Katy in Korea

Message of Joy

2011-03-14T14:37:00.000-07:00

First off, I just want everyone to know that I am just fine. We didn't feel the earthquake at all here in Korea, and the tsunami didn't affect us at all. We are completely blocked by everything by Japan, which is nice.

I just want you all to know that where the earthquake struck the hardest, Miyagi prefecture, was where I was living in Japan. It boggles my mind to think that that could have been me there. I still have many friends in Japan who have been severely affected by the earthquake and tsunami, and I have been (and continue to be) very worried about them (especially those I have yet to hear from).

BUT! I have great news! Two American friends of mine, one of whom I actually attended UC Davis with as well, were in Minami Sanriku, one of the towns hardest hit by the tsunami (the whole town is gone now). 10,000 people out of the population of 17,000 are still missing, presumed dead. For three days we didn't hear one way or the other about whether they were alive or not since communication, and everything else, has been completely knocked out in the town. However, yesterday the Japanese National Defense Force was finally able to get into the town to rescue people. When they got to the Shizugawa Junior High School, which has been set up as a shelter, they found my two friends! They are alive and well! I am so happy!

I still have friends that I have not heard from. One, a Japanese lady named Rui Sasaki, was in Higashi-Matsushima, another town that was hit hard by the tsunami. I ask everyone to please keep her, as well as all the people of Japan, in your thoughts and prayers.

All I have heard out of Kurihara is from my friend James. He said that he is fine, and that all his electronics survived due to a futon (mattress) I gave him before I left Japan! He doesn't have electricity or running water, and due to the frequent after shocks, he has started to live out of his car. He says that gas and food are scarce, but that he has enough to eat for a week or so. The only other person I have heard from in Kurihara is my friend Noriko, and all she said was, "we are alive Thank God" and that's the last I have heard. Kurihara is inland, so they didn't suffer any damage from the tsunami. The only thing that affected them was the earthquake. Other than that I haven't heard anything.

I have started to settle into a routine, which is good for me. The whole picking me up and dropping me off back home by my co-workers thing is really starting to get annoying. I have to leave earlier than I would like and I have to stay later too because of it. I get to talk with them, which is nice, but I would love to have my own transportation, if only to get to my schools. I can get around the city and to other cities really easily since the bus terminal is a 2 minute walk from my apartment (it is about a 30 minute walk to the train station) so I can get around fine by foot or by bicycle (which I really need to buy). Just getting to and from my schools is a hassle. I am seriously considering buying a car like the one I had in Japan. I am scared to drive in Korea though, they drive like crazy people here.

I finally went to Daegu, the largest city in my province, this past weekend. Only saw a small part of it. I was with a big group of foreigners, so we really didn't get much done, but we wandered a bit and did some shopping. I found out the Cold Stone Creamery is here! Yay for delicious ice cream! I also ended up getting a cell phone (finally!) since I received my Alien Registration Card on Friday. The ARC card is the most important thing you must have while living in Korea. Without it, you can't do anything. So now since I have the card I am officially a pseudo-citizen and can do such mundane things like opening a bank account and getting a cell phone and have insurance!

Next order of business is buying a bicycle and maybe a car. Plus one of my co-teachers, her name is Kim Sunyea (or Christina is her English name) is going to introduce me to a jazz dance studio, so maybe I will start getting back into shape!

Internet at last!

2011-03-07T15:39:00.000-08:00

First off, I want everyone to know that I am feeling much better, still not 100%, but better. I even went to class today (2 different schools in one day! *cries*). And actually, the first school of the day almost brought me to tears I was so frustrated (no, I will not explain), but the second school of the day was much better and restored my natural good cheer.

I have picked up a few words in Korean, not very many. The cadence is a lot like Japanese and a very few of the words are the same (like bag, for example is "kaban" in both languages) but the crossover is rare. Like Korea itself, I would say Korean is a wacky mix of both Japanese and Chinese plus it's own unique thing all mixed together. I found Japanese to be much easier to learn because it was completely phonetic and all the sounds the in the Japanese language are also in the English language. Korean...not so much. Korean pronunciation is very tricky, kinda like Chinese, though it isn't tonal like Chinese. In Korean, "bu" and "pu" and then "gu" and "ku" and then "du" and "tu" and then "ju" and "chu" all sound very similar. For instance, the city of "Pusan" can be said either "Pusan" or "Busan" though neither is actually correct. The real sound is somewhere in between "b" and "p" so it is very difficult to pronounce things correctly. The words are also incredibly long which makes pronunciation hard too. For instance, a simple "hello" in English is "annyeonghaseyo" in Korean. Then they have weird vowels like "eo". How the heck are you supposed to pronounce "eo"!? GAH! It was driving me a little nutty but I have gotten to the acceptance stage where I just try and let the language flow into me and parrot it back instead of trying to wrestle it into submission (i.e. some form of comprehension) first. I haven't had the time to sit down and learn the written language (called hangul) but I hear it is very easy to learn, like you could do it in 2 hours or less. So at least I won't be illiterate for as long as I was in Japan (it took me awhile to catch up with all the kanji (Chinese characters) in Japan). I will be able to read things, I just won't have any idea what they mean!

