Another list

This week has been full of surprising and strange turns. I'm certain I will write more about them when I have some perspective, but at the moment, I'm a little tired and drained.
So I'm making another list.
This on is entitled, "Things I can't wait to do when I get back to America."

1. Hug Mom and Dad.
2. Go to a wedding with half of my family.
3. Visit the other half my family.
4. Visit the Furlers.
5. Eat take-out Chinese food.
6. Take a bath.
7. Watch the news and try to get caught up on the whole presidential thing that has been going on.
8. Skype someone in the same time zone--just for the heck of it.
9. Sit on the dock with Mom and Dad and watch the sun set over the lake.
10. Drive.
11. Go to a store and talk to the clerk.
12. Go to a store and find what I expect to find.
13. Watch television without subtitles.
14. Look at a menu and not take ten minutes and ten guesses to figure out what one item might be.

It's taken a year, but I think I am officially homesick.

Lists

When I am getting ready to move (well, or do anything exciting or whatever), I tend to make lists.
I probably get this from my dad, who always carries an index card with his itinerary and his important phone numbers in his shirt pocket.
Well, I'm tired of the lists I've been making this week (that always seem to have plane ticket and immigration at the top, ha, ha). So, I'm putting my energy into some different lists.

The things I will not miss about South Korea (at all)
1. The smells that waft up from the gutters, especially on warm days.
2. The pile of garbage that collects outside my front door.
3. The cockroaches that have opened a bar and a restaurant outside my front door because of the ample supply of wonderful treats.
4. The stares that I get walking down the street.
5. The idiocy that I feel when I walk into a store and don't know how to ask where to find the laundry soap or the cockroach spray (still don't know how to say these things).
6. The idiocy that I feel when I realize that I can ask to find the laundry soap or the cockroach spray in Spanish, but not Korean--and frankly, this doesn't help me one bit.
7. The majority of the children.
8. The spark that jumps from the electrical outlets if I do not plug in the converter just right.
9. The puddles on my floor from the refrigerator or the shower.

The things I will miss about Korea (at least a little bit)
1. The smells like the spicy mint soup and the spice shop and the sam gup sal restaurants.
2. The half-hour rides in taxis, and realizing that it has cost me seven dollars.
3. The walk to the corner store and back, in less than five minutes.
4. The two dollar lunches.
5. The endless markets.
6. The strange fish in the tanks, waiting to be eaten.
7. The adjumas.
8. The walk to school, watching different people and listening to some sermon or podcast or something.
9. The late night chats in the ghetto with my neighbors.

Yep, it has been a great year. But, I am ready to go home.

Counting the days...

Well, I assume I have about fifteen more days left, but I'm still waiting for my plane ticket. No surprises there.
In the mean time, I have already started to pack, and I'm beginning to try to saturate myself with the Korean faces and places that I may miss when I leave. And yes, I'm feeling a little sentamental about leaving, but I'm also desperate for quiet time with people that can speak English.
So tonight, I had a magnificent dinner with Sun Sung Duck, and we played this great card game that was like a cross between Taipai and "Go Fish." Then we met Gim Bong Su on the street and walked to her house and sat there for a little longer, eating more.
Good times.

Relative Normalcy

It's strange the way my life here has become disconnected. In my little apartment, I can smell the bleach and the cockroach spray most of the time, and I can hear the produce man much of the day, but inside my walls, it is quiet and peaceful. I think and pray about my family so often, thinking about Mandy all alone, thinking about Kate and James taking care of the kids, thinking about Scott missing Mandy, thinking about Mom and Dad and their scattered children and grandchildren, thinking about Meg and Mike and how much I want to cry when I think about them sharing my little slice of Korea with me. And, of course, the prayer list goes on: I miss everyone so much.
Then I walk outside my strange little apartment. Korea is still foreign to me, but it is becoming familiar, and yes, almost comfortable. I still hate going to the grocery store and I don't like shopping, but that hasn't changed since I moved here. When my neighbor's kitchen is flooded for a couple of weeks running, I nod my head sympathetically and offer to help clean up. When I pass a strange bar with a man playing an accordian to an empty room, I walk past a couple of times, looking at his turned back and cocker spaniel. When Jenny and Young Hee start playing old Michael Jackson and Madonna songs and dancing like they are on some reality show, I laugh and try to join in. When I walk into the school in the morning, dreading another day babysitting kids, pleading with them to learn, trying to get them to listen, and attempting to keep alert, then suddenly, another day is over.
This has become the relative normalcy here.

An American watching the Seoul Olympics in South Korea

Tonight I was over at Shin Bun Ock's house having an awesome dinner, as always. After a bit of talking, she invited me into her living room to watch the Olympics: one channel playing weightlifting and swimming, and the other channel playing a baseball game between South Korea and America.
Don't start calling me anti-patriotic, but I was pulling for the Koreans. The Americans have plenty of medals, and I'm amazed at how this little country can pull off so much with some passion, some energy, and some patriotism. I was excited to see them do some exciting things tonight.
Well, as history would have it, a Korean beat out a Chinese in the weightlifting, a Korean placed second in the swimming, and the Korean baseball team beat the American team in an exciting ninth inning finish (with players from the Busan team that I have seen play a couple of times now).
Wow. Shin Bun Ock and I were cheering.
I'm not turning into a sports fan or anything, but the Korean spirit is certainly inspiring.

