Thursday, August 2, 2012
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Global Couches to Surf
Leaving Korea, I am most proud of my new friends.
They are from:
America
Canada
Mexico
England
Ireland
Northern Ireland
New Zealand
Scotland
Wales
Australia
South Africa
Japan
Sweden
China
The Republic of Texas
and of course,
Korea.
Thank you for making me feel at home. Thank you for expanding my mind. Thank you for eating my heart.
(They're weird like that)
They are from:
America
Canada
Mexico
England
Ireland
Northern Ireland
New Zealand
Scotland
Wales
Australia
South Africa
Japan
Sweden
China
The Republic of Texas
and of course,
Korea.
Thank you for making me feel at home. Thank you for expanding my mind. Thank you for eating my heart.
(They're weird like that)
Ode to Moojuk
There is 15 pound stack of paper under the bed. Jesse says they are too heavy for our suitcases and I know he is right but I can't get rid of them just yet.
They are pages and pages of photocopied articles from The New Times and The Economist and nonfiction books:
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
The Power of Simplicity
Runaway Capitalism
Positive Intelligence
Asian Intervention
The Stuff of Thought
The Faith (and doubts) of Our Fathers
I spent every Saturday lunch from October 2011 to May 2012 reading a packet of these articles, making notes in the margins about Samsung and American politics and the failing Euro. I drank tea or hot cocoa and wrote discussion questions for the debate class I led from three to seven pm at The Moojuk School.
The Moojuk School's motto is "English is our Second Language." Moojuk is a bit of an overachiever, so it also has a second motto: "Education is National Security." Moojuk students are in their early 20's and are University students on a break from University, a break they spend absorbing as much English as humanly possible between the hours of 8am to 10pm, every single day of the week. This does not include personal study time. They will sleep when they're dead. (I may suggest this as a potential third motto.)
Their leader is Tcho. Tcho owns the school, but he is not an owner, he is a leader. He teaches classes. He enforces the "wear an orange Moojuk t-shirt at all times to show loyalty and also advertise" rule. He teasingly refers to himself as a "benevolent monarch." The students do not laugh at this. I see him as the strictest father, expecting greatness from his students, settling for nothing less than all. He is a short man with round glasses that magnify his smiling eyes. He is a combative mix of East and West: he is prideful of and in love with Korea and Busan; he will improve his community by pushing his students to be global, to be more than aware, to be experts on the politics and views outside of Korea.
Before Moojuk, I wanted to see the views outside of Korea too. That's all I wanted to see, any place but the Land of the Morning Calm. At the beginning of Korea Year Two, I was in misery. I was teetering on the edge of casual racism, quickly losing my balance. And I didn't care. I had been pushed by an elderly Korean on a bus one too many times. A horrible Korean woman gave me my first dose of racism in a naked spa. I toiled away on the Magic English Bus of Doesn't That Seem A Lifetime Ago, where I was reminded day in and day out that my Korean co-workers could disrespect me and show up late and do no work because they were older and I was younger (and foreign and less than) and the hierarchy in Korea ruins everything.
I wanted to forget the 25% of me that got me a college scholarship (from the Rocky Mountain Korean Lions Club, rearry! jinja!). I was repeatedly told it wasn't relevant anyways. I wasn't really Korean. I couldn't really use chopsticks. I didn't really have a Korean Grandmother. Wait, oh, really? Well she isn't really all that Korean after living in America so long.
Here's the part where I wax poetic on the relevation I had at Moojuk that kept me from loathing Korea and Koreans.
I was spoiled. The students spoke perfect English. Their vocabularies rivaled Tim Gunn's or if you don't get that reference, the students have better vocabularies than all of you. And this allowed me to get to know them. Miscommunication was never a worry, though a thesaurus was often a necessity. Because we could so effectively communicate on global issues, on stereotypes, on other cultures and cultural differences, we felt free. We didn't tiptoe around topics or accidentally somehow insult or generalize each other's opinions, and if we did, we could effectively change each other's minds or explain where we were coming from or constructively disagree.
