first impressions

That title seems slightly misleading to me because although I've only been here four days, somehow it feels like it's been much longer. So far I have to say that it's been pretty good...I like it here, there hasn't been any real stress and things are going pretty smoothly. I've only freaked out once and that was ten minutes ago when I (mistakenly) thought I had permanently switched the language on my Blogger page to Korean characters. They are fully illegible to me right now and they were everywhere--it was a bad scene. Big thank you to Apple for including Korean with the languages provided in Dashboard's translator widget on my MacBook. 

Getting to the point, though, here are my first impressions...

-Seoul. My first impressions are based on Songpa--that is where Ellie and I live and pretty much the only part of the city we've experienced. It is very much like almost all cities which I have lived in or visited, and in that respect it's been a fairly easy transition. The city itself is very clean (the nicest subway system I've encountered to date) with plenty of trees, etc. Everything is in the process of blooming here too so it's beautiful right now! One thing that will take some getting used to is the size of Seoul. The streets haven't felt overly crowded but there are certain places in which the size becomes evident. Example: Today some of the other foreign teachers took us to TechnoMart to get cell phones and find adapters for our electronic things. The place has eleven stories which were all full of people, two sets of escalators and three sets of elevators running to these floors and what is the equivalent of a full-size Wal-Mart (their version is called Lotte Mart) on the lowest floor. TechnoMart seems to have more things than could ever be bought. Case in point: There are three full floors devoted to digital cameras. Three! I've never seen so many cameras in my life. 

-Teaching. It is the one part of this experience for which I truly had no expectations. In the rush of getting things together and everything that goes through your head when you move to a foreign country, I didn't make any time to think about the reason I was even able to come here in the first place. I think that's been a good thing, though, because I will get used to teaching and develop my perspective on it rather than have to reconcile the reality of it with expectations I may have had and then adjust my perspective. So far it's been an up and down experience. I was thrown right in because the teacher whose classes I am taking over left just before Ellie and I arrived. The school is a little disorganized to begin with and is also entering a testing period right now which means the Korean teachers are stressed and the foreign teachers are a little out of the loop as far as instructions. That said, I haven't gotten very much orientation/guidance. As far as the kids go, there is a wide range of ability to grasp English, motivation, willingness to talk and energy across the eight classes I teach. Not having thought through the language barrier and what it actually means to teach a language, I have been very frustrated at a few points (especially in my class of five-year-olds) because of how little the students and I can communicate with one another. But with time and once this testing period is over I think I'll gain a better sense of how things work here and a better understanding of how to effectively teach the kids. On a more positive note, both the Korean teachers and the other foreign teachers have been super nice and extremely helpful and welcoming. They're all great (though I don't think I'll ever have co-workers as awesome as those at Park View :)) and I am excited to get to know them more.

-Education in Korea. I put this separate from teaching because I haven't decided how to reconcile the two yet. From the little I've seen so far and the perspective offered by others who've been doing this much longer, everything about education here is intense. The amount of time kids spend in school, the expectations of the parents, the importance they place on knowing English...I don't agree with any of it yet here I am participating in the system. When I think about that, it feels like I imagine it would if I were to join the army--there are some good benefits but--it goes against what I believe. However, I signed up to do this for a year and I plan to stick it through. I just arrived, though, and so I want to learn more about why Koreans view education the way they do--if it's cultural or I don't know what, exactly. I don't want this inner conflict to be something I just ignore.

-Learning Korean. Eeek! I've picked up a few words and phrases so far through necessity/situation/chance, but only the pronunciation and/or the Romanized spelling. I love words, so I tend to pick up languages easily, but Korean is very different from any other languages I've studied or of which I've picked up bits and pieces. I wish that I could just take a few weeks now that I'm here to do intensive study of the language as I'm initially being immersed in the culture--if I could I'd travel the world a year at a time doing that in a different country every time. But I'm here to teach English in a school that has "No Korean!" signs posted throughout its halls, so learning Korean has to be secondary. I'm excited to work on it though!

-Food. I've tasted kimchi once and strongly doubt I'll ever grow to like it, but the rest has been pretty enjoyable . They make good sticky rice here, and also eat a lot of pork, seaweed or seaweed-flavored things and veggies. Chopsticks are challenging but I haven't done too badly during the two meals at which those were the only eating utensils I was given. I am looking forward to improving my skills.

-Being a foreigner. People react in one of two ways: They either straight-up ignore you, or they stare. There's no welcoming smile or anything in between. It's been kind of weird to go from the bubble of the school where the Korean teachers have gone out of their way to greet and welcome us to the sidewalks on the way home. It has also been strange when I compare it to being a foreigner in Latin America, where it's a rare thing to walk down the street and not hear a whistle or a catcall or "tsch tsch tsch!"

Okay well that's long but there's how things are going on this side of the world. Thanks for comments and emails so far; I definitely appreciate it all. Hope you are all doing well!

Love, 

Heather