Everything in Korea is great. Wonderful. Beautiful. Exotic. Temples and mountains on every corner. Cherry blossoms. Spicy food and tasty rice doughnuts. Strawberries are in season. There isn't any snow and I can wear shorts without looking like a crazy person.
I still managed to have a horrible day.
I really did not want to write negative things in my blog, but I also do not want to write a blog that's completely biased and rosy-hence the inclusion and discussion of corporal punishment. There are a few things that are driving me crazy and I'm hoping that someone reading will have some kind words or advice.
1)
I'm studying Hangul every night and I feels like it's getting me nowhere.For example, today I caught the early bus to work because one of my co-workers had informed me that there is a Starbucks(which is like the Holy Grail in coffee free Korea) on a street near my school. I started to cross the street in the direction of Starbucks, when a thirty-something-Korean lady grabbed my arm and starting hollaring at me in Hangul. She was talking to fast for me to be able to understand what she was saying. Next she grabbed my hand, held onto it, and walked/frogmarched me to school.
I felt like a petulant child.
While this was happening I desperately tried to explain to her that I was not lost, that I had no idea who she was, and that I needed her to let me go so I could get my hands on some much needed caffeine. By this time I was so uncomfortable, panicked, and uneasy that I could only remember the most basic Hangul. I was basically repeating the following phrases
"Ka-saw-me-da, anyong has say young, pungo set me, coffee!"
Which is the phonetic Korean spelling of "Help! Hello! Thank You! Coffee!". She clearly thought I was crazy. When we arrived to the class that I normally teach(forty minutes early), this woman then told my co-teacher(who speaks decent English) that I had almost gotten lost, that she had saved the day by catching me just in time, and that I might be sick because I had been repeating the word help. She hadn't realized that I was going to get coffee and that I had zero problem navigating my way to the school.
She also turned out to be a parent of one of the children I teach.
My co-teacher got a huge kick out of the whole situation, but I have yet to be able to laugh. This inability to communicate is so frustrating, and it's doubly frustrating because I have no one to blame but myself. I'm the one from away so I can't be angry with someone for not understanding me. This woman thought she was being a hero and it was my inability to learn fast enough that made for a coffeeless cranky morning. So how does one learn faster? I mean I'm already putting two hours in a day while the other ESL teachers I hang out with spend that time hanging out and having fun. I'm really struggling with this language-it has no relationships whatsoever to Normandic or Romantic languages. It's entirely new set of vowels, sounds, and shapes and I'm really beginning to doubt my ability to become fluent in a single year. Language tapes, rather than books might help-but how I can explain that to a non-english speaking sales clerk?? I feel like I'm caught in a vicous circle.
2)
Public SmokingI'm used to gruesome images on ciggerette labels, anti-smoking laws that reign supreme, and a general anti-smoking attitiude. And yet in Korea people can smoke everywhere and anywhere. In resteraunts, bars, cars, buses, and even in a certain part of the plane on the Korean national airline. A pack of ciggerettes only costs 1.50$ Canadian in Korea and smoking is rampant. My problem is not with the smoking so much as the fact that there is no enforced age limit on buying ciggerettes. In my school cafeteria today eight-year-old boys were smoking...and no one blinked an eye. Would teaching an anti-smoking English lesson be falling into the realm of "holier than thou" Western teacher who's trying to enforce her personal beliefs onto others? Or I can have an anti-smoking themed lesson..I mean facts are facts, it's not really me shoving a personal belief their way...right?
3)
I get stared at constantly. I get approached by stange men constantly. I have random strangers tell me very specific and rude things about my appearance. At my first meal with my principal, who in Korea is revered as a God at the top of a long list of Gods, he commented on what a pretty girl I was. I replied with a modest "Thank you". He then told me that it was "Too bad about the big nose and big hips but no one can have everything".
I really didn't know what to say to this.. so again I went with a simple "Thank you". My students do the same thing.They're constantly telling me that I'm pretty but that I should have a nose job or get my teeth straightened. It doesn't really concern me much when it's my superiors at work or my students. I know that the words are coming from a culture that places a high value on beauty and scrutinizes it very closely. I also have enough self esteem that said words don't mean anything.
I worry when the comments come from strange men on the subway. I worry when it comes from men in the elevators of my apartment building. I especially worry when it happens on the street. Obviously, I'm careful and I travel in groups at night, but I'm surprised and shocked by the aggressiveness of the men and the things that they say. Being white means that you stand out. At times I feel like a target. My Korean co-teacher says that the men in Korea didn't do it to women until the American occupation of Korea during the Korean war. She says that the American influence is huge, and that the large number of American soldiers in Seoul(which is near the DMZ) means that this attitude will probably remain. She argues that this verbal and sexual aggressiveness is a learnt behavior, and that venturing into the area surrounding the American base in Seoul would be far more dangerous.
She's right. Korea has one of the lowest rates of physical sexual assualt in the world(I had some free time today so I did some research), while Itawon the American base in Seoul had had numerous issues revolving around sexual assualt to women in the last few months alone. All of this is hard to take...to me it seems possible that the low rate of sexual assualt might have something more to do with the frequency women in Korea would be reporting these crimes? This is a country where women live with their parents until they marry and where arranged marriages still happen quite frequently. Would a woman here report a sexual assualt? Could the low numbers be bogus? ..and can verbal aggressiveness be caught like a bad flu from one culture to another? Or is my Korean co-teacher just feeling anti-American? She's mentioned before that she resents the American presence in Seoul. All interesting things to consider.
Anyway these are a few frustrations and when I write them I'm not trying to show what an awful country Korea is or anything like that. There are good days and bad days everywhere and both types of days are probably exaggerated when living in a country where no one speaks your language. The frustrations are things that I'm almost grateful for because they make the experience more authentic in some ways, and more challenging and exciting. So please do not to read this and think that I'm complaining-it's more like exploring the reasons behing my frustrations.
If anyone has any ideas about how to handle these frustrations or has an opinion on anything I said please e-mail or facebook me. I'm curious to hear some other perspectives.