I had forgotten that people are people. Some are dicks. Most are not. Some are brilliant and enlightened. Most are not.
And so I looked inward. I had gotten to a point where the delineations were being made by me. Some made it "Us and Them" and I perpetuated it. To feel safer in the spicy world of South Korea, where nationalism is a fairly reasonable birthright and elders are always right and food is love and love is uncomfortable, I wrapped myself in the occasional hate I witnessed or even had partaken in. Because being kept on a bus against my will would then not make me cry, it would just make me rage (kidding, still totally cried).
I told my students, "Please, do not run from black people on the street. Movies are not an accurate representation of American."
They told me, "Please, not all of us push. Well, most of us. I mean, I personally don't push."
I have decided that I cannot part with the articles. I can't leave Schumpeter in the trash, I refuse to part with my copies of pages from books on perfectionism and the effects of globalization. I will pay to send them home in a box that will cross the ocean by boat.
Last Saturday I said goodbye to Moojuk and Tcho. I didn't know how to tell them that they had not only changed my Korean life, but they had left an indelible mark on me. They opened my heart and my mind again, they gave me a global perspective, they brought me back to Korea, to my blood, to my mother's mother's land, and there was no thank you verbose or fancy enough to show them the strength of my gratitude. But I think they understood. On my way out of the door, Tcho slipped me a stunning rainbow bracelet, a crystalline wonder with tiny gold leaf and floral charms. "This is a shackle," he grinned, knowing I can't ever really truly leave Korea.
They are pages and pages of photocopied articles from The New Times and The Economist and nonfiction books:
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
The Power of Simplicity
Runaway Capitalism
Positive Intelligence
Asian Intervention
The Stuff of Thought
The Faith (and doubts) of Our Fathers
I spent every Saturday lunch from October 2011 to May 2012 reading a packet of these articles, making notes in the margins about Samsung and American politics and the failing Euro. I drank tea or hot cocoa and wrote discussion questions for the debate class I led from three to seven pm at The Moojuk School.
The Moojuk School's motto is "English is our Second Language." Moojuk is a bit of an overachiever, so it also has a second motto: "Education is National Security." Moojuk students are in their early 20's and are University students on a break from University, a break they spend absorbing as much English as humanly possible between the hours of 8am to 10pm, every single day of the week. This does not include personal study time. They will sleep when they're dead. (I may suggest this as a potential third motto.)
Their leader is Tcho. Tcho owns the school, but he is not an owner, he is a leader. He teaches classes. He enforces the "wear an orange Moojuk t-shirt at all times to show loyalty and also advertise" rule. He teasingly refers to himself as a "benevolent monarch." The students do not laugh at this. I see him as the strictest father, expecting greatness from his students, settling for nothing less than all. He is a short man with round glasses that magnify his smiling eyes. He is a combative mix of East and West: he is prideful of and in love with Korea and Busan; he will improve his community by pushing his students to be global, to be more than aware, to be experts on the politics and views outside of Korea.
Before Moojuk, I wanted to see the views outside of Korea too. That's all I wanted to see, any place but the Land of the Morning Calm. At the beginning of Korea Year Two, I was in misery. I was teetering on the edge of casual racism, quickly losing my balance. And I didn't care. I had been pushed by an elderly Korean on a bus one too many times. A horrible Korean woman gave me my first dose of racism in a naked spa. I toiled away on the Magic English Bus of Doesn't That Seem A Lifetime Ago, where I was reminded day in and day out that my Korean co-workers could disrespect me and show up late and do no work because they were older and I was younger (and foreign and less than) and the hierarchy in Korea ruins everything.
I wanted to forget the 25% of me that got me a college scholarship (from the Rocky Mountain Korean Lions Club, rearry! jinja!). I was repeatedly told it wasn't relevant anyways. I wasn't really Korean. I couldn't really use chopsticks. I didn't really have a Korean Grandmother. Wait, oh, really? Well she isn't really all that Korean after living in America so long.
