6000 vertical feet later...

--Coming soon--  Heather and Scott's Chuseok adventure:  into the mountains, authentic bath-houses, going north of the 38th and stealth shots of North Korea (through coin operated binoculars).

Orientation

Hongcheon in relation to all of South Korea.

Hongcheon up close.

(It's about 3/4 of a mile between the two apts.)

I hope these maps give you a better idea of where the heck we're living these days! :-)

Happy Birthday Scott!

Yesterday was Scott's 32... err... 23th birthday. For his birthday,

he decided that he wanted to be 9 years older.

Luckily for him, in Korea, babies are born one year old,

making him 24 in Korean years!

Snapshots of Seoul & the Korean Folk Village

Zoom

Rice paddies in a farm surrounding Seoul.

Jultagi (줄타기), or Korean traditional tight rope walking.

Powered paragliders flying over a lake in Chuncheon.

Broad Strokes

It has been nearly four weeks since we’ve left for Korea and already so much has happened! Korea is such a culturally rich and interesting place. I hardly know where to begin in describing what my life is like here. Scott and I spent the first week in Seoul at a national EPIK orientation. For those of you who do not already know, EPIK stands for English Program in Korea. EPIK hires for Korean public schools, unlike its private school counterpart: the hagwon. Scott and I chose to apply for EPIK because, whereas hagwons tend to be profit-driven, public schools place the emphasis on the students themselves. During our 9 day orientation, we spent time learning about teaching English, Korean culture, and of course the language itself! We also enjoyed presentations from guest speakers and went on a cultural field trip to a traditional Korean village. We saw several performances including music, dance, and traditional tight-rope walking. Surprisingly, we were ushered into a separate building after all of the performances on our field trip to learn to dance and play the drums ourselves. Needless to say, it was a really unique experience! After a week of preparation, we loaded our baggage onto buses and left for our separate assignments all over Korea. For us, the bus stopped in the small, picturesque town of Hongcheon in Gangwon province.

LOCATION

Hongcheon is about 1.5 hours outside of Seoul in a verdant and mountainous region of northwestern Korea. For Coloradans --- when I say “mountains,” think Appalachians, not Rockies. As we drove down the highway, we would pass row after row of them, with scattered farms and small towns about. Hongcheon is framed by several tree-lined ridges and is divided by a fairly sizeable river. Aside from row after row of high-rise apartment buildings, the town feels relatively “rural” – at least by Korean standards. Our co-teachers told us that Hongcheon has a population of roughly 75,000. It has no university, so its demographics are predominantly either very young or very old. My apartment is on the outskirts of town next to a farm and the foothills. One day, we decided to cross the road and explore a small path leading through the farm and into the forest. We discovered an incredible network of trails along the ridges that led for at least a few kilometers into the countryside!

The closest city to us is about 30 minutes away, called Chuncheon. From what I hear, the shopping and nightlife is much better there, but neither of those appeals to either of us as much as the serenity and simplicity of Hongcheon. When Koreans go out, they often visit their local “noraebang”—or singing room for karaoke. You can rent a private room with your friends and sing all evening over a few bottles of soju (the local spirit), beer, or juice, depending on your tastes. The week that we arrived in Hongcheon, the 2010 World Leisure Games just happened to be taking place in Chuncheon, which had among many other events: paragliding, powered paragliding, speed flying, slacklining and “aggressive rollerblading.” We were able to visit the flight park on Mt. Daeryong later in the evening after our school event had finished. Some competition pilots were gearing up for a sunset launch. We watched them take off and soar along the ridge above Chuncheon. Words cannot describe how gorgeous it was up there!