I wouldn't say the language is harsher than Japanese. Like I said, the cadence is very similar between the two languages. The people, on the other hand, are a little bit harsher. As I said before, Korea is a strange mix of Japan and China, so the people here tend to be a little more abrupt (kinda like the Chinese) with you. But I think that may be because they are always in a hurry. They call it "bali bali" or "faster faster" which I think is the motto of the country and probably why they get into so many traffic accidents!

I must say that it does really annoy me when Korean people with just jabber away at me in Korean when I obviously have no idea what they are saying. It is like they think I will magically gain fluency or something. I must say that the Koreans have been remarkably helpful though, unlike the Japanese who wouldn't even bother with you unless you asked them to help you in Japanese. For instance, OMG the first night I was here (in my apartment) I blew out my power when I tried to plug in my surge protector (weird huh?). So, I went to my breaker box to try and restore power, but the breaker box was broken too! So there I was, in the dark, first night in my apartment, my landlady and her family (they live on the 1st floor) had gone away on a family trip for the weekend, and I had no phone to call anyone to help me. Despair, right? Well, I walked over to the GS25 (a convenience store) which is next to the empty field which is next to my building. I walked in and started miming calling someone then I pointed to the number my supervisor (Mr. Choi) had left me. The lady, who I think might be the owner, seemed to understand what I wanted so she put me in her car and drove me up the street. I thought we were going to a pay phone, which is what I wanted. Nope! She took me to a cell phone store! So I did the whole miming calling Mr. Choi thing again and the cell phone store people got it and called the number from a phone in their store. So finally I was able to talk to Mr. Choi and tell him my problem. Then, the lady from the convenience store put me back in her car and drove me back to the convenience store. Mr. Choi showed up soon afterwords (I was so embarrassed by the whole fiasco) and he tried to restore my power but had the same problem with the breaker box, so he called an electrician! Mind you, all of this was taking place at something like 9:00 PM!!! But! Lo and Behold! The electrician came, quick as you please, got my power running again and even got my surge protector plugged in just fine! So. as I said, the Korean people are incredibly helpful.

The transportation issue

2011-03-06T00:03:00.000-08:00

I did consider getting a car, but they are much more expensive here (even used, I think someone said around $7000 for a used car) than they were in Japan. (Unless my dad is finally going to get me that car he owes me! Plus they drive on the same side of the road as the U.S., so I could always ship it home!) However, people drive crazy here. More people die here from traffic accidents than in any other country I think. So, I don't think I want to drive here. I might get a scooter, problem is, it rains a lot in this country. Still it might be good to use for the days it isn't raining.

Several of the other EPIK teachers have the same pick up issues that I have. Some take buses to their schools. I am not entirely sure what options are open to me, bus-wise.

The town is very modern. Lots of high rises and neon signs. The whole shebang! Just on a much smaller scale than, say Tokyo (much MUCH smaller scale). There are hotels and hospitals (and tons of christian churches, go figure) but no movie theater. There is a train station but I can't go direct to Seoul, or Daegu which is the closest actual city (with a Costco!!!). I think I have to make one change in either case. The bus system in Korea is great though (and super cheap! In fact all of Korea is super cheap. Taxi fares have averaged $2.50 per ride and there are taxis EVERYWHERE). Plus, where I am (Sang-ju) is smack dab in the middle of South Korea, so I can reach anywhere in Korea (by bus) in 3 hours or less.

Some EPIK teachers have even worse schedules than mine. One girl has to teach at a high school, two middle schools and an elementary school, and make 16 DIFFERENT lesson plans EVERY WEEK. At least I can use the same lesson plans between schools. I feel so bad for her. There was a guy who used to teach at my base school, Sa-Beol, but I don't know if he also taught at the other two as well.

I think the students are more focused here than in Japan. I have a few 6th graders who speak really great English. They were asking me all sorts of questions on my first day. I was so impressed!