Here's the part where I wax poetic on the relevation I had at Moojuk that kept me from loathing Korea and Koreans.
I was spoiled. The students spoke perfect English. Their vocabularies rivaled Tim Gunn's or if you don't get that reference, the students have better vocabularies than all of you. And this allowed me to get to know them. Miscommunication was never a worry, though a thesaurus was often a necessity. Because we could so effectively communicate on global issues, on stereotypes, on other cultures and cultural differences, we felt free. We didn't tiptoe around topics or accidentally somehow insult or generalize each other's opinions, and if we did, we could effectively change each other's minds or explain where we were coming from or constructively disagree.
I had forgotten that people are people. Some are dicks. Most are not. Some are brilliant and enlightened. Most are not.
And so I looked inward. I had gotten to a point where the delineations were being made by me. Some made it "Us and Them" and I perpetuated it. To feel safer in the spicy world of South Korea, where nationalism is a fairly reasonable birthright and elders are always right and food is love and love is uncomfortable, I wrapped myself in the occasional hate I witnessed or even had partaken in. Because being kept on a bus against my will would then not make me cry, it would just make me rage (kidding, still totally cried).
I told my students, "Please, do not run from black people on the street. Movies are not an accurate representation of American."
They told me, "Please, not all of us push. Well, most of us. I mean, I personally don't push."
I have decided that I cannot part with the articles. I can't leave Schumpeter in the trash, I refuse to part with my copies of pages from books on perfectionism and the effects of globalization. I will pay to send them home in a box that will cross the ocean by boat.
Last Saturday I said goodbye to Moojuk and Tcho. I didn't know how to tell them that they had not only changed my Korean life, but they had left an indelible mark on me. They opened my heart and my mind again, they gave me a global perspective, they brought me back to Korea, to my blood, to my mother's mother's land, and there was no thank you verbose or fancy enough to show them the strength of my gratitude. But I think they understood. On my way out of the door, Tcho slipped me a stunning rainbow bracelet, a crystalline wonder with tiny gold leaf and floral charms. "This is a shackle," he grinned, knowing I can't ever really truly leave Korea.
Taking Notice
When you live abroad, it's impossible to take life for granted.
I notice things I would not at home, because I am an outsider looking in.
I notice the startling mix of modern and traditional, the new and old that is missing in Young America.
Busan is a mix of concrete behemouth high-rises and low brick four-stories from the seventies and shacks, decrepit shacks with tin roofs and crumbling, over-humidified stucco walling. From the mountains the city is a labrynth of department stores and pastel clapboard boxes people call home. It is a haphazard Lego Land, with everything fitting just so in available nooks, filling up each cranny.
I notice the markets, the maze of stalls, indoor and outdoor, where the fish and sea-crawlies wait, too long, in maroon tubs and small circular tupperwares. The smell and the heat make the floor move beneath my feet, as do the pushing ajummas, desperate for deals, for the freshest fruit, for the best rice cake. Though sober, they drunkenly weave between of sacks of purple and black and white and brown and long grain rice, and the halmonies, the ancient mottled old women merchants sit shoeless, watching, fanning their wilting perms, smiling at my white sweating face.
I worry for these women and the market and the next generation, the young understandably unwilling to work in these conditions for this lack of pay, a generation living at home well into their 30's, single and still being doted on by mommy and daddy. This next generation won't work or even shop in these markets. Will they know how to cook these slimy things? Will infiltrating Western food ruin their taste for the sea? Will the market be absorbed by the next six story Home Plus?
I notice the babies, the shoe-squeaking babies, in lovely frilled dresses and coverals and visors. Why are babies better here? Are they more curious, more rounded lovliness? Why do I not see babies at home?
Is it the way they dangle from their grandmother's backs? Is it the way they squeak like their shoes, chirping garbled Korean?
I notice homeless cats, ragged cats missing patches of furr and googly-eyed kittens, wandering around outside of hidden dog restaurants (where dogs are eaten, not fed).