FOOD

After about one week in Korea, I realized that I was going to have to become a “closet vegetarian.” EPIK had warned vegetarians on the application that it would be difficult to find meat-free cuisines, but you cannot truly appreciate how difficult it is until you arrive. The Korean diet consists of meat (chicken, pork, beef, and fish) in virtually everything – soups, stir fries, sauces, and salads. One of the main social events for friends and co-workers alike involves attending a Korean-style barbecue (“gogi” = meat, “sogogi” – beef, “twaejigogi” – pork, “tagogi” – chicken, etc.) where you sit on the floor (usually on a cushion) around a large table with a grill and a hose hanging from the ceiling that sucks up the smoke. The waitress lights the grill underneath the table and places raw meat and vegetables on top that have been marinated in a sauce with garlic, onion, and/or SPICY red pepper. She places a spatula next to the grill, so that customers can cook their meat and offer it to the other guests at the table. In addition to the meat cooking in the center, she brings out several side dishes including lettuce leaves, spicy peppers, pumpkin and a variety of sauces. When the meat has finished cooking, you can either eat it alone (with chopsticks, of course!) or make a small wrap using the lettuce leaves and other toppings. A soup is also served with the meal --- it’s usually a plain cabbage soup. After you’ve had your fill of meat, you can request the final course: either a cup of rice or a bowl of noodles. Each time I’ve gone any sort of group barbeque, they have always served the rice after I had finished eating everything else.

At formal Korean barbecue dinners, much emphasis is placed on properly pouring drinks during the meal. If you are in the presence of elders or any persons of higher status, it is customary to offer to pour their drink whenever it is empty. Likewise, if you are offered a drink by a person of higher status, you must hold your glass in the air in your right hand while you grasp your forearm with your other hand, all with your head slightly bowed. Everyone watches you to make sure you are doing this correctly and, in the case that you are not, you are swiftly informed of your error!

Besides barbecues, other typical meals include squid, dried fish, cold soups and, of course, kimchi! Kimchi is easily Korea’s national food – it consists of fermented cabbage that has been stored in hermetically-sealed pots for several weeks to acquire the precise flavor that makes it the hit that it is. It is often marinated in a red chili sauce, like many of the other dishes and is almost ALWAYS included in every meal. In fact, when some Koreans go abroad, they grow restless after being without kimchi for just a few days.

CULTURE

If I had to describe Korea’s culture in just three words, it would probably be: generous, hierarchical, and industrious. Words that also come to mind include polite, discreet, and at the same time very open about their personal lives. One of the first things that you, as a visitor, will notice is how incredibly hospitable just about everyone is. When we arrived in our home town, we could not speak the language and we did not have cell phones, the internet, national ID cards, or just about anything. Our co-teachers, our co-teachers’ friends, and even random strangers went way out of their way to set things up for us, show us around, shuttle us around to various offices and stores, and give us language/logistical support during our whole transition. Additionally, they all took us out to dinner afterwards and refused to allow us to pay for a cent after all of the hard work they did to get us settled in earlier in the day. In contrast to my previous experiences living abroad, this came as a huge and pleasant surprise!

A second thing that you, as a visitor, would notice immediately upon arriving in Korea is the hierarchical nature of every interaction. The Korean language is said to be more about affirming one’s place in the social hierarchy than it is to efficiently communicate. For example, there are three different ways of asking someone’s age: one for asking a child, one for asking an adult who is near the same age as you or younger, and one for asking an elder or a colleague with higher status. I checked my phrasebook and the sentences don’t even resemble each other! (Scott and I are slowly starting to pick up the language ourselves – we learned how to read the Hangul alphabet in the first week and have been taking EPIK-sponsored language classes ever since after school three times a week.) Beyond language, the hierarchy can be observed in more concrete ways. The seniors always get served first at meals and, in the office, a person’s status can be determined by the size of their desk and the quality of the equipment and furniture. Koreans will often ask a newcomer seemingly personal questions like how old they are, how much money they make, and how experienced they are at what they do. To an American, this might seem rude or inappropriate. However, Koreans do not feel comfortable interacting with someone new, especially a foreigner, unless they can mentally place them on the social pyramid so that they know how to greet and interact with them.  I am still trying to get used to walking down the halls and having students come up and bow to me!

