gatvol.

My attitude towards Korea stinks. This has been bothering me for a few weeks now.

When I go back to school after the vacation I will have less than two months left - there will be many people asking "will you miss Korea?" "are you sad about leaving?" "Will you come back to Korea?" etc. This started before the vacation and even then I was finding it hard not to be too honest: I don't think I will miss Korea. I will miss some individual people I have met and built friendships with (Koreans and fellow foreigners). I will miss some of my more special students and the feeling of affection and warmth I feel from many of them. I will miss the financial and travel freedom and safety I have felt whilst here. But I won't miss Korea. And now, when the questions start I think I am just going to be honest. "I am ready to go home". "I am tired of being a foreigner in another country." "I probably won't miss Korea very much." "In fact...I can't wait to leave!!!" urgh. They won't like hearing that. Koreans themselves are good at sugar-coating the truth, beating around the bush, not being direct and honest. The harsh truth might be a shock to them. They will likely feel offended. But I have had enough.

I can't even seem to get myself to enjoy Korean food anymore: I avoid Korean restaurants. More and more we eat Pizza rather than healthier, cheaper Korean food which is more readily available. More and more, Korean people annoy me. Little things, big things. Spitting snorting, sucking teeth to clean them whilst sitting on a train, staring at me, staring at us, staring at our food, asking 'what are you eating?', bumping into me, pushing in front of me in a queue, old people pushing young people around and so on and so on. I am just in a downward spiral of seeing only the negative.


Also the negatives in society in general: women obsessed with their appearance and constantly checking their make up in hand mirrors: in restaurants, on trains, on busses, waiting for trains, waiting for busses, on top of Mountains: after hiking all the way to the top of Mt. Halla, Korea's highest, for goodness sake!

The way the Korean government is pushing ahead with the hugely destructive "4 rivers project": it's clothed in words like 'ecological restoration' but in fact it is a huge, economically-driven project to deepen Korea's 4 biggest rivers to enable more ship transport across the country. Trucks are working 24 hours a day to dredge as much sand out of the rivers before environmental groups or cival society realise what's going on. Urgh. I have walked past some of the construction trucks parked in Sangju, and for the first time in my life been genuinely tempted to sabotage something: it would be so easy to shove a kitchen knife into the tyres. It would slow down the destruction a tiny bit and annoy them project managers quite a bit more...

The way kids just have to study study study. The way mothers just have to take care of their families an have no time to relax. Who does one see when out at night eating and drinking? Korean men. No women. Women have no time to relax and eat and drink they are too busy keeping the home fires burning.

The way some of the brightest and forward thinking students I have met will likely not make it into the leadership positions they deserve and would hold so well. A young girl student of mine writes brilliant, insightful, analytical even critical essays about the Korean government and society, she should become a lawyer and a judge. But she grew up in the countryside and her English is no match for the youth who grew up in Seoul and whose parents have the right money and contacts to get them into the right universities. Sorin will likely not achieve her dream of becoming a lawyer: not because she doesn't have the ability or the drive, but because she was born the wrong sex in the wrong place. Such inequality happens all over the world, but for a country as developed and economically successful as Korea is, such inequalities should not be. For a country that prides itself so much in its success, as a member of the OECD etc.
Then of course there are the old issues of cruelty to animals and gender inequality... Don't get me started!

So feeling so bitter about being here does not sit well with me. I feel I am walking around with a scowl on my face. I am intolerant to any small impolite social interactions which are quite normal: bumping into people in a busy train station, people spitting on the pavement in front of me, men honking loudly and clearing the phlegm from their throats. I am starting to speak English to taxi drivers even though I can converse with them in basic Korean.

I'm not sure why I am feeling overwhelmed by all these negative thoughts. Maybe it's the summer heat and humidity which seems harder to bear than it did last year. Maybe it's that I just need a break. Maybe it's that I am homesick. Maybe it's that I KNOW I am leaving Korea soon and I can let down my guard i.e. I don't have to try so hard anymore to accept and understand this foreign culture an the people. I don't like feeling so negative. Then I think - what kind of experience of culture has this been, if, when i 'let down my guard' i.e. stop trying to accept and understand, I become overwhelmed by negative thoughts and feelings? Have I been tricking myself into having a good time?

Who knows. This post is a bit rambly, but pretty representative of my state of mind for the last few weeks. I don't mean to offend any Korean people by it. I am just expressing my feelings and trying to understand why I feel like this. Comments are welcome and will likely be helpful :)

Capturing a modern Korean tragedy

Advertising in the subway in Seoul.

Transform yourself.
Become more like a westerner, less like an Asian, less like a Korean.
Bigger eyes, narrower face, gentler brow lines.
The key to success.
Or so it would seem.