I notice the green. Humidity is hell but for plants. It is lush, Korea, and the bugs sing its praises in my ear.
I notice every old person slouching on this sidewalk or pushing through this crowd. Do old people even leave the house in America? Where are all the old Americans? This grandmother here is hauling a cart of lettuce up the subway stairs. She swats my butt when I take it from her, she rests her hand on my shoulder when I give it back at the top. The old men playing some sort of Korean checkers shake their fists at each other. They all meet later under the stars at wooden gazebos outside of apartment building. They wear their pajamas and fan each other and have a humid slumber party.
I notice red crosses littered across the valley, shining at the top of each steeple.
Three Koreans have said to me now, in article-missing, poetically incorrect English:
"When you will return home, Korea will dream for you. Will be dream."
I don't want to stop noticing things. I don't want to wake up.
I notice things I would not at home, because I am an outsider looking in.
I notice the startling mix of modern and traditional, the new and old that is missing in Young America.
Busan is a mix of concrete behemouth high-rises and low brick four-stories from the seventies and shacks, decrepit shacks with tin roofs and crumbling, over-humidified stucco walling. From the mountains the city is a labrynth of department stores and pastel clapboard boxes people call home. It is a haphazard Lego Land, with everything fitting just so in available nooks, filling up each cranny.
I notice the markets, the maze of stalls, indoor and outdoor, where the fish and sea-crawlies wait, too long, in maroon tubs and small circular tupperwares. The smell and the heat make the floor move beneath my feet, as do the pushing ajummas, desperate for deals, for the freshest fruit, for the best rice cake. Though sober, they drunkenly weave between of sacks of purple and black and white and brown and long grain rice, and the halmonies, the ancient mottled old women merchants sit shoeless, watching, fanning their wilting perms, smiling at my white sweating face.
I worry for these women and the market and the next generation, the young understandably unwilling to work in these conditions for this lack of pay, a generation living at home well into their 30's, single and still being doted on by mommy and daddy. This next generation won't work or even shop in these markets. Will they know how to cook these slimy things? Will infiltrating Western food ruin their taste for the sea? Will the market be absorbed by the next six story Home Plus?
I notice the babies, the shoe-squeaking babies, in lovely frilled dresses and coverals and visors. Why are babies better here? Are they more curious, more rounded lovliness? Why do I not see babies at home?
Is it the way they dangle from their grandmother's backs? Is it the way they squeak like their shoes, chirping garbled Korean?
I notice homeless cats, ragged cats missing patches of furr and googly-eyed kittens, wandering around outside of hidden dog restaurants (where dogs are eaten, not fed).
I notice the green. Humidity is hell but for plants. It is lush, Korea, and the bugs sing its praises in my ear.
I notice every old person slouching on this sidewalk or pushing through this crowd. Do old people even leave the house in America? Where are all the old Americans? This grandmother here is hauling a cart of lettuce up the subway stairs. She swats my butt when I take it from her, she rests her hand on my shoulder when I give it back at the top. The old men playing some sort of Korean checkers shake their fists at each other. They all meet later under the stars at wooden gazebos outside of apartment building. They wear their pajamas and fan each other and have a humid slumber party.
I notice red crosses littered across the valley, shining at the top of each steeple.
Three Koreans have said to me now, in article-missing, poetically incorrect English:
"When you will return home, Korea will dream for you. Will be dream."
I don't want to stop noticing things. I don't want to wake up.
Loose Ends
We did not get to see the DMZ.
We did not make it to Jeju.
I never saw Driver again.
I did not have dinner with Mrs. Park, my bus grandmother.
I did not have the chance to grafitti the Magic English Bus of Tears.
I could not purchase a hanbok dress.
I was unable to find my Grandmother's family.
We did not make it to Jeju.
I never saw Driver again.
I did not have dinner with Mrs. Park, my bus grandmother.
I did not have the chance to grafitti the Magic English Bus of Tears.
I could not purchase a hanbok dress.
I was unable to find my Grandmother's family.
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