A third thing that you, as a visitor, will notice immediately upon arriving in Korea is how incredibly hardworking everyone is! The students start school between 8:30 and 9:00 am. They usually stay at school to learn and study until 9:00 pm. If they live in the city, they might need to go to Hagwon (private school) after finishing the day at their public school, which means that they do not finish until the next day in the early morning. My co-teacher told me that she used to start high school at 8:00 am and did not finish Hagwon until 1:00 am every day. This left just 7 hours outside of school for her to rest and prepare for the next day. (Jason – that leaves barely enough time to play video games!! The kids also have a period just for cleaning the school, like dusting, mopping, and cleaning the bathrooms. Bet you feel lucky you don't have to do that at your school!) Professionals have a similar schedule, working long days and then taking a sizeable amount of work to complete at home.

SCHOOL

I teach at 3 different schools: Yangdoek Middle School (Grades 1-3), Yangdoek High School (Grades 1-3), and Sokcho Elementary School (Grades 1-2 & 5-6). In other words, I teach every grade from elementary school through high school except for Grades 3-4 Elementary. What does this mean? Lots of lesson planning, of course—about 8 lesson plans per week!! However, it gives me a chance to compare and contrast different age groups and English ability level. Surprisingly, I have elementary classes that speak more fluently than some of the high school classes. Each class has its own unique personality, strengths, and weaknesses. With 417 students total to teach every week, the challenge has been adapting my lesson plans to suit the individual needs of each class and student. Scott and I both teach with Korean co-teachers in every class; however, our freedom to create our own lesson plans and execute them varies. My teachers have essentially given me the go-ahead to do whatever I’d like, as long as it’s interesting for the students and educational at the same time.

I work from 8 am to 5 pm from Monday thru Friday. The commute varies from between 15 minutes by car to over an hour of walking and riding buses. I have my own desk and computer at all of my schools, which makes lesson planning a lot easier. The first couple of weeks, I expect to be taking a lot of work home. I hope that, over time, I can develop a routine so that I can get everything done at work, in addition to actively teaching 22 hours per week. We heard at our orientation that the ability levels of students in rural areas tends to be much lower than those in Seoul, Busan, and other metropolitan areas, and I have found that to be consistent with what I have observed so far. One of my main goals is to get students to form sentences independently – they have large English vocabularies but they don’t yet know how to piece it all together. My class sizes range from over 30 students per class (not grade) in high school to 2 students in my entire second grade. They are all pretty adorable and enthusiastic about learning, which makes my job a lot easier!

ADVENTURE

Next week, Scott and I will get the week off for Chusok, or the Harvest Moon Festival. We are considering going to the beach in Sokcho or Seoraksan National Park, which has the best hiking and climbing in Korea. We also have a few local crags, such as Yunghasan near Chuncheon – the closest sizeable city to us. Other considerations for future trips include Japan, which is only a short ferry ride away from Busan, and other parts of surrounding Asia such as Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, etc. For the first half of the year, at least, Korea has enough to keep us more than happy! We are excited to explore its mountains, valleys, rivers, waterfalls, and all of the beauty it has to offer.

So those are the broad strokes of our experiences so far in Korea! In the coming entries, I will probably focus in on the details of (not so)-everyday-life in Korea. If I mentioned something that seemed particularly interesting to you, let me know and I will gladly elaborate!

Thank you for reading our blog and please continue to visit often for updates! :-)

Korea!

We are finally in Korea! Over the last several months, Heather and I have been planning and preparing to go to South Korea to teach English as a Foreign Language. It took a while to get all the necessary paperwork together, and the embassies and recruiter were kind of difficult to work with, but after putting in all the work, it is nice to finally be here knowing that it was all worth it.

