Korea: The Prequel, Part I

Here are the four installations of my blog from when I first got here and didn't have any Internet. Enjoy, they are quite wordy as I was very bored.

August 26, 2010
Yesterday I arrived in Incheon International Airport at 4pm. I was all mixed up about time differences and everything, and even as we were landing I STILL wasn’t sure what the right day/time was. Fortunately the captain gave the time and day, so I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that I had told the agency people the right day and time so that they would be at the airport waiting to meet me. The plane ride went smoothly, even if we did have massive turbulence for quite a large portion of it. I got lucky and ended up with a window seat and only one guy next to me; the other windows were three people, but we were the last row so it was narrower. Luckily we weren’t against a bulkhead, so we could lean our seats back. Initially I thought the guy next to me was airsick because he kept getting up or leaning his head against the seat in front of him as though he was sick, but then I asked to get up to use the bathroom and he told me he had some back pain, so it would take him awhile to stand up. It was good for me because it meant he spent a lot of time out of his seat. I flew Korean Air, which meant the dinner was Korean food. I liked it… The guy next to me either was just nice or noticed me surreptitiously watching him prepare his food because he took it upon himself to explain how to eat the meal. It was fruit, seaweed soup, rice, a mix of cucumbers, beef, bean sprouts with beans attached, and something else that I couldn’t identify. Also, Korean pickles! They were a lot like dill pickles for hamburgers, only not sour. The food was good, but seaweed soup tasted exactly like you might imagine. Ever smell seaweed on the ocean? Yeah, just like that, only minus salt – but in hot water. It was okay, but I only had a few bites. There was a mom with a little Korean baby in front of me, and that kid kept poking his head around the seat and staring at me, so I started making faces at him and he thought that was hilarious. I read in Korean culture books that Koreans absolutely love children, and I believe it. First of all, my seatmate would try and catch the baby’s attention by doing jazz hands or something, and the flight attendants kept bringing baby food and offering to hold him when he was crying. They would even take young children to the bathroom. Maybe other airlines do that and I’ve never noticed. I slept about six out of the 12 and a half hour flight and read a Reader’s Digest then watched two movies – Kick-Ass and Clash of the Titans. For those who’ve never seen this version of Clash of the Titans, don’t. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen a more mixed-up film. It’s sort of entertaining, but if you take one single second to think about any part of the movie, be it the acting, the writing, the hair, the makeup, the mythology… none if it makes any sense as a whole. Sam Worthington’s buzz cut amidst everyone else’s long hair, the appearance of djinn in what’s supposed to be Greek mythology, the fact that everyone in the movie seems to just be using their own accent so there’s a strange mix of British, Norwegian or Swedish or something, Australian, maybe American… and also, it’s been awhile since I’ve read the legend of Perseus, but I don’t think that’s the way it went. Also I like how Io has supposedly followed Perseus all his life (for reasons unexplained in the film), but let his whole family die? Way to be a subpar guardian angel. Anyway, back to Korea.
Customs and immigration went well, but when I exited the gate, I couldn’t find my contact, a Mr. Hwang Sol (first name Sol, last name Hwang… that’s how they write names in Korean). If no one showed up after an hour, I was supposed to go to the information desk between gates D and E, so I checked the time and thought it had been about an hour since landing, but only about 10 minutes since I got to the gate. I decided to go look for the information desk, and while en route several taxi drivers approached me. So far I would generalize Koreans as very polite people based on the airport personnel, my seatmate, and finally the taxi drives. For what are typically very pushy people, these taxi drivers were very soft-spoken and polite. Also I changed some money just inside the gate, and the woman was very polite… not grouchy like some airport people can be. I just said I was meeting someone and they backed off. After an unsuccessful trip to the information station, I went back to my gate and found Sol. He had a little sign with my name on it and everything! I was pretty relieved that he spoke such good English. As we were walking through the airport, I asked him if there was any way I could get the Internet so I could contact my parents, and there were little terminals available. I only had one coin and it ran out after 10 minutes, so Sol gave me another one and said it was his treat, which was nice. He was charging his phone, and I guess in Korea you can just drop off your phone battery at stores (like 7-11 types) and pay them to charge it. Pretty cool.
