Creepy Crawly Critters!

Aisha, Rianna, and I met up with my host parents later this afternoon, for a drive out to one of Korea’s west-coast beaches, Anmyeon. Unfortunately, as we drove along winding roads westward, the sun which had been blazingly bright earlier in the afternoon, all but disappeared behind a thick wall of clouds. But the visual effect as we viewed the waterfront was quite beautiful, like a pale pastel watercolor, water and sky blending into one another with such subtlety that it was nearly impossible to distinguish the ending of one and the beginning of the other. We walked along the brown beachfront, tiptoeing around tiny hermit crabs scurrying into pencil-thin holes in the sand. The chilly grayish waves rolled over our feet, and the cool breeze blowing in off the coast reminded us that the height of summer was yet a ways away. Limestone crags towered several meters away, and gulls circled above, as if keeping their distance from the milling visitors.
Aisha managed to convince her father to buy her a little snack from the street vendor as we had entered the beachfront. I couldn’t tell at first glance what she was so excited about eating, but it was apparent that she and Rianna found it quite tasty, as they passed the little Styrofoam cup back and forth, taking turns with their toothpicks. Now, I’ve long touted my open-door policy when it comes to eating new foods: I consider myself an open-minded person, willing to take risks, including those of the culinary kind. So, my rule of thumb is this: I will try anything once. Seconds are entirely contingent on personal preference, but that first sampling is more or less obligatory. It’s my pride that eggs me on, I suppose.So when I peered inside the cup at tiny half-moon shaped somethings, about the size of a fingernail, and flanked with deep grooves, I could take a wild stab that this was some kind of six-legged creature. Aisha held the cup out to me, and I could feel my mind work itself into a kind of violent disgust at the proposition of actually eating one of those little creatures. But I managed to talk myself into taking a bite. Chew. Grimace. Chew some more. Contemplate where to spit said creature out. Try not to think about the fact that an actual worm is inside my mouth at this very moment. Swallow. Wish for a cup of water, anything to rinse away the aftertaste of worm. Smile. And that concluded my adventures with roasted silkworm larvae. Trust me, it’s not an experience I intend to replicate any time soon…
After driving home from the beach, we stopped at a “Chinese” restaurant. I love the way that food as you know it suddenly takes on a drastic facelift when in another country. Normal Chinese food for your average Korean would be just as alien in nature were they to sample it at my favorite Asian restaurant back home. We began the meal with a small cup of jasmine tea, which smelled of soft flower petals and tasted like mildly perfumed water. Then Aisha handed me a small dish of noodles mixed with assorted seafood and mushrooms. Most interesting was not the texture but appearance of the cooked jellyfish, which was so transparent that it seemed nearly invisible as I trapped it in my chopsticks. Sweet and sour pork followed, probably the most typical dish on the table by Western standards. And just when I felt my belly would absolutely burst, our waitress brought one more round of dishes, some time of Korean-Chinese creation, akin to spaghetti, but thick with a black, slightly sweet sauce. Even for me, lover of all things foreign, today almost put me over the edge. I think tomorrow I can safely take it down a notch or two.
Back at home, the girls, Mom, and I perused photos of my family back home, and some of our trips together, including Jamestown, Boston, and Martha’s Vineyard. Conversation turned to traveling, and Rianna confessed that going to Europe was something she had long wanted to do. I popped out my bulging collection of photos from my Round-the-World 2006 tour of Europe and Morocco, and we spent the next hour and a half sighing over the beauty of Italy’s Lake Como district, the French Riviera, Morocco’s white-and-blue washed mountain town of Chefchouen, and some of Eastern Europe’s gems, Tallin, Prague, and Warsawa. Seeing these photos again brought intimately back to mind so many delicious memories from my travels, and a thick cloud of nostalgia enveloped me. I could sense in Rianna the same dreamer’s heart that led me to such faraway places.“This is why my mother wants me to study English,” she told me.“Yes,” I replied, “so the world can be yours.”“You’ve changed my life,” Rianna spoke again. At first, I thought her words filled with drama. But as she continued, I could sense the genuine nature of her words. “Before, I thought learning English was just work, to make my parents happy, to get into a good school, to have a future. But now that I have seen these photos, I know that speaking English well is what will allow me to see the world. I know now what I am going to do. I will study, study, study so that I can learn English well. And I will travel all over the world, just like you.”Her comments, so honest and tinged with the fire of determination, burned through me, and I saw myself years before, heady with dreams and hopeful that I could find a way to make them come to life. The path hasn’t been easy to find, and certainly has led me in some incredibly unusual directions. But 31 countries and many years later, I am here, sitting on a leather sofa in middle-class South Korea, shaping the future for this young woman who, I only hope, will hold onto her dreams and allow herself to go as far as her heart desires.

