Life is a Laboratory

The past month has flown by! School began on March 2 and we’ve been staying busy lesson planning, dining out with our teachers, and, for me especially, just really enjoying teaching. I love walking to work everyday knowing I can look forward to my day rather than dread it. I feel so lucky. Also, I’m feeling much more confident in the classroom this time around. I’m writing more hangul on the board and interacting with students using the little Korean I know. It’s amazing how much more respect I’ve gained just by being able to write some hangul on the board or say, “Be quiet!” in Korean rather than English.

One of the highlights of the past month was going to Hongbeopsa Temple for their “Window to Korean Culture” program. Once a month this temple holds a cultural event specifically for foreigners in the Busan area. We ate a delicious vegetarian lunch, listened to a Dharma talk (essentially a Buddhist service) with an English speaking monk, and learned how to do calligraphy—all for free!

The Dharma talk was fascinating. About 70 foreigners sat on the warm, wooden floor on comfy mats and listened to a Polish-American monk talk about his 30-year practice of Zen Buddhism. His teacher was from Korea, hence why he was there to give the talk. I won’t explain all of what he said, but I’d like to highlight a couple thoughts:

-One of the main aspects of Zen Buddhism is asking yourself the question, “Who am I?” He emphasized how people are so quick to label themselves yet they do not know the answer to that seemingly simple question. People strive for things, money, fame, status etc. but they don’t stop to ask, “Who am I?” They let other things define themselves. We need to ask ourselves that question, even if the answer is “I don’t know.” The point is not to have a specific answer, but to try to understand the “I don’t know.”

-He also told a story about an article he read about a dog race. Apparently one dog stopped abruptly in the middle of the race. Then, instead of following the other dogs and chasing after the fake rabbit in circles, it cut across the entire racetrack to catch the rabbit on the other side. He explained that we need to be more like that dog and take 5, 10, 60 minutes to stop and open our eyes to the world around us rather than focus on one thing that we feel is motivating or driving our ambitions.

-“Your life is a laboratory. If you find some thing, some way, or some belief that you try and find you don’t like—throw it away and move on!”

After the Dharma talk, we learned the art of calligraphy. The calligraphy teacher emphasized how this act of writing is the basis of the oriental spirit. It’s a serious art and one should feel connected to what he/she is writing. We used rice paper, a writing brush, and ink to create our calligraphy. I have to admit, I was quite proud of myself for knowing how to write some words in hangul on my own!

Although we are starting to catch on to Korean a bit more, there are still times when our non-verbal skills or onomatopoeia are worth a thousand words. On his way home the other night, Aaron decided to stop by our favorite chicken restaurant and get it delivered to the apartment. He told his order and then tried to explain “delivery” but the woman could not understand. He tried to write his address down, to point at a delivery box, to say “home” and point to his chest but nothing was working. As a last resort, he decided to mimic the delivery guys who usually deliver the food on scooters. So, he turned on his engine, made the “vroom vroom” sound, and pretended to ride a scooter out of the store. Believe it or not, the woman UNDERSTOOD! I can’t wait to play charades when we get home as I feel like everyday is charades boot camp here in Korea!

Finally, one of my highlights of the past month, was running my first 10K race ever. A couple other friends of ours were doing it, so I thought it would be a fun way to get back into shape. I trained (quite loosely) for the past 2 months but managed to reach my goal of running it in under an hour! So, now I’m determined to improve my time and signed up for another 10K on April 18. Hopefully I’ll take the training a bit more seriously as the weather warms up!

Quirky Korea--Konglish

Although we've seen our fair share of Konglish lately, our camera hasn't been easily accessible at the right time. Like while I was running and saw a man with a t-shirt that said, "Life. Liverty. Love." My only memory is the look I got from a walker while laughing out loud to myself.

But the other day we just happened to have our camera handy and stumbled upon this joint.

Needless to say, we didn't get a hotdog from there. :)

My Neighbor to the North

I just finished reading The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag by Kang Chol-hwan. In it he relives his horrific 10 years in a North Korean concentration camp, his escape to China, and his arrival to South Korea.

At age 9 he entered a camp called Yoduk because his grandfather was thought to have a tendency to go against the revolution from time to time. At Yoduk, much like the camps of the Holocaust, men, women, and children were overworked, underfed, generously beaten, and killed for any type of disrespect shown towards Kim Il-Sung or the revolution of the time. Independence was (and still is) a foreign language whether one is in the camp or outside of it’s constantino wire walls.

I’ve read and taught novels, memoirs, and essays about the Holocaust and concentration camps. I’ve listened to a Holocaust survivor speak about his experiences dodging the Nazis and fearing every morning’s sunrise. But nothing has ever moved me as much as this book. Perhaps it’s the fact that the terror and sheer injustice he experienced is still going on today. Perhaps it’s because I am less than a 5 hour drive to where this suffering is taking place. Or, perhaps it is that most people have no idea what is actually happening there. It’s a major human rights issue that is rarely taught or heard about because, unfortunately, North Korea wants it that way. Even in the media North Korea’s nuclear situation trumps the fact that the majority of its population is denied fundamental human rights.

And perhaps the most disturbing thing is the fact that little can be done about it. The UN is sending food, yes, but according to an article in the The Earth Times from February 19, “North Korea said Friday it would not trade its nuclear weapons for ‘petty’ economic aid…” offered by South Korea. How do you help a country whose sufferers’ cries are suppressed by a tyrannical government hungry for power? If we did try to help the voiceless, we can’t always bank on Bill Clinton rescuing us from the depths of Pyongyang all the time.

I don’t have any answers, but I have made the decision to start researching about aid organizations and searching for tangible solutions here in South Korea. And I suggest you read the book, not saying you will enjoy it, but read it out of obligation as a human being and global citizen. I suppose the first step to helping is understanding that people simply can not and should not live like my neighbors to the north.

-Callie