Hit the ground running...

2011-03-05T18:57:00.000-08:00

Is the name of the game here in Korea. Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't been in contact. I haven't had any decent internet, but I am getting my own internet on Monday. Yay! Leeching from other people's wi-fi hasn't worked so well, I keep getting booted off after only 1 minute or so. Today however seems to be an auspicious day, for I have had a connection for over 30 minutes now.
So, I have gotten all moved into my apartment here in Sang-ju. It is one room, about the same size as my apartment was in Japan (maybe a little bigger). My bathroom scares me, since the whole bathroom is the shower (it's kinda hard to explain, once I have my own internet I will do a walk through with those of you that have web-cams). My landlady is really nice, though she doesn't speak a word of English. Her oldest daughter just entered high school and is pretty good at translating between her mother and me.
Rena is within walking distance of my place (seems most everything is within walking distance, except for my schools). She really lucked out and ended up in the same apartment complex as almost all of the new EPIK teachers (mostly South Africans). I thought about trying to move, but my landlady is the sister-in-law of my co-teacher, and I think it would be seen as an insult if I asked to move. I like my place anyway, and like I said, my landlady is awesome. She is always bringing me food!
Sang-ju is a really spread out city, but fortunately most of us EPIK teachers ended up in the downtown area. So all of the stores and restaurants are a really short walk away. It reminds me a bit of Monterey, as in the downtown area is much smaller than the city as a whole. Unfortunately all of my schools (I teach at 3 schools, all elementary level, so I will be receiving the "multiple school" extra bonus of 150,000 won a month, oh and Dad, I did end up getting the level 1 pay scale of 2.5 million won a month) are outside of the downtown area, my furthest one, called Gonggeum, is about a 20 minute car ride away! As I don't have my own car, the teachers have figured out a system of one from each school picking me up every morning and then driving me home in the afternoon. It is nice of them to do it, but it sucks being reliant on them for my transportation. My base school is called Sa-Beol, it is the most modernized of the bunch. This is where my co-teacher, Mr. Choi works (he is the one who drives me to and from this school, his English is pretty good). However, he is really not my co-teacher, as I never teach any classes with him since he is the P.E. teacher, not the English teacher so he really is more like my supervisor rather than my co-teacher. I am supposed to go to him if I have any problems, and he drove me down to Daegu on Monday in order to apply for my Alien Registration Card. It sucks not having my ARC, I can't do anything without one. I can't get a cell phone, or even open a bank account (though apparently there is a way to open a bank account with your passport, I heard the process was very difficult but Rena said that she managed it, so I might try it out on Monday if I can get away from school for a bit). My co-teacher is a special contract teacher named Kim Sunyea (Christina) who only comes to Sa-Beol Elementary school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. However I only teach at Sa-Beol on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, so we only teach one day together. I have no idea who I will be team teaching with on Wednesdays. Perhaps the homeroom teachers? They threw me into a class on Wednesday after the Entrance Ceremony with no Korean teacher and me not even knowing the schedule or anything so I didn't even know what class I was teaching! I did not expect to be thrown into a class before even knowing my schedule, so of course I didn't have a lesson planned. I tried my best but needless to say it was a disaster. Hopefully next week will be better.
Gonggeum is my second largest school and I am only teaching 5th and 6th graders there. I go to Gonggeum for half of Monday and all of Thursday. The vice-principal is the one who picks me up in the mornings (yikes!) and she doesn't speak much English, however she does want to practice with me. On Thursday they also just thew me into class before I even knew my schedule for this school, but fortunately I was a little more prepared than Wednesday and I have great co-teachers (the 5th and 6th grade homeroom teachers). Their English isn't perfect but we understand each other well enough.
On Friday I went to my third and smallest school, Baekwon. I will be going to Baekwon on the other half of Monday and all day Friday. The 2nd grade teacher is the one who drives me, her English is so-so, but she also wants to practice with me. Thank goodness I didn't have to teach, so I was able to get my schedule and am able to get some lesson plans done before they throw me into class. Out of all the schools, the teachers at Baekwon are the friendliest. I think I will be team teaching with the homeroom teachers for the normal classes and then this guy, whose name I don't really know, for the English elective classes. Out of all the schools though, Baekwon is the lowest tech-wise, and they don't have an English room like the other two schools have, so I will have to go around to the individual classes. We will see how it goes.
They really expect you to hit the ground running here.
All of my schools are really small which is nice. I think the largest class I have has 15 students and the smallest has 7. So the classes can have a more personalized feel. With some classes I will be teaching out of the textbook, some classes I get to do whatever I want. In some ways that is nice but in other ways, I feel like everything is all over the place and I am being asked to do 20 different things all at once.
It doesn't help that I caught a horrible cold yesterday. It came out of nowhere too. On Friday I was fine, a little under the weather perhaps but I chalked it up to being exhausted from working non-stop for the past 3 days. Then Saturday came and boom! I was sick as a dog. It is a weird cold too, like nothing I have ever had before. I am not congested at all, but I have a cough. And my body aches, the whole thing! It is really quite painful. I also feel very weak. It feels like I got trampled by a heard of buffalo. My body temperature is also out of wack. One minute I am burning up hot and sweating like a rugby player and the next minute I am freezing and nothing I do warms me up. I might have had a fever yesterday, but I think it broke around 11pm last night as I started feeling a little better then. My landlady took me to a pharmacy yesterday and they gave me some medicine that seems to be working. I also have DayQuil and Ibuprofen seems to work well enough for the aches. I have also started taking Cleratin again in case allergies is what is causing this. I would like your opinion, Cathy.
Anyway, love you all and miss you. I am having a bit of a hard time now, and I keep thinking "what the hell am I doing here?". Hopefully things will start to get better. I have made some good friends though, especially Rena and some of the South Africans. And I really like the lady I co-teach with at Sa-Beol, Kim Sunyea (Christina). She grew up here in Sang-ju so she knows all the good restaurants and she said she would introduce all of them to me.
Hopefully I will be getting internet tomorrow and will be able to call everyone sometime soon after that. I tried testing Skype with Rena, but the connection I am leeching from is so crappy that our conversation kept getting cut. So I will wait until I have my own internet before I call everyone.