Sol had driven to the airport, and he told me that I would be spending the night in a hotel in Incheon because it was too late to go to Buyeo. We drove over the fifth longest bridge in the world (woo!) from the island where the airport is to Incheon. Sol told me he had lived in New Zealand for four years and had just gotten back a few months ago, so that explained why his English was so good. Turns out NZ is a 13 hour flight from Seoul. Apparently NZ is close to absolutely nowhere. Also, Sol tried to teach me some Korean… didn’t work so well. He evenHe dropped me off a little motel cleverly named “Motel” and said someone would be back at 8am to pick me up. He arranged for a wakeup call and then left.
So there I was, all alone in this motel, and I had no idea where I was. Thank goodness there was a 7-11 within sight from my window because I hadn’t had dinner and wasn’t sure I wanted to venture too far away because I didn’t have a map and didn’t want to get lost. I got some peanuts, a sandwich, and a bottle of water and returned to my hotel room. It was a nice enough room, but no AC! I found this thing I thought was an AC unit, but my window was open and the rest of the place had no air, and I couldn’t figure out how to work it. The bed was ridiculously hard, but I figured this was probably a Korean thing. Their bathrooms are also their showers in that the whole thing is usually just open and there’s no shower door, but mine actually did have a door. Koreans also don’t wear their outside shoes indoors, so I had a pair of slippers to wear in the room and a pair of sandals for the shower. After I ate it was almost eight, so I read a little and went to bed.
Talk about not having a good night’s sleep… it was about 85 and humid in the room, and the traffic noises were so loud I finally shut the window. However, there was some irritating high-pitched beeping noise that went off sporadically, so I finally cracked and put in my earplugs. Then I was paranoid about missing my wakeup call and alarm, so I woke up about every three hours. I actually felt okay the next day though.
Downstairs, a new agency person was waiting for me. She told me her name was Suri, but for the longest time I was calling her So Li. Whoops. Suri definitely did not have Sol’s English skills. We got some breakfast and picked up some Korean guy whose name I never learned, but he spoke about as much English as I do Korean (which is to say roughly two phrases). We drove to Buyeo, about two hours from Incheon. I was pretty excited to FINALLY see where I’d be living! It was about what I expected, which is to say a small, kind of backwater town. We went to the education office and met a man and woman who spoke English and seemed to be in charge of the English teachers. They were nice, but the woman was like, You will fit in okay because you are young… you will have communication problems, but because you are young you will be able to adapt. Then the man introduced me to all the workers there. You know how in movies and such the new kid has to go to the front of the room and the teacher introduces them? Yes, it was exactly like that only I stood there like a mute and waved like an idiot when they applauded me. Yes, I said applauded. I felt very, very awkward. I had learned how to say hello (Annyeoung haseyo) and thank you (Kam sa ham ni da), yet managed to use neither one because I kept choking each time it came time for me to try.
Next we visited one of the two elementary schools where I’ll be teaching. Seokyang is my “main” school. It seemd pretty big, maybe a bit smaller than Frank Hammond, but it was hard to tell. It was a nice enough place, clean with a playground, but not air-conditioned and quite frankly, the one place smelled like cow poop. Hopefully this is partially due to the rain that has been coming down incessantly since my arrival. Suri didn’t do a good job of introducing me to anyone, so all I know is that I sort of met one man (who will henceforth be called Black Shirt on account of his attire), who talked to Suri and the other guy for like ten minutes while I sat there and pretended to pay attention to what was essentially just gibberish to me. Then we went upstairs and met the guy I think is the principal, Mr. Park, and also Mr. Kim, my co-teacher. I only know he’s my co-teacher because he shook my hand and said, “Welcome to our school” in English. Suri was less than helpful in explaining who these people were, and Mr. Kim didn’t really say anything else to me.