The sky above and green all around

I've just returned home from one of the nicer walks I've had in a while. Sangju is surrounded by mountains, but alas we seem to take this for granted, and don't spend nearly enough time exploring the forest-clad hills so near to our home.

This afternoon I headed out with the intention of finding a flat-ish portion of the forest and lying down with a book to read.

I found the perfect spot: flat, soft grass and undergrowth and medium-height trees all around. It was just off the path yet also a bit secluded and just beckoned for me to put my blanket down. This I did, and as I lay down on the blanket I realised that I should have done this a long time ago: at eye level I quickly spotted a firefly, a tiny green caterpillar and lots of little orange spider-babies or mites. What a joy!

I feel inspired to re-appreciate nature by the book I am currently reading, it's the German biography of a significant French entomologist, Jean-Henri Faber: "Ich aber erforsche das Leben" (But I will study life). I am so enjoying reading it and the accompanying realisation of how much I, too, love nature and observing it!

I lay on the blanket for about an hour, reading, and looking up at the blue sky, the trees and shrubs all around and just enjoying the stillness of the forest, interrupted only by the odd bird call. If there is a place called heaven, and it is as idyllic as it is made out to be, my section of heaven would be just that: lying on a blanket, reading a book with blue sky above and living nature all around.

On familiarity & becoming part of a community

One of the things I have missed most being in a foreign country far from home has been a feeling of familiarity and a sense of belonging. Today for the first time I had bit of a wake-up call that made me realise again that I had indeed been missing this, but also that slowly but surely Sangju is becoming familiar and I am starting to feel that, in some way, I do belong.

This feeling came to me at dinner tonight. There's a restaurant nearby which Jules and I have come to frequent. It's called 'Loving You' (with Korean pronounciation of course 'leobin yoo') and serves a dish called 'dalk galbi'. Dalk galbi translates as 'chicken ribs' but that would of course be ridiculous: It's prepared in a simlar way to pork ribs in Korea and hence the name, but chicken meat is used instead. It's one of those 'cook on your tabletop' dishes, kind of like a strifry with cabbage, chilli and other veg etc added. One wraps the food in lettuce leaves and voila! Yummy! Anyway, dalk galbi has become one of our favourite dishes in Korea, and Loving You prepares it particularly well. The staff are also friendly and it's less than 10 minutes walk from home.

So anyway, back to the story. This evening the waiter asked us what we wanted and he corrrectly pre-empted that we would want the standard dalk galbi but with cheese and sweet potato added, which is what we usually order. And then as we were about to order our drinks he said 'one beer and one cider (=sprite)'. Wow, I was so impressed and it warmed my heart.

He obviously knows us well by now but remembering our usual drinks orders as well as our dalk galbi additions just made me feel like we were truly 'regulars' - a lovely familiar feeling, one, like I said, that I have misssed. But having been in Sangju over a year now, I think these kind of experiences might just become more frequent and I welcome them. It's nice to start feeling part of a community - particularly when one is so obviously foreign and when communicating with all other memebrs of the community is near impossible!

Another way in which I hope we'll become more part of the community, and contributing to it, is that we are on the process of making an arrangement with the Sangju Public Library that we donate our 'old' English books and that they start a section of English books. At the moment they do have some English books, but these are mostly aimed at students, and I think a place for foriegners to borrown novels etc. would be a great addition to Sangju. I've spent more than enough money on ordering English books online and from Kyobo Bookstore in Seoul and Daegu, and won't be able to drag the lot home. So having a place to leave them where future English-speaking residents of Sangju can benefit from them sounds like a good idea!

The pink lady and her dog

There's a woman whom I often walk past in the mornings on my way to school.

I am walking along the river path to school, and she is walking her dog. She wears a cute little hat, usually some item of pink clothing and has a dog on a leash. The dog is a bit different from most other dogs I have encountered in Korea. Most dogs are either very small, maltese-poodle or jack-russell style, just the size to fit in a small apartment, or they are big and ready for the pot. Her dog is medium-sized and white, with a cute tail that curls up. They are a cute pair, and along with the man with the mole whom I wrote about in an email a few months back, they are the ones I see most regularly on my way to school and we greet each other.

But because of langage difuculties, we never go beyond greetings, I often wonder if it wouldn't be nice to meet up for coffee (with a translator in attendance of course) but then I think of the mission of organising it and leave it be. Then I wonder if we'll ever go beyond greetings, and then I leave that too because I'm probably being silly.

But today she did it! I walked past her and said "Anyeonghasseyo!" as usual, and she said "Anyeonghasseyo! Yeppoyo!". Wow! She greeted me AND said I looked pretty. How very kind of her! She made my day, at 8:20am! What a sweet lady. I am going to ask someone to help me learn how to say "Your dog is very cute." I can't really say she's pretty because she's usually wearing sports clothes and often a face mask - in contrastI am dressed as smart as I get for school -and I do try! I'm a stickler for honesty. So I'll go for the dog until I can be honest about her prettiness!

