Dear Family and Friends,

An itsy-bitsy, tiny weeny little problem: upon my arrival in Daegu, I did not know a single syllable of the Korean language. I had read that Korea is an insular country, that the general level of English is low, and knew that language presented an issue, although professionally this definitely works in my favor as a low English level is good for “native” teachers (we are needed). Anyway, as my world slowly began to expand beyond my apartment and the school, I learned that for a reasonable sum, the Daegu YMCA teaches a beginner Saturday morning Korean class. However, details, in English, regarding this class were scarce and my initial inquires went unfulfilled. At one point, I called the Y but no one on the other end of the phone spoke English. [grimace] Not a good sign.

Luckily, a helpful mass e-mail arrived from school district headquarters with just enough information for me to figure out how to join the class, although at that point I had already missed the first two classes. But I needed to learn the basics of Korea in order to navigate my new home, to be polite to the people around me, and I had had the realization that this would be a good venue to meet other native English speakers. I was determined to join.

The next Saturday morning, I eagerly popped out of bed (news unto itself), hurried through my morning routine of a run, shower, and breakfast, and hastened to the subway stop relatively near my apartment that I had newly discovered. Time flies faster than the subway and I’ve been surprised several times to find that it takes 35 minutes to reach downtown. My directions said that there would be signs for the YMCA but even with the assistance of a man who was happy to practice his English + Korean + map-reading skills, it took me a good 10 minutes to figure out which of the 24 exits to use. I walked up to street level, around a corner and found myself at a raggedy YMCA, walked up worn stairs, paid 80,000 Won, tried out my thank you (“kamsa hamnida”) on the giggly staff, and walked into the classroom labeled “beginners.” I was one of the first to arrive. Slowly others trickled in, even a few that I recognized from my first disorienting arrival day. We sat facing each other at long tables formed into a U-shape. Eventually a few Koreans wandered in to the classroom and one advanced to the white board and began speaking Korean mixed with English. She was easy to pay attention to not in the least because of her outfit: khaki pants topped with a short, blue knit jumper dress, a purple Henley unbuttoned to reveal an orange undershirt, accessorized with a tan headband, red high top Converse shoes, orange swingy earrings and a Swatch watch with polka dots. Amazing. I diligently took notes but understood about 15% of what she was saying. [grimace] Not a good sign.

At first, no one in the class talked with each other, so during the lesson, I kept sneaking looks around, hoping to find a friendly face. The majority of the students were female dressed in traveler-teacher chic, tee-shirts, jeans, beaded necklaces, nicely arranged hair and flip-flops. I was seated next to one of the few guys, a Brit, he and I helped each other through out the class, which secured me an invite to an after-class lunch with a group. (Hooray!). Across the tables from me was one of the handsomest men I’ve ever seen in my life. His features were Greek or Italian or the like and although I wasn’t necessarily attracted, I really wanted to stare at him until I had had my fill. I was also envious of with his wife’s stylish mode of dress, which was both artistic and casual. I was seated kitty corner from an American lady, whom I had liked on the first day we met. It was her first day of Korean class too and she and I kept rolling our eyes at each other in frustration and/or amusement. During the break, I conversed with two hogwan (private school) teachers while we all used the ladies room, with its sticker-decorated squat toilet stalls and miniature sinks that necessitated squatting to use. I couldn’t call class a rousing success but I was game to return the following week.

We congregated in the hall with a few others from the advanced class, where I met up with one that I had met in passing on my first day, another whom I had seen applying for a resident alien card and a few others. We shared life stories while ambling our way to a cheap but good restaurant with sunken iron woks in the middle of the tables. We ordered chicken fried rice, not too hot please. The waiter switched on the wok, brought over chicken plus veggies and dumped them into the wok. He and we occasionally stirred the chicken with a wooden spatula, while he supplied us with kimchi, cold tomato soup, Pepsi, water, and a cabbage salad topped with an odd dressing. Soon the waiter reappeared with a plate of already cooked white rice topped with a lot of red sauce and that too got dumped into the wok. He stirred for a minute or so and we had our lunch. We enjoyed the food and the company, paid 3,000 W (~$3), walked to the bookstore to buy text books for class, and one by one parted company.

I love that bookstore; I bought a Korean cookbook too.

The next Saturday was much the same except that we went to a Chinese/Korean fusion place and our crowd was smaller. We had an excellent lunch and by the end, I had concluded that I hope to be friends with these people – and this time we exchanged e-mail addresses and phone numbers. We talked about visiting a bar the following Friday night but in the end, the idea fizzled out, especially in light of our plans for the following Saturday: an elementary school English camp.

Weeks after my arrival in Korea, I found out that I am an “English Program In Korea (‘EPIK’)” teacher. I’m still not sure what this means except that it says EPIK at the top of my contract, I was hired by the Korean government, I am paid by the Daegu Metropolitan School District, and that there are 40 or so teachers like me spread throughout the city. And hundreds spread throughout the country. Because the demand for native teachers is high, sometimes opportunities to make a little side money by teaching special classes come our way. The Daegu EPIK group had been asked to volunteer for a day’s teaching at an elementary camp and I submitted my name in order to meet people, take a crack at teaching elementary, and to make a bit of extra travel money.

So the following Saturday, I awoke at 6:30 am per usual, skipped my run and managed to arrive in downtown Daegu by 8:00 am. With my fellow EPIK teachers, I boarded a plush coach with wide seats and ascetically pleasing curtains. In good company, we chatted as our bus snaked through the hills to arrive at a school “camp” building set amongst tall, wooded hills. We disembarked, were fed, and just after the bell rang, were sent into little rooms to conduct classes. I and my fellow teachers had been given lessons plans ahead of time and promised materials; however, I quickly found the lesson plan was inadequate and taught rotating bunches of students the same teaching point a different way each time. I quickly became impatient with twelve-year-old disruptive hyperactivity and resistance between boys and girls to talk with one another to the point of resolving to fervently tell my high school students how much I love them. But the twelve-year-olds were cute and after a few experiments on how best to handle them, classes improved. My favorite class was the last class, all boys, who were rambunctious but willing and therefore fun. They were a bit sad when the bell rang and I was only a little less sad to see them file out. As we EPIK teachers were lined up to be photographed for posterity (or more likely to please the parents), I resolved to do some reading re: elementary class management before putting myself and the students through that exercise again.

After our bus arrived back at Daegu, we teachers took ourselves to the ex-pat hangout: the downtown Daegu Seattle’s Best Coffee. I believe that I need to go into detail about how walking into Seattle’s Best was a bit like returning to the mother-ship for me. But this was the biggest mother-ship I had ever been in: 3 stories high, 6 rooms to sit in and all of them pretty darn full. I ordered an iced green tea thingy covered with whipped cream and made a lot of “hmmm sounds” as I worked my through it. We enjoyed our treat and then a group of us girls went shopping and to have pedicures. Good times.

Due to Chuseok there was no class this last Saturday and I shall miss next Saturday’s class because I plan to visit Busan. But I’ve actually begun studying Korean on my own… wish me luck.

Annyeong-hi gyeseyo (this is good-bye to the person staying).

--Laura