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!

Bad Things Come in Threes

It has been an incredibly long 24 hours since the dog attack, and I think I'm still trying to wrap my head around all that has transpired during the past week. It has truly been a beast. I try to take comfort in the proverb that says things come in threes. I tend to think that's more often than not the truth. And in this case, I truly hope so.

Incident #1: Drama with Harrison over unexpected contract changes
Incident #2: The Peeping Tom turned intruder turned lingerie thief
Incident #3: My run-in with the jaws of the devil dog

As upsetting as the issue was that I had with Harrison early last week, he has really been there to help me when I've needed it. He actually stopped by my apartment last night at 10 PM after finishing his teaching shift, to check on my wound. His reaction was almost identical to that of the nurse during my emergency room visit last night... but even more pronounced. He offered to drive to a nearby pharmacy for some gauze and cleansing solution so that I could redress my wound before going to bed, and then told me he would meet me the following morning to take me back to the hospital.

Harrison met me in front of Penny's apartment this morning at 10. We drove to the farmhouse so that he could talk to the dog's owners about whether the dog had received its rabies shots. The owners were, naturally, nowhere to be found, and while Penny and I waited in the van, the ear-piercing barking that ensued from my furry white assailant was enough to put me on edge. Harrison eyed the dog closely as he walked back to the van, and as we sped back to town to drop Penny off at home, he offered his advice. This kind of dog, he informed us, is a very common breed here in Korea. It's a Korean fighting dog, and can be very vicious. (Think Doberman -- the kind of dog people keep on standby as burglar insurance, the kind of dog that hesitates not before attacking anyone that attempts to cross its path.) Harrison's final caution was to NEVER try to pet one of these dogs. Chances are better than good that you'll end up with a fate similar to mine.

Next we headed to the hospital, which was quite backed up with weekend people traffic. We got our number for the queue and had a seat. An hour later, I was shown to a cot and told to lie flat while the attending doctor looked at my wound. I was so grateful to have Harrison there to communicate for me. There was quite a bit of verbal exchange as I lay there on the white sheet covering the cot. The doctor flexed and rotated my ankle, obviously checking for breaks or sprains. Fortunately, none of his motions caused any extraordinary discomfort.

Then, as the doctor began literally scrubbing out my lacerations, I clenched my fist and tried to bristle against the stinging pain that resulted. It seemed go on for quite some time before I could hear his footsteps gradually fading. He returned minutes later with bandaging. With the ordeal finally over, he properly wrapped my leg and ankle, and then gestured for me to stand. Even with subtle motions to step off of the cot, my wound was producing so much pain that tears sprang to my eyes. The thought of having to limp around for the next however many days was deeply concerning to me, but my attempts to try to locate some crutches were unsuccessful. Apparently, because there were no sprains, etc., crutches were not being offered to me. Harrison took me to the in-house pharmacy, where the pharmacist behind the counter handed him my prescription (a pain and antibiotic combination), and informed him that it had been ready for me since last night. Why couldn't someone have helped me find the pharmacy!?

Next, Harrison drove me to the office of one of Seosan's most reputable doctors, an orthopedic surgeon named Dr. Shin (haha, that's actually his name, but I just realized it's also quite a pun!!). His office was closed (as it was Sunday), but Harrison told me that he felt it was best I transfer to the care of Dr. Shin, rather than continue treatment at the hospital. I was in full agreement on that count. We would return to the clinic tomorrow morning and talk to the doctor about him taking on my case then.

The last stop before heading home was the local branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which is the religion of my family. After hearing the news of my dog attack, my mom's only request was that I please try to find the nearest church building and request a blessing for my body to heal quickly and without complication. Out of respect for her, and because I do believe that faith and prayer can bring about some miraculous results, I asked Harrison if he could help me find the church building. I was surprised when he replied that he knew just where it was. A few minutes later, we were parking right outside a multi-story building housing a restaurant, several offices, and the meeting rooms for the church's Sunday services.

I didn't know how fortunate I was that the church was located so near my home until I was inside, speaking with a young girl from Arizona, who is volunteering for a year and a half to work as a missionary in Central Korea. This young missionary told me that she came to Seosan several times a week, including every Sunday for church services, because it was the nearest LDS church in the vicinity. Still, her bus ride took an hour. I think I could probably ride my bicycle here from my apartment in under 10 minutes. Finally, I was able to ask for a special prayer, or blessing, for my health and recovery. By the time I left, I felt my spirit had calmed. My mind seemed much more focused on the possibilities for my healing rather than the inevitability of my current pain. I had made a mental shift, and that in and of itself was healing.

As we drove back home, Harrison offered me two parting gifts: an umbrella (the rains which had usurped most of yesterday's daylight hours had returned), and a carry-out bag holding a tuna roll (chamchi kimbap) and a container of spicy rice noodles and fishcake (ddokboki). Being that my mobility was so poor, he had bought lunch for me so that I could go immediately home and rest. I disembarked from Harrison's van feeling very indebted to him for the kindnesses he had shown me today. Truly this was above and beyond the call and responsibility he holds as my employer and sponsor. Still, I felt these kind actions generated from a spirit of genuine desire to help. And it was encouraging, and reassuring, to feel a strong positive relationship in place again between us.

