's Brunch 11-4 Sat and Sun" and shook the doors, but what can you do? We stopped into a little cafe, had a bit of a cry, used the toilet, and googled brunch spots in Daegu on our phones. I found a pretty hip looking cafe called Hany's that was supposed to be only a few blocks away. We walked there and it was as artsy as promised, but also closed.

At this point we gave up and went to a restaurant unambiguously called "Burgers and Pasta." The place had sliding glass doors opening out onto the wide shopping street and about five waiters. We were the only people there. But the best part was that "Burgers and Pasta" turned out to have brunch. It was like that saying, "Stop looking for love and love will find you," except it was "Stop looking for brunch and brunch will find you."

Pleasantly full, we did some wandering, some light shopping and slowly caught a taxi to Duryu Park where the festival was taking place.

The park was sprawling with twisty pine trees, hordes of food booths and picnickers. I want to go back and just lie in the shade on a lazy weekend. We explored a bit, ran into a few other ETAs and then watched the show. The festival had two parts — costume design and literal body painting. The costumes were first and were stunning in a gaudy, sci-fi kind of way. I liked the second half better. With the body painting you could really see how the paintings moved with and and around the model's muscles, like a new way of mapping out the body or some kind of optical illusion. It was the familiar shape of the human body made unfamiliar. Each time a model walked onto the stage I found myself straining to differentiate the body in paint from the picture itself.

After the show there was music and we ended up staying much longer than we meant to. I found myself reluctant to leave my friend's company and head home. The nights have been getting chillier now as the sun sets, just cold enough that you long to be out of the wind and to hold a hot drink in your hands. But we had buses to catch, host families to return to, and we went our separate ways.

I returned to the bus station feeling a little rushed, a little nervous. I wanted to get back to my host family and rest. I had gotten careless though. Usually I am a meticulous traveler, but I was feeling comfortable in Korea. I hadn't double checked the last bus times and when I got to the station I discovered the last bus was not at 9:30 as I thought but at 8:30. I had missed it by half an hour.

I texted my host mom and hurried over to the train station, thankfully within sight of the bus stop. There's nothing like losing your means of transportation to leave you feeling exposed. It's almost like a herd instinct, I wanted to have someone with me, or a hole to hide in. I felt then that everyone knew I was alone. My pessimistic side was confirmed when the clerk told me there were no trains to Gumi.

I walked back to the bus station once more and called my host mom. I told her I couldn't come back to Gumi, that I would call a friend and stay overnight. My eyes were crying a little bit and I hurried to walk it off, to look in control. It was at this point my phone told me it was running on only 7% battery. I've traveled a fair amount, but always with friends. Being in Daegu without a friend or phone would be the most alone I have ever been in my life. I didn't realize before how much my sense of safety everyday comes from having a place to return to and the confidence that I can get there. I was still fighting back tears when I called my friend Nic, a second year ETA who I knew was visiting friends in Daegu today. He was still in Daegu and told me how to reach them. I managed — with my phone still clinging to life — but not before I took the wrong bus, traveled 30 minutes into a dimly lit suburb and had to take a taxi all the way back. To know that I was safe, that this was not the weekend I would sleep on the streets of Daegu was such a relief. I'm grateful to have such support and friendship from all the ETAs here and to know, no matter where I am, there is someone I can call on. On the other hand, I'm going to stay put in Gumi this weekend, and the next time I travel, I will treat the Korean transit system with the proper respect and circumspection.