I KNOW WHERE I AM LIVING!!

2011-02-24T00:28:00.000-08:00

YAY!!!!! Signed my contract today! Yay!!!

I am living in the city of Songju. Here is a link to the wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangju

Something of note is that a sister city of Songju is Davis, California!!!

I also know that I will be working in an elementary school. Yay! It is what I wanted! I don't know if it will be one elementary school or several, all I know is the name of my base school (which is written in Korean so I can't read it, sorry).

I still don't know about my apartment or anything like that, but I do know that Rena, the girl I came down from Seoul with and whom I am rooming with here at the orientation, will be in the same city!!! Also, another girl who arrived late who I have gotten to know well named Alicia will also be in the same city!!!

I also did my presentation lesson with my group this morning and we did really well! Heard lots of praise and hardly any critiquing! Good job team!

Tomorrow we ship out to our towns, so I will probably be incommunicado for anywhere from 1-3 weeks depending on how fast I get my Alien Registration Card and subsequently set up my internet and get my cell phone. I may or may not have internet at my school, don't count on it though. There will probably be PC cafes where I can use the internet though. I will have to see once I get there.

How's the food?

2011-02-22T22:23:00.000-08:00

Okay, by popular demand, I shall answer the food question.

It's okay. Then again, we are eating dorm food which by definition falls somewhere in between somewhat decent and awful. I do like Korean food though. Love kimchi, so spicy! I also like Bibinbap, which is a sort of rice dish mixed with veggies and sometimes egg and meat. I also like Bulgogi (spelling?) which is a sort of spicy beef dish. And, of course, there is always Korean barbecue. I was never worried about the food. I am generally adventurous with food and will try anything once and I tend to like most of what I try. There are only a few foods in the world I am adamant about not eating. One thing I am worried about eating is fresh octopus. Apparently, in Korea they are known to take still live octopus and chop them up just like that and then eat them while the tentacles are still moving. This can be very dangerous because since the suckers are still going, if you don't chew well they can end up closing your windpipe. I promise to be careful.

Hope that answers the food question!

Orientation, Day 3

2011-02-22T07:05:00.000-08:00

Had my first full day of lectures today, 4 in all plus a Korean class then a rehearsal for the talent show (a 12 hour work day all told). Some lecturers were better than others. The 2nd lecturer, a guy, was really good and funny. He had lots of good information about living in Korea, though his main topic was really classroom management. Unfortunately, I think that the majority of what they are trying to teach us won't end up being applied when we finally get to our schools. I still remember all the JET orientations and conferences I had to go to, I never ended up using any of the stuff they told me at those things. It just wasn't practical for my situation.

Anyway, for the talent show we are doing a face off, boys against girls. The boys are doing the New Zealand rugby team's (called the All Blacks) Haka (youtoube it if you don't know what I am talking about) and the girls are doing the SorrySorry dance which is a dance to a song by a Korean boy band called Super Junior.

