The First of Many...

Greetings family, friends, and curious web surfers,
Welcome to our blog.
As you may have known already, Katherine and I are spending this year living and teaching English in Busan, South Korea. We’ve created this blog as a means to share our experiences, observations, and revelations with those of you who wish to read along. We hope that as much as this blog will serve as a meeting place for us to stay in touch, it will also provide a cathartic way for Kat and I to personally convey what we are experiencing on the other side of the world. We also hope to continue writing this blog long after our bodies have been cleansed of the kimchi that runs through our veins…i.e. when our stay in Korea comes to a close.
But enough of prefacing, it’s time to begin…

Yesterday marked the end of our first week in Korea. It was a whirlwind of week, as any initial week will be when transitioning into a foreign culture and attempting to recover from a 16 hour, jet-lag induced, mammoth of a plane ride. When we finally awoke from our time-(dies)oriented coma, we began training at one of our hagwon’s (private academy) campuses. Kat and I were both struck by how welcome we were made to feel by the Korean staff and foreign teachers. Actually, that is perhaps one of the most notable aspects of our stay here so far: no matter what the context, we’ve enjoyed the company of every foreigner we’ve met. (Any native English speaker not from South Korea fits the “foreigner” bill. Canadians, Americans, Aussies, and Brits are the most common.) I guess this job, and its complete experience, tends to attract a certain type of personality that we find to be easily likeable. It’s difficult to deny a sense of camaraderie amongst the foreign teachers- a collective mentality resulting from our common situation.
During our first week we were invited over for breakfast by an incredibly hospitable couple from Texas. They not only treated us to some good ole southern cuisine, but they also showed us the ins and outs of the Busan subway system, which could have been daunting had we been without the guidance of seasoned veterans. Another Canadian couple (the only other foreigners at our campus) have been extremely helpful with getting to know the ropes of this gig. We definitely feel blessed to be surrounded by so many supportive and generally nice people.

This past Monday was our first day of teaching. After sitting through a week of training, Kat and I were eager to jump into action, and so far we’ve really enjoyed the job. The kids are surprisingly well behaved and the school’s environment is relatively relaxed compared to that of other hagwons. On an average day Kat and I might teach 3 to 4, 45 minute classes. Although the rest of our eight hour work day is supposed to be used for lesson preparation, the curriculum is so thoroughly mapped out for us that it doesn’t take long to beef up a skeletal outline. Kat was even able to learn how to read Korean in her extensive periods of free time. Sometimes I feel guilty spending hours reading online news articles or checking the scores from Sunday’s NFL games, but there literally is no way we could prepare more for a 45 minute class that is so curriculum focused.

The dichotomy between the foreign teachers and the Korean teachers is also sometimes awkward due to the fact that the Korean teachers have so much more to do. Simply carrying a conversation in English is a difficult task for most of the Korean teachers at our school, so preparing a lesson that deals with translating the nuances of English grammar into Korean takes a substantial amount of their time and energy. We would like to spend some of our free time helping them, but without an understanding of Korean we unfortunately have our hands tied. The result is as follows: the foreigners sheepishly watching sports highlights and reading while the Korean teachers scurry around the office preparing for their next lesson.

Besides school, we’re really enjoying living in Busan. Last weekend we were able to witness the city’s annual fireworks festival---visually stimulating to say the least. Approximately 2.5 million Koreans crammed the beachfront to watch a dazzling 50 minute firework extravaganza that was synced to epically-enhanced orchestral music. It made Ottawa’s celebration of July 1st at Parliament Hill look like the launching of a single emergency flare. Besides the fireworks it was also entertaining to watch the old Korean women muscle their way through dense human crowds. They might be short and arthritic but they sure know how to throw a mean elbow when in desperation.

And what would a note on cultural immersion be without the mentioning of food. So far Kat and I have been able to experiment with a number of traditional Korean dishes. I think our favorites range from the infamous Korean bbq to a conveniently portable and cheap dish called Kim-bop. Consisting of rice, strips of some type of meat, pickled turnip, sprouts, carrots, and egg, the kim-bop roll is held tightly together by a thin piece of dried seaweed. In other words, sushi’s California roll meets Korean pickled vegetables. Among the top strangest things we’ve digested so far is dead yet still squirming octopus tentacles, fried chicken’s feet, and chicken liver. We’ve heard murmurings of a “dog soup,” but we haven’t worked up the courage to try wet Clifford yet.

Well I think that’s sufficient for an initial post. Tomorrow our hagwon is throwing a Halloween party for the students, which promises to be interesting considering the event is nonsexist over here. If even for an hour, I’m glad the kids will have a break from their success-driven, businesslike lives and be able to experience a little slice of childhood lightheartedness.

Much love from the both of us,