Suri and the other guy took me to my apartment (finally!) and I was actually pleasantly surprised. The complex is kind of old and run down, but my apartment itself is much cleaner and bigger than I would have thought. When we got there (fourth floor, no elevator, woo!), one of the guys from the school and some woman were there. The woman greeted me with a small bow and Annyeoung haseyo and I drew a deep breath, bowed, and blurted out Annyeoung haseyo! And she laughed and smiled. I finally said it! I was very excited. The apartment has a bedroom off to the right, and it’s got a bed, TV, phone, couch, two dining room chairs, a balcony (that is an absolute sauna, no way I’m going out there any time soon), a dresser, and bed linens and cover. I was happy to see those. It’s got a small kitchen that has a wok, scissors, a cup, and some other kitchen-y type stuff. There’s a bathroom with no separate shower, though they did provide me a roll of toilet paper, thank goodness. I’ve got an office with a bureau for clothes and a hanging rack. The fridge is also in there. There’s a small back room with what appears to be a washer/dryer, or at least a washer. I’m afraid to use it as all the instructions are in Korean and it doesn’t appear to be very simple. I also can’t use the gas range. I tried but can’t figure it out. I should have asked Suri for help but didn’t think about it. On the plus side, I HAVE AIR-CONDITIONING. This has been the single greatest thing to happen to me since arriving in Korea. I’m sitting on my bedroom couch right below it, basking in the glory of cool air. I asked Suri to show me how to use it but the gas stove thing didn’t occur to me. I did have her help me lock and unlock the door. This was inspired by my inability to lock my front door in Paris. I tried leaving for school and had the worst time figuring it out, then being paranoid that someone was going to break in, etc. etc. This time I was prepared to avert potential disaster. Next time, I’ll know to ask how to turn on the stove. I also forgot to ask if I can drink the tap water. It hadn’t even occurred to me, but I was reading my guidebook and it made the water sound sketchy, so I’m a little concerned. I meant to ask but completely forgot, so I’ll have to ask my co-teacher tomorrow.
Next we went to Daejeon, which is about an hour and a half away and is the fifth largest city in South Korea. I had to get a physical to make sure I’m healthy and don’t have to be deported. We picked up a Canadian girl named Dhyana, and I was exceedingly happy to have someone to talk to. This is her second time in Korea, so she was able to answer a lot of questions I had that Suri couldn’t help me with because she didn’t speak enough English. Dhyana is moving to a small town whose name I can’t remember, but she gave me her email so we can meet up sometime. She said she knows this place in Seoul where all the foreigners shop because we’re all too fat to fit into Korean clothes.
On the way back to Buyeo, Suri asked if I was hungry, which I was because I couldn’t eat anything after breakfast because of the physical. We stopped at a little restaurant, and Suri ordered for everyone. This was it, the moment of truth… real Korean food! She got spicy beef soup for all of us. When the waitress brought it, it was literally bubbling because it was so hot. We also got kimchi and some tan cubes of something flecked with red (which turned out to be radishes). I used stainless steel chopsticks for the first time. Suri got me a fork, but I decided to use the chopsticks because hey, I would have to eventually. I successfully got a cube on the chopsticks and popped it in my mouth. WHAM! Absolute explosion of spiciness directly on my unsuspecting tastebuds. Now I knew Korean food was spicy, but nothing could have prepared me for this. My eyes started watering and my nose started running ,and Suri asked me if I was okay. I moved on to the kimchi, which is pickled cabbage. It has the crunchy consistency of coleslaw, only no mayonnaise. It was good; that is, it was bland enough to eat. Then I moved onto the soup. Ohhhhh the soup. It was perhaps even spicier than the radishes, mainly because temperature-wise it was steaming hot. So, so hot. It was good, but I couldn’t actually finish all of it because it was so hot and spicy it was literally painful to eat. Luckily I had a side dish of plain old rice. My meal went something like this: spoonful of soup, cool down with rice, chopstick-full of kimchi, and repeat. By the end of the meal I was almost crying because my eyes were watering so much and my nose was running like crazy. Korean food – 1, Theresa – 0.
Every time I had a question Suri couldn’t answer, she would call Elly or Sol and hand me the phone. Elly is the woman I’ve been in contact with all summer, and she speaks very good English. At one point I asked her about other foreign teachers living near me, and she gave me one British guy’s number, so I called him on Suri’s phone. He told me he lives in my apartment complex, but is on vacation until Sunday. He sounded very friendly and pleased to hear there’s a “new foreigner” here. He said Korea is fantastic; Buyeo not so much, but he and the other teachers have a good time. He said they’ve even got a soccer league! They’re apparently not very good, but they have fun playing a game and then go get drinks afterwards. I told him I was from Chicago, and he said there were other teachers from there that live here too.
I don’t think I can describe how incredibly relieved I was to know that there are other English-speaking people nearby. Not having a phone, Internet, or roommate makes it quite hard to be in contact with other people. I told Kevin (the British guy) my apartment block and number and he said they’re having a soccer game on Sunday so he will stop by. I can’t wait to meet the other teachers; I think they’ll be very helpful. For example, Kevin already warned me to avoid this one guy. “If you run into a foreigner named Chris, try and avoid him. He’s absolutely mad! But this is young Chris. Old Chris is okay, but watch out for young Chris.” These are the things I need to know!