I'm about to start my second day of never ending lectures.

*Edit*
Yeah, the class 8 boys and girls will be facing off.

Here is a good link to the Haka (which the boys are doing)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHW1K2LeQXE&feature=related

The girls will be facing off against them with parts of this dance (go to link below)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAWqnA8PdcY

Orientation, Day 2

2011-02-21T22:22:00.000-08:00

So, the field trip was AWESOME! Rena and I, and a group of other people who arrived late (about 20 in all) had to go in the morning to the "Jesus Hospital" for our health check (yes, the hospital really is called that). It was about as I expected. They drew blood, took our urine, x-rayed our chests, weighed us, measured us, checked our eyesight and hearing. It was all rather "invasive" considering we had to do all the tests in front of EVERYONE (both Korean and foreign). Typical Asian style. I had to do something similar in Japan every year (since all government workers in Japan have to get medical checks once a year) so I was kinda expecting it, but the other EPIK teachers were a little embarrassed by it.

Anyway, the Hanok (traditional) Korean village was really cool. Tons of old buildings, which you all know I love, and activities. A priest explained how a traditional Korean wedding is done, and some volunteers got to dress up in traditional garb and get married Korean style! It was really funny though because at one point, the priest's cell phone went off in the middle of his explanation. It was hilarious to see this very traditionally dressed priest answer his cell phone. Then we got a demonstration on how to play a traditional Korean drum! They had enough for everyone, so we had a whole drumming thing going on. It was so much fun! Then we wandered around the town for a bit, visited the oldest elementary school in Korea, a cathedral (about 30% of the population here is Christian) and a shrine. Then we got to try out traditional paper craft and made heart shaped picture frames with neat Korean paper glued to it.

It was another tiring day. Rena was exhausted and went to bed at 7:30. I managed to make it till 9 before I passed out. I want to get my clock on Korean time as soon as possible.

Orientation, Day One

2011-02-20T18:34:00.000-08:00

So. Orientation. The general teaching strategy lectures are kinda useless since they are telling me things I have already heard. However, the Korean culture and Crash Course in Korean Language lectures have turned out to be pretty good. Korean is a b*tch of a language though. Japanese was much easier to pronounce.

Tomorrow is a field trip. We are going to a traditional Korean village called Hanok. However, Rena and I (and another girl who arrived today called Francine) have to go get our medical checks tomorrow morning. So we will be bussed separately to the field trip location, as we will be going to the hospital first.

Still don't know where I will be living and teaching, but at least I know I will find that out on Thursday.

It has been really nice meeting everyone. There is about 350 or so of us GETs (as we are called, or Guest English Teachers). Not many Californians, but there are a lot of South Africans and Canadians. Everyone has been really nice and helpful in getting me up to speed. Turns out Rena and I haven't missed too much. Apparently, I will have to do a mini 15 long presentation about how I would teach a class with two other GETs (named Jessie and Jessica) and there is a talent show sometime towards the end of orientation. My class (we are split up into "classes" and go to all the lectures together. I am in class 8 with Rena) has decided to do a dance which I am very excited about.

Hello from Korea!

2011-02-19T22:11:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to let you all know that I got to Korea safely. The flight was long, and full, and rather turbulent, and I was in a center seat, and I had already seen all the movies or else they sucked, but I had nice neighbors. Also, about half way through the flight I had a internal panic attack thinking "What the heck am I doing!? Going to Korea, a country I know virtually nothing about, am I insane!?" But as I was already on the flight I decided that it was no use second guessing myself. I am much more resolved to staying now that I am here. I got into Korea at around 7pm (my flight was slightly delayed and then we had head winds) and I was extremely exhausted. I managed to get through immigration with no problems (yay visa!) and got all of my luggage (quite a feat, but I did it with one of those rolly luggage cart thingies). I was too tired to explore the airport at all, but from what I saw, it reminded me a lot of Kansai International Airport in Japan, except I can't read the signs here (thought they all have English as well, so technically I can read them, I just can't read the Korean). The information booth called a free shuttle for me that brought me right to my hotel, the Hotel Sky, where I am currently writing you from. I don't really know where I am city-wise (perhaps Incheon?) but I am in the middle of buildings with crazy neon signs, about a 10 minute drive from the airport. Once I got here I got in touch with Rena (I still haven't met her face to face, but I called her room) and we made plans to take the earliest bus (at 6:30) down to Jeonju University for the orientation. It is currently 9pm here, and I already took my shower, so I am going to sign off and got to sleep.