A Day on the Town

Well, I’m fired for not taking photos of the million and one new Korean foods I’ve tried today. My stomach is bursting and about to go on strike entirely. I don’t even know how I’ve managed to get away with consuming some of the things that I have today, without them paying a return visit (i.e. silkworm larvae… are you kidding me?? YES, I actually did swallow it…). Actually, I take that back – I do have a photo of the silkworms.
I spent the afternoon with Rianna, Aisha, and their Korean friend, whom I christened with the English name of Nathan. (He called last night while we were in the middle of a high-stakes round of Yahtzee and asked to speak with me. “You have lunch-ee tomorrow, OK?” he asked. I gathered that he was asking if we could have lunch tomorrow. When I asked his name, I tried to repeat it back, only to evoke serious laughter from the girls. It wasn’t until later that night, while traipsing through Seosan on our night walk, that they told me I had called him, roughly, “Yellow Rice Boy.” Ha ha, joke’s on the English teacher. I better get used to the fact that my Korean pronunciation leaves something to be desired…)
We took some of the backstreets through town to a little Japanese noodle shop for a late lunch. On the way, we passed street scenes that reminded so much of Taiwan – old women sitting cross-legged on the hard cement with little plastic baskets filled with greens picked from the fields, honking cars squeezing down narrow one-lane streets and alleyways, pickup trucks spilling over with radishes and onions, and shop after shop with merchandise spilling out into the sidewalk for passersby to peruse. Lunch was a plate of breaded pork, served atop a spicy layer of cabbage, with a side of pickled daikon radish and cucumber kimchi.
We finished up lunch with a sweet snack at a trendy little place called “Fresh Berry.” I tried not to twist up my face too terribly as I watched Aisha stir together the ice cream, fresh fruit, and black beans (yes, beans!) with crushed ice. It actually wasn’t so bad. Still, I told her, you’re never gonna find black beans on a dessert menu back in the States. Oh well, when in Rome….

