On Wounded Pride and Cryptic English

I don't know what's more discouraging-- watching one of my students rip her exam into shreds right before my eyes, or reading the almost cryptic writing that they hand in for their homework...

Today I handed the freshly graded exams back to my students and tried to temper their collectively wounded pride with a reminder that it's not the grade that counts, it's the effort you make. And if you truly tried your hardest, then that's what matters most. Erin, a slightly tempestuous teenager who usually keeps her lips too tightly pursed to allow a word of actual English to slip past them during class, surprised me today when she pulled what appeared to be an exacto-knife out of her innocent pencil case and began slicing her test score from the top page of her exam. She then proceeded to tear it into miniscule pieces, prompted no doubt by a duty to guard her sensitive ego from the bruising of classmates who ousted her with higher marks.

I slaved, I tell you -- slaved -- over preparing those exams. Couldn't she have had a modicum of respect and at least waited until after class to rip it up, instead of making a grand display of it on her desktop during class today? Forget her ego; what about mine?? (calm down, everybody, that's sarcasm.) That pretty much cements the deal that I struck with myself late Friday night after tearing through more paperwork than I've seen since my days working in the Human Resources department of a high-turnover company. Melanie, overzealousness is not thy friend. Time to take it down a notch and do thy job with a little less heart.

But then, I run across the seriously disjointed and almost altogether incomprehensible garble submitted by another student, Annie, later today. The handwriting was perfect, as was her spelling. But the rest of it sent me somewhere between guffaws and giggles. I will say one thing about my Korean students: for the most part, they are excellent spellers. Along with the study skills they've perfected in their Korean school system, they are more or less masters of repetition and memorization. But as I read (or tried to read) through her almost-too-short-to-qualify-as-a-paragraph paragraph, I had the funny feeling that I was reading something churned out from the "Korean to English" button on a web-based translation mill, such as BabelFish, or WordLingo:

Today with the moms and the bosom friends does a silt experience went together. Watch to shrimp, caught the clam and a beat from the silt and took the picture. And ate the lunch rice, made and did. Truth was fun. ~ ~ happy

Bosom friends. Lunch rice. This is good stuff, Annie. Just one thing -- what the hell is a silt experience?? ;) So I suppose I can't bring myself to do my job with less heart after all. These kids, snotty, sensitive, silly and everything in between, need good English like I need air to breathe. It's their ticket to a future filled with promise. Besides, at the end of the day, what matters most is that I'm making a difference, that my students are happy, and that they know they matter in this big world. I think my student Max sums it up quite memorably:

A school is funny so happy school but, school is sad too but, I Love school

On the bright side, I think it's safe to say I've got pretty good job security here in Korea... my students are going to be needing me for quite some time...

On Being a Giant Onion and Life as a Tasty Side Dish

Today, Harrison handed me two envelopes -- one with the receipt for my most recent paycheck deposit, and the other with a personal note, which I am gathering is a tradition with Harrison for each month that passes. In mid-July, after hitting my one-month anniversary at EGA, I opened the letters to find a warm, complimentary, handwritten message that really took me by surprise.

This was was work "family" I had been fortunate to join -- a welcoming, kind, and truly genuine couple who seem to truly hold respect for me and extend that respect in a number of ways on an ongoing basis. But to read Harrison's words, to see them in black and white, to think that he took the time to write a personal message of thanks, struck me as something incredibly simple and powerful. And I felt the same today as I read his message for my second month anniversary.

Just because I think Harrison's words have a sweetness and cultural richness of their own (and not because I want you all to think I am something spectacular), I thought it might be a nice touch to include them here.

