Detriments of Language Barriers

Last Friday, February 4, as part of our three-day celebration of Seoulal, I invited my friend Holly to come down from Seoul to visit me in the Byeongjeom area. After four and a half hours of travel time and minimal communication between us, she still hadn't shown up at my door. When she called from a stranger's cell phone to tell me that she had gotten off at the wrong bus stop, I decided to come get her.

Running across the darkening street minutes before 6 that night, I stepped into the back seat of the only cab waiting at the taxi stop. "Sen-tuh-ral Pah-kuh ka chuseyo," I asked the driver in my best Korean.

"Odi?" he countered. Where?

I didn't answer him. As the Park itself is several thousand acres, I figured he'd take me to the most popular side and if need be, I could direct him from there. I didn't know how to say, "The central part of Central Park--you know, where everyone goes."

He asked me something unitelligible in Korean as we set off, but I ignored that question as well. I then saw him motion someone downing a shot glass with his right hand, and heard him couch his action with yet another indistinct question. Though I couldn't understand his words, his meaning was unmistakable.

He had just witnessed me running across the street! Drunk people don't walk, much less run! Appalled, I sharply corrected him. "Andeo," I answered forcefully. Young Sook had recently taught me that the word was synonymous with heck no.

"Anio?" he asked politely, glancing at me through the rearview mirror. After a few steely moments, he asked another question. Seeing the still-blank look on my face, he added, "Country?"

"Miguk. Miguk saram eh-ee-yo," I said in perfect Korean, in an effort to redeem myself.

"Miguktharameeoh..." he repeated in mock drunk-speech, mimicking my apparent ill pronunciation.

The man continued to ask me questions as he drove on, many of them familiar ones like "Where do you work?" and "Are you an English teacher?" But I stopped answering them--and whatever I did answer was in the form of a curt, one-word response.

Ten minutes later, we arrived at the Park, just across the street from where Holly sat waiting. I could have asked the man to hold while I called to my friend, but nothing within me wanted to spend another moment in his taxicab. I quickly paid my oh chon won and left.

Frustrated, I confessed the story to Holly as we stood in the cold waiting for bus 27. "I don't care about my witness, Holly," I told her. "If you know me, you know that's not who I am. What upsets me is that this is his perception."

"The sad thing is that those are the kinds of foreigners he sees," she intoned. And I had to admit she was probably right.

Sah Kyehjole: Winter

Winters in Korea look a lot like they do in Virginia, Maryland, or (as I'm told by friends who are from there) Minnesota and even Idaho--not, however, like they do as far south as Texas. Winters where I come from tend to look a lot more like any normal locale's fall season: a bit nippy, sometimes down-right chilly, and on freak occasions actually below thirty-two degrees. My grandparents, who have been farmers all of their seventy-plus years, think it's a good winter if we get "one good freeze."


As a consequence of Texas' unpredictable climate, I was non too prepared for the bare temperatures I felt as I huddled near the warmish space heater in our closet-like office last year. This, I was to learn, was my first real taste of winter's icy fist, which for the next five months locked the peninsula in what Andy liked to call a "frozen tundra." The first snowfall of the season fell in the middle of the night around November 5, uncharacteristically too soon according to many Koreans, with the last falling sometime mid-April. I returned to Korea from my visit to Texas near the beginning of May to find temperatures had only warmed up to a barely-tolerable, layer-peircing five degrees Celcius (40 degrees F). To my dismay, I still needed a long thick sweater on the first of June.


Being that our hagwon was without consistent heating, equipped with the smallest of space heaters that did little to melt the ice-condensation on the floor or erase the visible puffs of breath from our mouths, I was loathe to move from my chair to the classroom for most of 2009's winter season. Each day as I prepared to leave my apartment, its thermostat always set to 30 degrees Celcius (85 F), I layered stockings over stockings and turtlenecks over longsleeve tees to combat the conditions I knew I would find at school. I was never without one of two knit sweaters and always wore a thin jacket underneath my mother's bulky winter coat whenever I stepped out of doors.

