First Impressions

First Impressions:

1.    I survived my first week, but that’s really not saying much because I had not taught any English classes yet. I spent most of the week getting acclimated to the school a bit. I met the rest of my co- teachers, the principal and vice-principal, and some of the other teachers and staff, got presented to the kids on the first day at an assembly, and figured out my teaching schedule.

         I absolutely love my school. I think even if people can’t communicate really well with language, personalities still shine through. I’ve met some really great Koreans. It’s so true that relationships mean everything here. It’s been echoed throughout a lot of blogs I’ve read and people I’ve talked to, but now I can say firsthand that it’s so true. I spent most of the week building relationships. It does make a huge difference in how people work together. If there’s not much of a relationship, there can’t be much trust and it’s so much more comfortable to work or do business with people you’re comfortable with.

            That being said….here’s how we all got comfortable. Three words: staff dinner, soju, and noraebang…in that order. At the staff dinner, we ate sitting on floor cushions while the dishes were served family style. Vegetables, sliced fish, bean power, sweet potato, chili sauce, garlic, kimchi, etc. were all set out on the table and I got decide what I wanted, then I mixed it up in my bowl. I am not a huge fan of some of the chili sauces( I avoid wheat and the store-bought ones usually have wheat in them), but I’m keeping that on the down low since I think it’s pretty important in Korea. At least I like kimchi.
         This was also my first night of being introduced to Korean drinking culture.  Soju is Korean rice alcohol. It’s kind of like vodka, but not as strong and it has a slight taste to it. Throughout dinner, several people came over to do introductory toasts with me. I still can't believe I did a shot with my vice-principal.  "Jena, Jena. One shot!"

         Noraebang is literally “song room” in Korean( karaoke). I danced with my principal, vice-principal, other staff members, and then somehow someone convinced me to sing three songs throughout the festivities. And this was stone cold sober. When in Rome....

  

2.  Korean food is really delicious. One of my favorite dishes so far is kimchi chigae. Chigae means stew. It was literally the first meal in Korea I had and it has stuck with me, though my tongue is usually a little regretful afterward as it borders on being too spicy.

     I tried samguypsal for the first time with my co-teacher the other evening. In the US, I never ate pork, but here it’s a little more difficult to stay away from. I have to say, it was delicious and normally pork kind of grosses me out. We sat on the floor cross legged style and I watched as my co-teacher got down to business by pulling her hair into a ponytail holder and donning an apron. She took the cooking tongs and flipped the meat to sizzled on both sides. Then, she put kimchi and bean sprouts on the side part of the grill to warm up. When the pork belly was ready to go, she motioned me to dip it in sauce. After it was fully coated, I settled it on a sesame leaf, added bean sprouts, kimchi, and a little cooked garlic and onion. Finally, I popped it in my mouth and savored the mixture of flavors.

       I’ve eaten squid, squash, stewed meat, soup with fish heads, raw fish, kimbap, bokumbap, and so far the only Korean food I don’t really care for is the sauce for dokbokki which is a Korean rice ball thingy.  It’s incredibly chewy and that can be fun, but that sauce just ruins it for me.

3. Getting lost is very easy to do when you don’t understand the bus signs. And even if you could read them, you probably wouldn’t know where the places were anyway. My friend and I had a great time going to Daegu on the Express Bus, but when we got back to Gyeongju at about 9:30pm, I refused to pay for a taxi to get back home.. They aren’t actually that expensive compared with US taxis, but I’d rather spend that money on getting tea or coffee…which is pretty expensive here. 

               So, I found a bus that I knew( or thought I knew) went through my neighborhood and hopped on. After we went to the total opposite part of town, I started to get worried. When everyone got off the bus and the bus driver stopped, then I panicked. The bus driver stood up, looked at me and laughed a little bit as I looked around at my surroundings. Then he asked me where I wanted to go in Korean. I understood that much. He laughed again when I mentioned my neighborhood and motioned me to sit back down. Then, he turned off the lights and proceeded to take a smoke outside. I tried to decipher the bus route information, but it was all in Korean, of course, and I couldn’t recognize any of the places anyway. Good times. So, I waited until he got back in the bus, then we took off back downtown( where we came from in the first place) and headed back over to a different side of town. At that point, I had a bottle of laundry detergent, herbs, and other food in my back pack and it was heavy enough that I didn’t really feel like walking for 45 minutes with it. I waited until we got close to a stop where I knew the area and jumped out. Then, I crossed the river and took a final 20 minute walk with my bags back to my apartment.  I really should have just taken a taxi.

4. When you don’t pay close attention in the grocery store, you can buy and walk away with things that you will never use…like a giant bottle of corn syrup instead of vinegar. Thankfully, that trip I was with a Korean who spoke English and he helped me to exchange the corn syrup for vinegar. If it had been me only, I would have probably just paid for the corn syrup and left it in the store because of the language barrier. I really need to be more careful. The other day, I bought paper towels instead of toilet paper. And the toilet paper roll at home was empty.

5. Speaking of toilet paper, in Korea, you don’t flush the toilet paper down with the rest of your waste. This is one thing that I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to doing. Each stall in a public restroom or private bathroom will usually have a small or large waste bin in it and that is where your used toilet paper goes. It must have something to do with the plumbing because it’s something that you just don’t do. In touristy places, there will usually be signs that say, “Don’t flush the toilet paper.” Another thing I find rather peculiar is that unless you are in a public restroom, you may not find any toilet paper in the bathroom. If you do, it will probably be on a giant roll somewhere on the wall when you first walk in or at the back of the room.  And even if you are in a public restroom, the chances are really 50/50 that there will be toilet paper there. Whether it’s at school, the new Starbucks in town, or a friend’s house, I always bring travel tissue now. There’s nothing worse than getting stuck on a toilet for lack of paper. Luckily, I’ve only had a few instances of drip drying. It feels somewhat like urban camping style.

By the way, this is what the soap looked like at Jeonju University. At my school, it's still bar soap, but it sits on a dish with a hole to let the water drip through.

         Before I came to Korea, I did quite a bit of reading and research, but there’s really no preparing completely for the real deal.  Some things you just have to experience for yourself. Thankfully, my good experiences heavily outweigh the more awkward ones! Until next time….