Month 1:

Dear Melanie, Thank you very much for your passion and dedication to our students. From the beginning, we were amazed to see how professional but very friendly you are. As we get to know you more, we feel we are so lucky to have you with us.
Our students are happy to be in your class. You are a giant! You are like an onion which shows no limit or end. As you take off one layer, we are surprised to see the magic of your wisdom. Congratulations on your first month survival!
~Harrison

Month 2:

Melanie,
Thank you for your great dedication to our students. You survived from the "unique" hardships of the second month here. I'm sure that's the end of your bad experience in Korea and you'll talk about it as a tasty side dish while you are chatting with your friends in the future.
Thanks, Harrison

I find it interesting that in both, he refers to me and my experiences in Korea thus far with references to food -- onions and side dishes... what will next month's letter bring? Thank you, Harrison, for extending your warmth and hospitality to me. It has been a pleasure to teach at EGA!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Staying with a host family has its advantages. (1) High-quality accommodations. (2) Special-guest status and treatment.(3) Fabulous, home-cooked food. On the flip side, the language barrier is anything but slight, and there's really not a cryin' thing to do in a stranger's house when you happen to wake up five hours before the rest of the family. My eyes opened suddenly at 3:22 AM this morning. I was wide awake despite the thick blanket of night which still covered the city. No problem, I thought, I'll just shut my eyes tight and head back to dreamland until the sun comes up. Ten, twenty, thirty minutes later, I was forced to reconsider. Jet lag, I've decided, is an evil, evil thing. A thirteen-hour time zone shift from Eastern Standard Time to whatever it is they call this zone that covers Korea and Japan, is, as I can first-handedly attest, no small thing.
After accepting that sleep was not in the cards for me, I attempted to entertain myself for the next several hours with what little options I had at my disposal. I nosed through another chapter of the book I'd been reading since my arrival. I picked over my duffle bags (which, I have decided, are under no circumstances going to be able to zip shut when it's time to move over to my new apartment on Thursday... how I ever managed to stuff them as full as I did before leaving the US I'll never know... oh wait, that's right, I had expert military assistance with that special operation, thanks Michael!), looking for a hair clip, my lip gloss, a few odds and ends I had been hoping to coming across since arriving, yet hadn't. And then, I literally wore my Palm TX battery down to nothing playing round after round of solitaire. Ugh.
By 9:30, no one in the house was stirring. I know, because I had made the rounds several times, tiptoeing across the wood-paneled floors, peering out the balcony windows at signs of life in the city, helping myself to a glass of water, shrugging at the silence, tiptoeing back to my room again. Wouldn't you know, a short time later, exhaustion hit me, and I melted back into my pillow.
When I awoke, it was time to get showered and cleaned up for my noon staff meeting. It wasn't until I was half-covered with soap lather that it hit me -- today was my birthday. Usually, I rather relish the thought of people making a scene
about my big day. Helium balloons. Phonecalls from far-flung friends. That moment during dinner at your favorite restaurant when the waitstaff serenades you with the birthday song while perfect strangers look on. I couldn't really care about the number of candles on my cake, and I've never understood people that would just assume hide their birthday from the world, kick it under the carpet and hope it goes by unnoticed. But today, as I rinse the suds down the drain, it dawned on me that today would actually be one of those. And I shrugged in acceptance, or defeat, I'm not sure which.
So imagine my surprise when Harrison popped into the staff meeting a little while later with a billowy-white frosted
birthday cake! If this is any indication, my suspicions about Harrison are true -- he is a genuinely kind and considerate being, who does things for other people just because he's a nice guy. Being that he's also my boss, I'm feeling particularly happy about that. So Terry, Christine, Tahira, Maggie, and Harrison sang the birthday song to me, and then we devoured the cake!

The rest of the day was a blur... I managed to shadow Maggie on several of her (soon to be my) classes -- eight students per session, every 40 minutes from 2:30 ~ 8:20 PM. I remember my first day in Taiwan, meeting the children I was about to teach, and wondering how I would ever learn their names -- they all seemed identical, dark hair, dark eyes, same even skin tone. It took me a while to focus in on their individual features to really be able to tell them all apart. It's funny, but looking into the faces of my new students, I didn't feel the same. Despite the sheer number of names to learn (I have about 110 students!), I could already see their personalities and uniqueness. Or maybe I'm just delusional.
I actually managed to leave school a bit early today, went back to my host family's house, filled my tummy with some delicious Korean-style potato curry and rice, and fell asleep by 7:00 PM!! My hard-core party days are apparently over (haha).

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.