Yet for all my layers, my preparations still seemed inadequate to ward off the grip of Korea's icy winter chill. As a way for me to cope mentally with the incessant cold, the running joke in the office with Andy and Brandon was that they should wake me up in three months. My blunders, however, were never far from scrutiny--and this was apparently no exception. Brandon commented one day upon reflection, "You know, you keep saying March. But what if it's still cold [then]?"


But it just had to warm up by March, I was sure--so sure that as I packed my bags the last weekend of February in preparation for my move to Suwon, I stuffed my mom's big blue ski jacket inside a small box and left it at Andy's house, to be picked up at my earliest convenience. Confessing what was inside the box to Andy while en route to my new home, he offered, "Well you know that was a stupid idea." He proved himself right when temperature dipped low again for one "last cold snap" that week, while I huddled without a proper jacket to wait for the bus.


It was a long, bitter winter for the inhabitants (and transient residents) of Korea's pennisula for 2009-2010, with record-deep snowfall at the beginning of January in Seoul and as far south as Chungju. Yet for all its harsh reality, the season still proved itself to be filled with surprises and adventure. My dad once told me that "there's nothing for you in this season." When I offered that to my friend Anna, she observed that perhaps that means I should just look more closely for ways to enjoy it. Though I think Dad is still right on some level, I'm beginning to appreciate the changes, rhythms, and seasons of the life that the LORD brings. Even bitter ones turn beautiful if you let them.

***

Winter: Kyah-ul 겨울 2009

I had the chance to experience my first real snow last December in a posh eatery on the outskirts of Chungju, on the other side of the Chungju Dam.

For last winter vacation, I was able to take a modest trip around Korea. Here I am en route south to Gwangju to visit an acquaintance on a train that felt, save for hot-hot-hot-hot choc'late, like the Polar Express.

This is Gwen, the woman who saved my luggage. She lives in Gwangju and offered me a place to stay when I came to visit.

This is a group of Korean believers who welcomed me to their church, the foreign new-comer, with open arms. The woman to my left was my translater, the sister of the girl to the right in the foreground. I felt so loved there--and felt the Spirit move so freely--that for a moment I seriously contemplated making the three+ hour commute every weekend just to be a part of their fellowship.

Welcome to Busan: where big city meets Korean small-town country. This eatery in the express bus terminal looked so warm and inviting--and so much like an American diner--that I stopped and ordered a roll of kimpap while pouring over my tourist map to figure out my itinerary for the day.

When I first got to Busan, I found this bloom and remember being amazed that such life could blossom in wintertime. I marveled at its ability to thrive in such harsh conditions.

One night's stay in Busan cost me 60,000 won (about $48), but it was well worth the splurge as I had a plush bed to sleep in, a nice street view, and an actual SHOWER to stand in that didn't leave my bathroom floor and everything left on it sopping wet.

My whole reason for visiting Busan was to pay my respects to the UN Memorial Cemetary to honor my grandfather, who had served in the American Armed Forces and was stationed here in Korea during the Korean War. The row of flags represents the 28 nations who came to South Korea's aid for those three years of open conflict.

This is the traditional house I stayed in during my visit to Jeonju. The place was cozy and the staff was hospitable, with tea brought to my door and traditional breakfast served hot and fresh in the morning.

During my stay in Jeonju, I visited their cathedral and had a chance to sip a cup of fresh dechu tea with a wonderfully sweet woman from their cultural museum. She sat by me, chatting with me and teaching me snippits of Korean as I savored her sweet creation. Among the many Korean teas availible, dechu remains my favorite.

Dal Cheon's Christmas service: Here youths are gathering at the front to read letters written to their parents to thank them for the support and encouragement they had provided throughout the years. Though I couldn't understand much of what was said, the scene itself was very touching.

"Stocking stuffers" given as a Christmas present from Dal Cheon.

Christmas Dinner! After our Christmas Day service at my adopted Korean church in Chungju, Dal Cheon Kam-ri Gyo Hwi (달 천 감리교회), my then-director took me out for ja-ja-meon, a "Koreanized Chinese" noodle dish traditionally prepared by hand (notice the scissors in my director's hands used to cut the noodles; surprisingly, they are quite effective). I had a chance to watch the man in the back make a batch of fresh noodles by wrapping the stringy dough quickly by his wrists like a jump rope and stretching it repeatedly. It was an art quite fascinating to watch.