The rest of the day was a parade of cheerful friends calling and stopping by to check on me. Penny brought triangles of sticky-sweet watermelon and a few books I might enjoy reading. Dave stopped by to see if I'd like a few scoops of Baskin Robbins' ice cream as a treat later that evening. And Chetty came by to share some peaceful, meditative music and just be some good company for a while. By the time Chetty had left for home and Dave had returned with my ice cream scoops (walnut, and some kind of blueberry-cheese, delicious!), I literally felt as if someone had wrapped a warm, soft, cozy blanket over me and rubbed my shoulders until my whole body had relaxed.

Even with the terribly shitty experiences this week had brought to me, I couldn't fail to acknowledge that good had surely come of it. Wasn't it a beautiful discovery to make, knowing that despite being so far away from my roots, my family, and many friends, that here in this small little town in the middle of some until-quite-recently completely foreign country, I had a support system, a network of genuine and caring people who would see me through the worst of times? Truly, if we just look below the surface, everything can have an element of positivity.

Police Beat: Lowlife on the Loose

After last night's post, I started to wonder if I had been a bit too melo-dramatic. . . Maybe the incident really was nothing more than just some pissed-drunk stranger accidentally stumbling into the wrong apartment on his way home from soju shots with his Korean buddies. I thought that maybe I had just been too emotional, that I had sensationalized the incident a little too much, and that I was worrying my friends and family back home unnecessarily with strange stories of Peeping Toms and malignant men perpetrating unsuspecting foreign women.

That was, until about 11:00 this morning, when I managed to pry the sleeping mask off of my eyes and face the world. It had been only a little more than 5 hours since nodding off to sleep post-sunup. But I had less than an hour to get cleaned up and dressed and make my way to the school for our daily staff meeting. And after all the drama that had presented itself between my boss and I earlier this week, I wanted to make damn sure I kept things as positive as I could until I was certain the storm had all blown over. (Yesterday's meditation session, by the way, was significant in helping me center and getting things back on a positive track again.)

After rising from bed, I unlocked the sliding glass door leading out to my balcony and stepped onto the damp tile floor to open the blinds. Just the thought of touching the vertical blinds a few hours before had send chills up and down my spine as I thought of the whistling stranger who had been positioned just on the other side. But now, with the coming of a new day and fresh morning sunlight trickling through the narrow gaps between me and the sidewalk running along the length of my balcony, I was ready to emerge from my self-imposed "lockdown."

As I went to adjust the blinds, I couldn't help but notice that something didn't seem quite right. Was something missing? Or was it my imagination? Where had my brand-new black lace bra gone, the one that I had bought in the States just before leaving for Korean, the one that I had hung on the drying rack on my balcony last night? What about the pair of underwear I had left to dry on top of the washing machine? Was it gone too? It was then that I noticed the rather obvious gap towards the eastern end of my window where the blinds had been misaligned by some outside force. Anger shook me as the reality of the incident settled over me: the ill-intending stranger who had stood outside my window for the better part of an hour last night had done more than just stand there. He had reached his ugly hand right up through the bars on my window, knocked my blinds out of the way, and stolen my bra and undies.

I went through the scenario a few times in my mind, hoping that maybe I could come up with another explanation for my missing bra. But no, I was certain, I had hung it out on the laundry rack on my balcony, just as every other Korean family does every single day of the week. I suddenly felt that familiar and entirely unsettling feeling of being both vulnerable and violated seeping into my skin, which reciprocated with an outbreak of tingles and bumps that confirmed to me the worst of my suspicions. And in that moment, it was apparent to me as well that the menacing door-ajar discovery I made at half-past midnight last night was much, much more sinister than a case of mistaken identity.

The lowlife who had stood outside my window and watched me, the same lowlife who had taken my underwear, who had reached inside my balcony just a few short feet from me, had also entered my apartment building, found my room, and deviously attempted to enter without my knowledge. This was beyond what I was prepared to keep my mouth shut about. With the full force of last night's incident weighing on my mind, I proceeded to the school, knowing that I needed to break the news to Harrison.

An hour and a half later, Harrison had all but completely restored my faith in the goodness and helpfulness of the Korean people. He had contacted the police, who came to my apartment with him to take down a report. He had told them that for the next few weeks, it was their obligation to make additional night rounds to look for suspicious characters near my apartment. He had even volunteered to drive by my street on his late-night/early-morning drive home after finishing the last of his TOEFL prep classes at 1:00 AM. He had spoken to many of my neighbors to warn them of the perpetrator and to ask them to keep an eye out for anyone suspicious. He had written, laminated, and hung several posters warning the apartment community that the police were looking for a man who was stealing women's underwear. And he had brought his toolbox and muscled several screws into the mosquito screen outside my balcony, so that there was no way anyone could reach his or her hand inside or out of my balcony window again. Wow, Harrison really came through on this one.

It was amazing the difference in my feelings of overall safety, knowing that so many measures had been taken to ensure a safe living environment for me. I don't know whether the S.O.B. who came around last night had any intentions of returning, but I'm willing to take it to the bank that any plans to stand outside my window again will be quickly discarded when he is shamed into submission by one of Harrison's "Most Wanted" posters!

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).

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.