A Warm Welcome

I meet my host family at 3:30 AM this morning when I arrive with Harrison on their doorstep. They live in a modern high-rise apartment just a few minutes’ walk from my academy, on the 7th of 15 floors, overlooking the rice paddies and city roads of Seosan. As you enter their home, low-profile teak panels line the receiving room, where shoes line the muted tile floor leading to the main hallway. I push off my Adidas sneakers and step carefully onto the neatly laid wood flooring. Aisha (English name) and her parents receive us graciously and pour a glass of fresh orange juice for Harrison and me, seating us at their dining room table, and engaging us in small-talk as we sip. They are kind, demure, and so hospitable, particularly considering the extremely late hour. My head is erupting with an obscene headache, my cue that I have pushed my body well past exhaustion. I am relieved when they show me to my room, and even more relieved to crawl beneath the covers and surrender to what is left of the night.
Hours later, I meet Harrison outside the apartment, and we drive to pick up the rest of the staff for Friday’s lunch meeting. Minutes later, I receive a warm welcome from Terry (Harrison’s wife, also a teacher at EGA), Sunny, Christine, Tahira, and Maggie (the teacher I will soon be replacing), outside the building that houses my new school, English Genius Academy. I want to both laugh and turn embarrassing shades of red as I view the gargantuan banner Harrison has placed out front of the school, welcoming me to EGA and showcasing my soon-to-be-infamous passport photo, sans smile. After a short drive, we arrive at a traditional Korean restaurant and leave our shoes at the door as we are taken to a large room with a low table lined with woven mats. I follow suit and sit cross-legged on the floor, and take a small ceramic cup into which a brown-tinged liquid has been poured. Unable to distinguish the taste, I ask, and am told that this is “barley water,” made by boiling water (in order to purify it for drinking) with dried barley. What follows is nothing short of an all-out feast, as plate after plate and bowl after bowl is set before the group at the table. We first eat an appetizer of noodles in anchovy broth, and then everyone begins to take a bite here, a portion there, from the communal dishes.
I count five different kinds of kimchi, made with cabbage (traditional), cucumber, daikon radish, some kind of green vegetable, and yet another form I can’t quite recognize. There is beef bulgogi (literally, “fire-meat,” and one of the better-known dishes easily found in almost any Korean restaurant in the U.S.), served with delicate oyster mushrooms. One plate holds green salad with a sweet, milky dressing, and another a spicy pork dish that wins my vote as tastiest at the table. The cellophane noodles carry a deliciously light sesame taste, and I manage to handle my chopsticks more or less efficiently, until I try to secure a mouthful of fish from yet another plate. As we continue eating, our server brings several more rounds of dishes to the table, including a delicate soup made of seaweed, a bowl of rice cooked with black beans, another bowl of a soup made with burnt rice, a plate holding two whole fish, head, fins, tails, and all, and several small vegetable dishes. The final touch is a cup of a strongly flavored, very sweet cinnamon drink, topped with what appear to be pine nuts. We all sigh with that unmistakable sound of complete satisfaction, and thank Harrison for the delicious meal.
Next I am given my tour of the academy, which includes the office area and two classrooms. Harrison bestows me with my very own set of slippers, which I will of course wear inside the school at all times. They are hideous at best, and I chuckle underneath my breath along with Maggie and Christine, who are humored at the sight of my red-and-pink cloth house slippers, complete with a huge bow atop each foot. He tells me that he picked them out himself, happy to find some shoes with my very favorite color. It’s almost too much. But of course, I parade around the school in them for the afternoon, as I am introduced to some of my new students, and sit in on a few classes with Maggie.I manage to squeeze in a nap for several hours, and wake around 8:00 PM to a delicious smell wafting through the house. My host mother has prepared yet another feast, not only for me, but for her younger daughter, who has just returned home for the weekend, from her boarding school north of Seoul. I meet Rianna and easily feel as though I’m at home with these two younger “host sisters” and “mom” and “dad.” Dinner is Vietnamese-style, plates of julienned vegetables and meats, and cellophane rice paper wrappers, and we each assemble our own custom-made spring rolls for rapid consumption. Later I present them with a small gift of American treats – my favorite popcorn (Orville Redenbacher’s Naturals, with Olive Oil and Cracked Pepper, mmmm!), the best U.S. chocolate (IMHO, Hershey’s Symphony Milk Chocolate with Almonds and Toffee), and a board game, Yahtzee, which we then spend the next few hours playing together. The popcorn, interestingly, refuses to pop in their state-of-the-art microwave, so we dissect the bags and pour their contents into a heated wok. The girls erupt with giggles at the sound of the corn popping, while I heave the massive pot up and down on the flame, trying to keep the kernels from scorching. After a few handfuls, the verdict is in: it’s a hit! Mom brings out Korean-style potato chips, Bugles, and diced watermelon, and just when I think I can’t possibly handle any more food in one day, we start in again with after-dinner snacks.Through the screened porch, as we huddle on the living floor around the Yahtzee board, I hear a high-pitched chorus of hiccups, which the girls inform me are frogs chirping from the rice paddies just below us. We decide to take a walk through town to offset our bloated tummies, and so that I can hear the frogs up close, since they can tell I am mesmerized by the sound. The air is damp and cool, and we stride three-deep, arm in arm down the tiled sidewalks of Seosan. It feels so second-nature to be here that I’m half amused at the reality that my family is half a world away. What will this year here hold for me? Only time will tell… But if my first experiences and impressions are any indication, I am in for an incredible journey, shared with wonderful people. Seosan is starting to feel more and more like home.

Smooth Sailing into Seosan

IMG_2906, originally uploaded by mizmoxie.