These are the little encounters that make this a memorable experience, despite all differences in language, culture etc.

Pet-Watch

We came across this advert in a subway passage below the city of Daegu.
I found it quite astounding for a number of reasons:
Firstly that pet 'accessories' companies are obviously way mroe liucrative in Korea: to have enough money pay for such a huge ad - this would certainly not be the case in South Africa. This ad was sharing space with ads by Gucci, Louis Vitton and Polo.
Secondly that people in Korea would happily leave their pets unattended for days on end as long as they are fed - by a machine.
The third astounding thing is that you can have a photo/video of your pet eating from the machine sent to your cellphone, just to be sure it IS eating. I mean the technology is amazing but I think the lack of care for the pet's 'emotional' well-deing is quite sad.

I get the feeling that pets in Korea are often just another fashion accessory: the way they get dressed up and their fur died crazy colours....So if one can buy a machine that conveniently feeds the pet and sends evidence then why not?!

I think one of the reasons this caught my attention is that quite a few people in our block of flats have small dogs - in tiny apartments. Last week we noticed a definite indoor-pet-smell coming from an apartment where we usually hear a baby crying. We hadn't heard the baby for a good few days so I think the little family had gone off on holiday and left the dog in that tiny apartment...most likely with a food dispenser and no-one to look in on it while they were away - hence the nasty smell. How sad.

Just another interesting aspect of life in Korea - there's always something new!

8 months down the line

This post is a copy of a story I wrote for our local newspaper at home 'The Greytown Gazette':

17June 2009
8 MONTHS DOWN THE LINE ............ IN KOREA

My boyfriend, Julian Barker, and I (Jessica Cockburn) have been teaching English in South Korea for just over 8 months. There have been many fun times, so I could say ‘time flies when you’re having fun’, but saying this may imply that the experience has only been fun or at least mostly fun, which is not an entirely true reflection of our experience here.

We had a tough start: culture shock hit us much harder than we had expected. The language barrier seemed impenetrable – nothing vaguely resembled our alphabet and the strange sounds we heard held no meaning! We were surrounded by people who not only looked different, but who openly stared at us because we looked different! They seemed inaccessible to us: mostly because we speak different languages, but also because we have different cultures, different approaches to life, different histories.

When we first arrived, our only links to ‘the rest of Korea’ were our co-teachers: they were our assigned ‘chaperones’ and did everything for us: from buying us furniture, to taking us to the doctor. We, who had set off on our Asian adventure as intrepid, independent travellers found ourselves totally dependent on strangers. The most frustrating part to this was that our co-teachers themselves spoke only broken English, and battled to understand our South African accents.
8 months down the line I can almost look back at those early weeks with a smile on my face. I say almost because it was a very difficult period, and as much as I’d like to, I’m not quite ready to smile about it!

But we have come so far. We have done an amazing amount of travelling and exploring -. we spent 10 wonderful days in the Philippines during our winter vacation, we have seen many of the famous Buddhist temples in Korea, have visited Goeje island: a lovely holiday destination off the south coast of Korea, spent several days skiing and seen many famous historical sights in Korea. We have walked in the lovely forests around our town Sangju, and scootered through the recently planted rice fields.

We have also explored and absorbed Korean culture: Julian has, uncomfortably, swayed arm-in-arm with my male colleagues singing love songs in a ‘Noraebang’ (i.e. karaoke room), we’ve eaten very fresh or even live! seafood taken straight out of a tank outside the restaurant, seen dogs in cages off to be slaughtered for dinner, been invited into an old Korean woman’s house and given kimchi (the national dish of fermented cabbage), been to public bath houses where everyone wanders around starkers without a care in the world, been semi-harassed on the street by Koreans trying to practice English, had our arm-hairs and eyebrows touched and pulled at because they’re white or yellow (not blonde), …the list goes on.
It has been an amazing 8 months. The teaching has itself been an adventure: we teach at government middle schools which has not been without difficulties. We have been left to our own devices with little in the way of guidelines, which in the beginning was frightening but which we now use to our advantage: we can run our classes as we like and do anything we fancy to help the students practice the little English that they know.

We really do miss home and our families very much: one of the most important things that being in Korea has made us realise is how much we love and miss South Africa despite all its faults and problems. We will certainly be back: armed with a multitude of travel stories and a better understanding of the world.

Reading South African novels: feeling the divide more than ever.

I have had quite a bit of time during the school holidays to catch up on reading, and I’ve really enjoyed it. There is a definite trend in my reading though: I am REALLY enjoying the African novels! As you can see on my reading list on the left, I have recently read three novels by authors in Southern Africa: "Three-letter Plague"," A change of Tongue" and "The Grass is singing". I have certainly gained much more enjoyment and thought stimulation from reading these three books than any of the others I have read.

