The map of Korea hanging in my room was nothing I was conscious of as a child. Until night came to the dark Michigan woods and the nightlight would glow below it and I would fall asleep thinking it was shaped like a rabbit. It was my lucky rabbit. But this was the extent of my interest in Korea for much of my life.
Lonely nights in neon-lit Seoul, candles replaced childish nightlights and I was always conscious of the map of the world and all its water hanging in my bedroom. Across the cement parking lot in the next cement building, a man practiced tai chi on the 16th floor every night around 10pm. No matter what music played in my room, he was always perfectly choreographed.
Left in a basket on the steps of a Seoul police station as a newborn baby I was adopted into an American family six months later and destiny became the lower shores of the Great Lakes. I grew up the antithesis of a demure bowing Korean woman; an "American" tomboy, playing tackle football and running around the Michigan forests with my dogs, bruises and three older brothers. Years and miles later I returned to Seoul on a one-year work abroad contract to teach ESL (English as a Second Language) to Korean children. As much as your heart cries leaving dogs and lovers behind, there's something so exhilarating and free about packing up two bags for a year and leaving normal life behind.
Korea is a beautiful mountainous green peninsula, set between the Yellow Sea to its west and the Sea of Japan (East Sea) to its east. It's the "Land of the Morning Calm" where the fairy-tale lucky rabbit jumps in and out of the Korean full moon each month.
Although its mountains are only around 2,500m, Korea offers many nice treks and views of its seas. Watching a quiet sunrise from the Samcheok cliffs or sitting on Dukjeukdo Island staring out towards China at sunset is everything I live for. With spiritual revelations and miles of water to stare across, the second largest city in the world and tons of little small fishing villages, there's always someplace to go get lost and feel a different life pass. I spent many weekends in Korea wide-eyed and lost in Asian-crowded markets that smelled like death and fish, leaning against cold train windows looking out at a different world, or finding peaceful mountain temples and meditating with Buddhist monks. Many Korean temples are hidden away in the green of the mountains and I recommend worshipping all four of their seasons: covered in winter-light snowflakes or rose-of-sharon like their spring-pink guardian angels or autumn-golden ginkgo leaves fanning themselves across their pagoda rooftops. Everyday life in a strange land is exciting and beautiful, tarps of red peppers drying out in the sun or the way the city feels with a glass of wine sitting on the rooftops 29-stories off the ground. All of it tucks itself away into consciousness, a mental-slideshow that becomes like a dream. Everyday life is also an adventure. One begins to understand how it feels to be illiterate. It kinda makes you feel like a dumb-ass. Finding the post office or going to the doctor and having them stick needles in your stomach for everything or trying to find gardenburgers is forever an interesting experience.
My gig for the year was a work abroad experience in Seoul province, South Korea as an ESL Teacher for Korean children ages 5-15 (ages 4-14, western age) at an English academy. I taught through the full spectrum of ESL, from beginning phonics through advanced conversation classes. English levels ranged from a kid crapping his pants in class because he didn't know how to ask to go to the bathroom - to lessons from the students on Korean culture.Even though I made the rules in the classroom (no stinky dried-up squid or boiled bugs that made teacher gag; if you had to say "shut-up," it had to be "shut-up please," etc.) I will forever feel like I was the true student.
Even with a strong English/writing background, teaching children who understood or spoke no English was sometimes challenging. Funny, but also challenging. It forces focus on energy and intuition, the universal languages - like music and drawing and dancing and smiles, and I liked that. Some days were more than exhausting and frustrating, spending a week trying to get little people to say "st," not "suut." But they made me laugh every single day. P's and f's are confusing sounds to Korean children and I'd always just sit there and laugh to myself for a few seconds hearing little kids running around screaming "puck you!" As a vegetarian one of my students thought that whenever I was sick he would bring me a hamburger and I'd feel like a champ again. I've never heard of this cure, but too funny. As long as students listened when they needed to and tried their best, when we finished our lessons we learned songs and danced. It's the cutest thing on the planet dancing to Phish or learning Beatles songs with a class of 4-year-old Korean kids. Korean children are as adorable as children everywhere and it was truly these little people of Korea that got me through the coldest of days. They were my everyday hugs and smiles.
We were all strangers when we arrived in Korea from all around the world as teachers. After sharing a year of loneliness and laughter and rock-ice dark pitchers of beer at Joki-Joki, despite the wall-huge "Canadian Girls Kick Ass" poster in our living room, my three Canadian roommates and I are lifelong friends. Besides the hamburgers, these friendships were one of the coolest things about the experience.
I believe that the places we wander and the unfamiliar faces that become familiar are a sort of destiny in themselves. We're forever exchanging life energy with everything around us, the earth and all the seas, the mountains and temples, the smiles of children and the strength of friendships. We add a little piece of everything to ourselves; and in exchange, leave our own trace behind. It's dancing with the kids or meditating with the monks at mountain temples or making lifelong friends that keeps the universe real for me. We each travel for our own reasons. Perhaps we're just curious or perhaps we search for destinies or spiritual revelations or for that one unique experience that changes our lifetime. Maybe we find it. And maybe we don't. But it's always worth the adventure. |
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