One of my friend Anna's and my favorite pastimes last winter was skiing; during the season, we went twice. It took me a bit to remember how my feet worked clamped to boards almost as long as I am tall, but once it came back to me I really started to enjoy myself. No, Brenda, I did NOT yell at anyone on top of the mountain. But on the steepest slopeI had yet encountered, I took off my skis, pointed my feet downward, and had the slide of my life!

January 16, 2011 will mark a year to the day that I brought my Frankie-boy to come live with me. He has been such a precious blessing!

The day I got Frankie, Dal Cheon took their youth on an outing to go sledding--and took me with them. As I had yet to experience the joy of tumbling down a frozen slope in style, I gave it a try and had a BLAST!

The boys surprised me with a Paris Baugette chocolate cake in the form of a miniature, edible piano for my birthday. There was so much of it left that I divvied it up into cups and passed its pieces out to all my classes throughout the day. I laughed at having to use chopsticks to eat my treat--until I later realized that it's just the norm in Korea to eat cake without a fork.

Lauren, one of the sweetest office staff members there is to work with in South Korea.

Coming on the 24th of February and just after San Antonio's only real cold snap, my birthday always marks the end of winter for me; this year it marked the end of more than just that. Less than a week later, I said goodbye to Chungju and packed my bags to head north for the coming spring and yet a new life season. But not before being serenaded by the musical talents of Mr. Andy Afternoon Levin: My birthday treat was an evening of tasty shabu-shabu followed up with mouth-watering solos, duets, and a group debut of "Happy Birthday" at the local nuraebang.

Boys and Girls of the Ju, here's to you!

Sah Kyehjole: Fall

Seasons in Korea are quite distinct from any I have thus experienced stateside. The general climate of the region has often been described by foreigners as having a "switch." No sooner is one season in full swing when, as if by push-button magic, another is rolling its way in. Along with its quickly changing weather patterns, the country also promotes fast-forward life seasons; just as one settles into managing a new schedule, apartment, or friendship, news comes to upset the transient equilibrium so freshly created. With my one-year anniversary still fresh on my mind, I decided to celebrate my time here thus far with a look at the best each season in Korea has to offer.

***

Autumn: Kah-uhl 가을 2009

At the end of October last year, two weeks after my arrival, my then-director took me out for a nature walk around Woraksan National Park to view its famed fall foliage.

My director also liked to take me to outings on Sunday afternoons following church. On this day, he brought me to visit Jungnam Tap, the pagoda marking the spot believed to be the exact center of the Korean penninsula.

Here I am on a blistery November day, in thin hose and knee-length skirt without a proper coat, at the windiest place in Chungju, the Chungju Dam.

These were my co-workers at Learning Well (from L to R): my boss, Josh, and my two American teacher-friends, Andy and Brandon. They truly were a blessing!

Autumn: Kah-uhl 가을 2010

Apple Tree has many activity days for the kids, usually cooking "classes" designed for them to learn to follow directions in English. Here I am explaining how to make sweet peanut sauce, then sampling the kids' enthusiastic work. Some days, it really pays to be a teacher.

This is Rachel (left) and Betty (right), two of the smartest kids at the hagwon. Rachel has since moved on to learning opportunities better suited for her skill in English.

Dressing up in hanbok for fall's climactic celebration, Chuseok, students at the hagwon ushered in Korea's fall season with joy and thanksgiving for past traditions. Here I am with Annie in Korea's finery.

Here in Korea, they put turkey behind bars instead of on their plates. I found this rather hefty fella as we toured the grounds of an arboretum on a recent field trip.

This is K2: (L to R) Christine, Irene, Rachel, Julia, and Elena. I took over teaching them after Jack left in July. They are the smartest kids in our kindergarten and they've become so endearing to me.

This is Grace Teacher--one of my colleagues and my supervisor but especially a dear, sweet friend.

After the arboretum, our students had a chance to make funny, playful hats out of the colorful leaves we had collected. I sure couldn't have found leaves that purty in Texas!

I truly am thankful for all of the many blessings in my life this past year.