I am lying on a cotton-quilted bed in my host family’s guest room, trying to convince my body that it really is 10 AM Friday morning, and no longer 9 PM Thursday night. But I can’t blame myself for being a bit confused. It’s been 2½ days now since my last “real” night’s sleep, and 31 hours since leaving my parents’ house now half a world away… With too much left to finish Tuesday night before my flight the next morning, I opted to pull an all-nighter. Plus, I had reasoned, I’ll crash on the plane and rest on Korea’s clock while being catapulted over the Pacific. It could have been that simple, but naturally, getting myself to this firm-yet-comfy little bed on the other side of the world took more than a little doing.
First, I was held at the check-in counter in Harrisburg for the better part of an hour, while the airline agents confirmed that no, they wouldn’t let me board the plane until I had in my hand an onward or return ticket from Korea. Having an E2 visa (good for 1 year) pasted inside my brand spanking new passport did absolutely nothing to convince them otherwise (forget that plane tickets can’t be bought more than 330 days in advance!!). So $1800 later, I held a one-way ticket returning from Seoul sometime next May. Fortunately, this cloud had a silver lining – the ticket is fully refundable. Somehow I’ve just got to arrange to mail it to my parents, who will have to make a trip back to the airport to get their $1800 back. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for fronting the money for that unexpected little wrinkle 
The flight from Harrisburg to Chicago was uneventful, and 2 hours after arriving, I was again wrestling my carry-on luggage into an overhead bin, this time heading for Tokyo, Japan. 13 hours airborne meant plenty of time to sleep, learn a few words of Korean, and, as it turns out, make friends with the young Korean girl seated to my left. Halfway through the flight, after waking from yet another neck-paralyzing mini-nap and pulling out my Lonely Planet Korea book, Su Min introduced herself to me. As it turns out, she had been living just a few miles from my parents in Harrisburg for the past year, where she had stayed with a host family while attending high school. This seems to be a rite of passage for a large portion of Korean teenagers, an opportunity to further ensure gaining entrance to a good university, and hence, have a successful life. Su Min and I talked about her family back home, her dreams to be a singer. She warned me about the recent protests in Seoul against the government’s agreement with the U.S. to buy American beef. Her eyes sparkled as she told me of the places she longed to travel to, how much she loved to meet people from different places, to learn about the culture. Well, that pretty much sealed the deal – we had officially “bonded...” which turned out to be a blessing in disguise
After landing in Tokyo, we were informed that our flight to Seoul had been delayed by 4 hours. Thanks to Su Min and her Korean calling card, I was able to get that message to Harrison, my new boss, who would otherwise have had a very long evening at the Incheon airport. It was unfortunate to be in Tokyo on a rainy evening, weighed down with heavy baggage and no real chance to venture out from the belly of the airport. So I did the next best thing – I slept. Hard plastic seats were no match for my profound exhaustion, and I somehow managed to surrender to the dream world – that is, until the left side of my body woke me up with a loud protest of discomfort. It was a short time later that Su Min found me, along with another Korean boy, who had also been studying at a high school in Harrisburg… this was turning out to be a ridiculously small world. The three of us walked the length of the terminal, until we managed to find the airport’s food court, and treated ourselves to dinner. I enjoyed a plate of Japanese-style beef curry with rice and earned a compliment for my chopstick performance from my new Korean friends.
Before too long, we were airborne again, and I tried to entertain myself with the in-flight magazine while sandwiched in economy class between two sleeping strangers. It would have been the ideal time to sleep, as we didn’t pull onto the tarmac until minutes before midnight. But of course, that meant 11 AM to my very confused body clock, and I was completely alert (though, unfortunately, no match for the crossword puzzle on page 75). We landed into thick Korean fog, scuttled through the terminal to pass through Immigration, and waited with growing impatience for our luggage to surface in Baggage Claim.
Finally, I walked beyond Customs, my cart loaded down with two packed-to-the-max duffle bags, and gazed out at the gentle swarm of eager faces awaiting our arriving flight. How would I find Harrison?, I began to wonder. Will he recognize me? And then, I saw it – my unmistakable larger-than-life-size head glued to a pole, staring back at me. It was my passport photo, blown up to obscene dimensions… ughh! Attached the other end of the pole was Harrison, smiling, bright-eyed, despite the terribly late hour. He had made a welcome sign to greet me, and held it energetically. As soon as I recognized him and made my way to where he was standing, we exchanged warm handshakes and expressions of “It’s so nice to finally meet you!” I hugged Su Min goodbye and wished her a happy stay with her family. And Harrison and I started on our way.
“You look so different from your picture,” Harrison told me, moments later. Thinking perhaps he was somehow disappointed, and reminding myself how disheveled I must appear to him after so many hours of travel, I shrugged it off with a reference to my recent haircut. “No, it’s not that,” he continued. “You look so much friendlier in person!” And at that, I had to chuckle. He was right, my straight-faced passport photo did absolutely nothing for my personality. I am much more at home with a smile on my face, and a sparkle in my eyes, and it didn’t take Harrison long to see that. For the next three hours as we lugged my baggage across the airport, loaded down his van, then drove south through the wet, cool fog to Seosan, Harrison and I had time to talk. I found myself settling into a happy awareness that I was finally here, in Korea, seated next to the man who had become a friend through months of emails and visa updates. I felt a positive and peaceful wave of energy overtake me as Harrison told me how very glad he was to have me here. I felt the genuineness in his voice as he told me how happy he was with his life – how fortunate he felt to have a family he loved so much, a job he enjoyed so much, and a home in a city he loved so much as well. He exuded such a positive energy, which seemed to coalesce with mine, and it was one of those moments when everything just felt right in the world. The challenge of arriving here, the long process for my visa… all of that was behind me now, and all that mattered was that I was here, that I had come, that Korea had beckoned to me, and I had answered.