I guess this is not surprising: I am of course missing home soil, and anything that can 'transport' me back there for a few hours a day will be enjoyable! But not only that. I think travelling opens up ones mind to looking at ones home and home country from a different perspective, and I think I that is how I have experienced reading these books. This perspective brings with it a strange mixture of critical, even negative, thoughts as well as nostalgic, overly-positive thoughts. I can't quite figure it out.

Let me try to explain: these thoughts about my experiences of reading SA books while in Korea sort of 'came to a head' whilst I was reading Doris Lessing's 'The grass is singing'. I read this most recently of the three, however, it is the oldest among them, having been published in 1950. Doris Lessing was the Nobel Laureate for Literature in 2008, and this is probably the reason I stumbled upon this book in a book store in Daegu.

Her writing in this novel is quite harsh: she describes the relationship between a white farmer's wife and her servant, Moses, in southern Zimbabwe. The blatant racism, injustice and even hatred of the whites towards their servants is well illustrated. Reading it from an almost 'international' perspective made me realise how 'immune' we as white South Africans have almost become to racism. It is so normal and part of our lives. So here I am, enjoying a novel set on African soil, the descriptions of the farm, sunsets, earth, bush, wildlife and people are so familiar and pleasurable to me as I read. But at the same time I am struck by the utter ugliness of racism. I think Lessing has done this very well: I truly have mixed feelings about being a white South African after reading this book. I feel blessed to have grown up in South Africa: such a beautiful country, such amazingly diverse people and a wonderful, easy lifestyle. I can appreciate these aspects of it even more now that I am living in Korea as a foreigner. On the other hand, I am almost ashamed of being a white South African, because of how much hurt, hatred and injustice 'my people' have inflicted upon our fellow black South Africans. So, as you can see, I am 'stuck' in my feelings!

To 'unstick' me I can turn to 'A change of Tongue' by Antjie Krog. This is certainly a more positive story, and is set in more recent times in South Africa. Writing almost autobiographically, Krog reminisces a lot about her childhood in Kroonstad, on the farm, in amongst white (racist) farmers. She writes also how she realised at a young age how racism was wrong, but also inescapable in most white communities, especially farming communities. She was an activist with the ANC in Kroonstad during apartheid and it seems that in this way she 'redeemed' herself from the racism so part of her family and community. Her writing was also a valuable way for her to express her feelings which were so contrary to those of the people around her. So one can be saved from this 'shame' of being a white South African. Or so she seems to say. Anyway, food for thought.

"Three-letter plague" has another tone and message completely: it is set in rural Transkei, close to Lusikisiki. This novel was 'closest' to me in terms of setting and I also felt I could identify with the characters more in this novel than in the other two. Maybe because of how much time we have spent in the Transkei: two holidays a year for most of my childhood and until now. The place, and the people, are very precious to me: we have a good relationship with a family down there who take care of our beach cottage for us in our absence, and who we in return help to clothe and feed. They live in incredible poverty, yet they are happy, open and warm people. There’s more to it though: the daughter of the family is HIV-positive, and my Mom has been instrumental in getting her to go to the clinic to have herself tested and put on ARVs. Her health is ever-improving and she has realized the value of this modern medicine. The clinic she went to is one of the clinics administered by Dr Reuter, one of the lead characters in “Three-letter plague”.

The story of Sizwe, the main character in this novel, really spoke to me. But once again, I start to feel guilty for being a white South African, Oh no, there it is, that horrible word: guilt. And ‘White Guilt’ at that. I have always thought I am quite good at not taking guilt upon myself unnecessarily: when things or wrong or I make a mistake I am usually quite good at thinking to myself: “that's life, these things happen, etc." But all of a sudden, here I am in Korea, reading books about South Africa, and the word (and I guess also the feeling) has snuck up on me! In this case, I was just thinking about how I go down to the Transkei for holidays (what a luxury) and Matewu and her family look after our house and we feed and clothe them: it is both a patronising and strangely bizarre set-up. But all it is really, is a clear example of the huge divide between not only black and white, but more accurately, rich and poor in South Africa. And I happen to be on the easier side of the divide. Lucky me. And Mattewu is on the other, more difficult, side of it. And that's life. And I guess all one can do, from our side of the divide is to be aware of it, to appreciate the fortunate situation one finds oneself in and to be compassionate and thoughtful towards those on the other side. (Thanks Mum, for taking one for the team for so long).

So, what all this reading of South African books is doing for me is making me think about what it is to be a South African, and since we’re on the topic, a white South African. This is also highlighted by the fact that so many people we meet in Korea say ‘South Africa????’, with a puzzled look on their face, when they hear where we’re from: ‘White person? South Africa???’ Makes one think! And explaining something as complicated as that to someone with very little English is quite difficult…

If anyone has any good South African novels to recommend/send, I’m ready!