Busan Dialect

http://www.koreanclass101.com/index.php?s=busan&order=des

This website is for the Korean lessons I often download onto my awesome iPod touch that Mom and Dad got me for Christmas (they are free through iTunes). The funny thing about these episodes (particularly episode # 14 and #15 linked here) are the particular emphasis on the Busan dialect. In this lesson (if you listen to the lesson, which I highly recommend listening to the audio even though it has a bit of Korean interspersed with some interesting explications and interpretations), they discuss the "Busan spirit" and the dialectical variations.
Very interesting.

"The Koreans"--a brief explanation

Well, I did find this book interesting but slightly outdated--the book is ten years old, so some of the political stuff is a little behind.
I find the information about the contracts enlightening but not surprising. I have discovered--very first-hand--that contracts are not easy. Not very forthright. Not very popular topics. I think I understand this.
The educational system, Koreans' history, and Koreans' self-concept are all a bit befuddling. Koreans are very confident and aware (I'm over-generalizing, of course), but generally do not have a perspective or analytical approach to education or history. Being analytical, I find this frustrating at times, especially as a teacher. This book has definitely helped to shed some light on this: these general tendencies have developed over thousands of years as survival techniques that have worked, both in the political world, in the economic framework of the past fifty years, and in the historical setting of this amazingly strong people.
And the whole thing about reunification and the North/South devision was very enlightening. "Reunification" has become a euphemism for destroying a side of themselves, their brothers. Theirs is not a real reunification because any compromise means abolishing one or the other way of life--democratic or communistic. Now, "reunification" is about making it easier for both countries to accept the dissolving of the country that has made up the less fortunate family members. Not the bad guys, just the misunderstood, destructive brother.
One last quote:
"The more popular bits of countryside are so assaulted by visitors that one gets dissuaded from taking to them for relaxation. You know when summer's arrived because every year at the right time the newspapers carry pictures of 'half a million' sunbathers sweltering on the sandy crescent of Haeundae Beach, on the edge of the city of Busan.
"But this mobbing of one or two resorts does not explain why the rest of the countryside seems to recede into irrelevance. I used to think it was psychological, that somehow because the peninsula was so militarized and latent with violence, it could not appear embracing and beautiful, as the Scottish Highlands do. I now think in my case it was because I was overtaken by the sheer impact of dealing with the Koreans themselves. Mountains don't come into your office without appointments and expect you to talk all afternoon. Nor do they ring you up at midnight and say, 'It's Kim.' Koreans do, all the time."
It's moments like this, I sort of nod. Most of the people around me are also sick of me smiling a little smugly and saying something about how happy I am that I haven't gotten a cell phone here. Trust me, I'm glad I haven't gotten a cell phone here. Really glad.

"The Koreans"

Just finished reading this excellent book about the Korean people, their history, and their perspectives. It has been extremely enlightening. The author, Michael Breen, is British, and has formulated some ideas about this complicated country while carefully trying not to generalize.
For example: "For Koreans, a contract is part of the symbolism involved in beginning a relationship. The contract is only as binding as the personal relations. Furthermore, the contract may often be seen by the Korean side as only symbolising the relationship between those who signed it, not the two corporations. If relations are very close, then insisting on a contract can be taken as an insulting indication of mistrust. If contracts are broken, extra-legal channels are used to resolve a dispute. It goes to court only when all else has failed" (169).
Also: "Koreans have bought into a negative view of their own history in this century. They do not have a regard for their past, not just because it is painful, but more significantly because they do not know how to look at it" (24).
Last one: "...Koreans have a different idea of where their ego, and their rights, start and stop than we do. Korean family members merge into one another, interfering and clinging and depending to an extent that would drive us to the therapy group. Close physical contact is the norm. Infants spend half their day strapped to their mother's or grandmother's back. Prams and playpens are uncommon because they separate parent and child. Children have the same bedtime as their parents and sleep in the same bed until they're about five" (50).
I lied. One more: "Unification is the stated goal of both sides. An innocent traveller may wonder, then, why has it not happened? When asked this, Koreans of north and south tend to blame others--foreign powers, political leaders. In fact, the answer lies in the meaning of the division. Two options were created and one choice is to be. Unification is a win-lose affair. It is important to note that the two Koreas have not unified because, for both, each unification goal has meant the removal of the other side. The goal of the communists was a communist Korea; the goal of the anti-communists was a Korea without communists. Until now, the Koreans would not permit two states to exist. Even the various proposals that would officially allow two sides to exist until they gradually merge are designed as hostile, slow-motion takeovers" (244).