You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

Saying goodbye… to my family, my friends, my home, my community, my state, my whole freaking country… and even to some cherished sentimental touchstones, which have been stuffed in drawers and closets and boxes for years and have managed to pass through my hands at some point during this hectic week as I sorted out what to take, what to leave behind, and what to let go… These past twelve days have been one goodbye after another, growing steadily in intensity, like the climbing decibels of a quickening drumbeat as it rises with crescendo against the lilting melody of life.

Yet here it is. This is my life. These are my dreams. My ambitions are coming into focus, in vivid, brilliant Technicolor, blinding neon lights flashing inexcusably right before my eyes. My foresight, desire, and gut-level decisions have brought me to this fork in the road. It is here, on the edge of morning, June 11, 2008, that I sit in my corner bedroom on the top floor in my parents’ home for the last time, my back sunk against the pillows three rows deep between me and the periwinkle-painted walls behind me, pondering where the road will carry me next.

The concrete facts I know: five hours from now, a plane will whisk me from Harrisburg to Chicago to Japan to Korea. 23 hours after touching off from Pennsylvania, I’ll be collecting my bags and looking out into a sea of Asian faces to find one that hopefully I’ll recognize from the handful of photos I’ve exchanged with my now-employer, Harrison. A few hours later, we will have arrived in Seosan, my home for the next twelve months, my eyes fighting to stay awake long enough to meet the family gracious enough to be my hosts during the week ahead, and to try out, for the first time, the cursory and obligatory Korean phrases I’ve practiced during the long trans-Pacific flight that has brought me here.

I’m feeling oh-so melancholy as memories rack up on top of one another in a paralyzing jumble, and I remind myself again how much I hate goodbyes. We’ll meet again, I’ve told many a friend in the last several days, because after all, I say, the world’s just not that big. Today we can crisscross continents in high-speed planes, bridges thousands of miles in milliseconds with emails and webcams and VOIP calls. We’re not so disconnected as we used to be, which is a comfort as I consider the fact that my favorite Italian meal is going to be one hell of a long haul away for the next calendar year.

Still, I gaze out the window, past the weeping willow with boughs sweeping the ground where I took “glamour shot” photos of Natalie, past the white picket fence and the spot where Emily and I played Boggle on that faded yellow blanket two summers ago. I look out over the magnolia tree where Mom and I found the panicked bird whose nest was endangered after an overambitious gardener cut back its branches a bit too sparsely. I pause on the flowerboxes that have always been overflowing with the bright colors of springtime, thanks to Mom’s green thumb, and the patio table where we’ve eaten many a breakfast during the warmer months. I walk my eyes down the steps to the pool and dip my gaze into the cool, crystal blue water, envisioning Michael and Daniel catapulting themselves off the diving board into jumps that earned top marks by our panel of family judges. I hear Lorelie’s laughter as she surfaces from her snorkel trip across the length of the pool in the aqua boots and fins I brought back from Florida. I smell the succulence of charcoal and marinade as Dad tends to the barbecue, cooking up a mouthwatering plate of pork steaks for dinner. And this is just one little portion of the memories I have wrapped up in this place that my family has called home for the past seven years.

It’s time to say goodbye, time to move forward with courage and hopefulness, time to keep believing in all the great and amazing reasons I chose this road less traveled in the first place. I’m a Robert Frost kind of girl at heart. I want the world to be my oyster, and I want to make my own path across it, one uniquely mine. I want to believe that the world will be different because of the journey I’ve taken to leave my mark. And it doesn’t start here anymore than it ends here, because there isn’t any end to this journey, this passage, this trailblazing, which is so essentially me. But I do know this: somewhere south of Seoul I continue my discovery. And somewhere between this place and wherever the roads next leads me, I’ll find part of myself and leave part of myself, adding another equation to the complex formula that is the universe. I suppose it’s time to dust off my compass and start moving my feet… Hello Korea, here I come.