Korea is a very interesting place. I didn't have many ideas of what Korea would be like prior to getting here, probably because there isn't a strong presence of Korean culture in Colorado. California has a bit more, but there is a great difference between the presence of American culture in Korea and the presence of Korean culture in America. Once I got here, I realized that they have adopted so much of American culture here, that it is almost the same. I like to think of it with the following metaphor: Korea is like someone took a small but very populated part of America, turned it over, shook out all of the people, sprinkled some nicer, more pleasant people, replaced all the signs with signs in the Korean language, and then called it Korea. Seoul is literally like a big New York City, with more nice people, with less crime, and with greater cleanliness and population. It was very fun to explore Seoul for a week before coming to our new hometown, Hongcheon.

Hongcheon is a small town of about 50,000 people right on a river in the Gangwon province (Gangwon is like the Colorado of Korea: highest percentage of mountains and national parks with the lowest percentage of people). It is great here. Just last night Heather discovered an awesome network of trails behind her apartment that go up into the mountains. We are very excited to explore there. There is also a lot of local paragliding and rock climbing, so we are right at home!

My daily routine is pretty simple so far. I just bought a bicycle for 50,000 won (about 40 dollars, though it is currently broken) so the commute is a bit shorter, but if I don't have a ride to school from one of the other teachers (carpooling is really popular here), I can ride my bike to the bus station and take the bus for between 20-50 minutes to get to one of the schools I teach at. Because it is so rural here, instead of having one central school with lots of students (in which some would have to travel a long ways to get to), instead there are several smaller schools with fewer students. As such, I teach at 4 different schools throughout the week. Hwachon Middle School (my main school) for 2 days per week (there are 34 students here), Naechon Middle School for one day per week, Pallyeol Middle School and Pallyeol High School for 2 days per week. If I had a car, it would only be a 25 minute drive to the furthest one, Pallyeol High School, but taking the bus is a little slower. I am certainly excited to be working at all of these schools though, as the students are all so different and in some they are very eager to learn English!

Teaching English as a foreign language is a little difficult to do effectively, but it is a very necessary thing in the schools in Korea. Recently (in the last 10-20 years) there has been an epidemic of English Fever, which is very detrimental to the stability of Korean society. As Korea has grown from a very 3rd world country (it had an economy the same size as Ghana right after World War II) to what it is today (13th largest economy in the world, and bigger economy than all of Africa, excluding South Africa), the demand for English skills has increased tremendously. It is so important in Korea, that if you are Korean fluent in English, you will generally earn $20,000 more per year than you would if you were not fluent.

Families who are well off can afford to send their students to private English academies to learn English for 4 or more hours a day, and these students excel quickly. But as it is a foreign language to them, the students are not fully immersed in a native English setting. Recognizing this, some parents are able to send their children to the US or Canada to study for a year or two and the students come back being very very proficient in English. This transforms English as a foreign language into English as a second language, or as I call it, English as a survival language. This has created a large gap in the English levels of children in rich families and poor families (most of the families in my province are poor, compared to the families in Seoul and the other big cities). These students can't go to private academies, or travel to Canada to study for a year. But they still need that native English instruction in order for them to have the same opportunities as those in the upper class.

The Korean government has put great emphasis in this, and is funding all these English programs, such as EPIK, the English Program in Korea, under which I am a teacher. We teach in the public schools and give the public school students the same or close to the same opportunities to learn English and prepare them for their professional lives. It is good that the government recognizes this problem and has done something to act on it, because from what I have observed so far, Korea has become so successful by collaboration, not competition. It seems that this competition to learn English is starting to tear parts of the country apart, and who knows what might happen because of it.

Anyway, our jobs are very important, but also very difficult. When I was learning Spanish in High School, I actually retained very little from the class. In a whole year I learned only a fraction of the language and its application. However, when I was finally able to travel to Spanish-speaking countries, I learned at light-speed. Being in Ecuador this year I definitely saw incredible growth in my Spanish skills. For my students, they probably won't have an opportunity in the near future to travel to an English speaking country, so they will probably have the low retention level that we all have when learning a foreign language. If I am able to give the students a more realistic "Second Language" experience, then maybe they will be able to learn faster and retain more. But that is the goal for now, time will tell if it is attainable at all in the next year.

Thanks for reading!

-Scott