Peer Review

In no uncertain terms, my university has announced that our contract renewal will be based upon our students reviews. I can think of stupider things to do (eat broccoli deep-fried in chocolate sauce, assign Elaine 46 students in one conversation class and 39 in a composition class, for instance). However, I’m going on to graduate school and not renewing my contract, so I don’t much care. Nevertheless, filled with curiosity, I read my student evaluations from last semester. Apparently, I didn’t teach my students well enough for them to write their evaluations in English, so I had to use Google translate.

And therein, I found a blog sitting, waiting. Judge me as you will:

English Literature Readings:

1.      Classes can have hope. 

2.      :D

3.      Professors like!

4.      Was a good time

5.      : D

Average rating: 4.24/5

Freshmen Conversation:

1.      Professor too too good

2.       Well done

3.       Painting because there are many difficulties. ((회화 means “conversation” as well as "painting," turns out) 

4.       Like Elaine professor

Average rating: 4.17/5

Global English

It was a good time for one semester. Well done

Perfect challenge and test my class as much as Professor does to me

Thanks for an unforgettable lesson.

thank you ~ ~ ^ ^

Professor contribute to lively classroom atmosphere was lively and good.

I love you Elaine

Good very Gute Elanine

Lacking we teach as well as many other makers suffer ^ ^

teacher very good! English is very fun! god bless you ~

Benefits have been

Salutary lesson was

suffering has

Was able to get a good knowledge.

La Lecture of the first foreign professor and fun and a lot of tension, but I hear it was painless.

Take courses on English as fear disappear

elaine!!!! I studied very hard this semester. Thank you. ♥

Did much trouble for one semester!

 _thank you. profassor_

Professor done

Was

Elaine ~ I was very happy to meet you. Thank you.

bye ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Average rating: 4.4/5

my personal favorite?

"Suffering has"

But turns out, it's a mistranslation (like 90% of the above, probably). "Suffering has," my friend Kim informed me, means "thank you for suffering for us" rather than "I endured much suffering." Turns out that's what my students have been saying for the past year and a half and that's the phrase I was told to repeat after every soccer game:

수고하셨습니다!

My prayer at the beginning of this week was that I might be grateful for my job, and boy did my students step up to the task. They're an eclectic bunch (not a word I use to describe Koreans very often) and I'm pretty sure this semester will be something fantastic.

I Medical

Sometimes I view my job here in Korea as a form of glorified cheerleading.

Me: How can you ask for a favor?

Freshmen: *cough* *pretend to look for a pencil* *glare balefully at the world*

Me: Look in the book—you can do it! “Would you mind…”

Freshmen: Would you mind . . . . mumblemumblemumble . . .

Me: Would you mind what?

Bill: Would you mind . . .open . . . window. . . mumbleshamefacedmumble

Me: Great, Bill! That’s it! Keep it up!

Bill: Would you mind window mumblemumbleducksheadmumble open me?

Me: Not really—but good job! John?

John: hurple?

Me: Almost! Would you mind opening . . . *point to the window*

John: win . . . dow?

Me: the window, but yes! Great job! Go team!!!!! *double thumbs up, smile, nod encouragingly*

I’ve found myself naturally adopting this cheerleading mentality with every Korean who talks to me. I nod. I smile. I throw thumbs up left right and center. Everyone needs more encouragement, right?

Wrong.

Remember my soccer buddy who is made of awesome and all things sweet? He came back the other day and took me to soccer, which was excellent fun. I wowed the little boys, got some exercise and a ride home from a guy called Young Boom.

Soccer buddy (in Korean): Do you have an English nickname?

YoungBoom: Ahhhhhh TIGER!!! YA!

Soccer buddy (to me):  “Boom” means “tiger.”

Me: I’m not calling him Tiger.

Soccer buddy: Okay, bye!

BoomTiger: Do you like . . . ummmm . . . cheekin?

Me: Um, yeah! Chickin’s good. *thumbs up*

I abhor chicken. It is greasy and makes my stomach feel like it’s hosting an unhappy but high on ecstasy amoeba party.

BoomTiger: Team. Cheekin. Eat?

Me: Um, no. I have to go home and study. Don't worry! I can take the subway.

BoomTiger: No! No! I drive. I medical. Me.

Me: I see. Cool. *thumbs up, smile*

BoomTiger: Gum?

Me: Sure! *anything-to-make-the-awkwardness-go-away smile*

It will take at least twenty minutes to get home. I ask questions—short, not scary questions—I chatter. I try to be a friendly, appreciative passenger. BoomTiger doesn’t know much English, but he asks questions, too.

BoomTiger: You like pizza? Chickin? Pasta?

BoomTiger: I drive car. You like?

BoomTiger: You like alcohol?

BoomTiger: You like music?

BoomTiger: Do you know ghjdiicsak? Music?

BoomTiger: Are you hungry? Food by Kosin eat?

I tried. I really did. I tried to stay encouraging. But when he said “Michael Jackson” and proceeded to belt a sampling of some incomprehensible rendition, wobbling his head back and forth like a mating peacock,[1] I shifted irreversibly into “polite.” Finally, as I was wondering what might possess someone to be quite so confident in their inabilities, he finished his warbling.

 BoomTiger: Shim shim? Do you know shim shim?

My phone dictionary displayed gratitude, heartfelt thanks.

Me: Yes. I shim shim. Thank you for the ride home.

BoomTiger: You. Phone.

Me: Hmm. Phone. Yes?

BoomTiger: Shim shim. Call!

Me: Ye-es.

I decided to check my phone again where I see the secondary meaning of shim shim. Bored. Meanwhile, BoomTiger has figured this out as well by calling a friend to ask him for the translation. I nodded and smiled, applauding the kind of efforts I rarely see even in my most dedicated students. Good job, BoomTiger! You tried really hard! Keep it up! Work on your verbs! I was already nodding and smiling when BoomTiger said, triumphantly:

BoomTiger: You bored. Call. Me!

Me: Oh. 

Oh please no. 

BoomTiger: Bored, yes. You? Me. Call!

Me: Oh, yes, bored, but--phone?

BoomTiger: You call. We food place. Eat. Alcohol. Okay?

Oh, be still my fluttering heart.

What went wrong? What could possibly make a boy think that, after sitting in the same car for ten minutes struggling to communicate the simplest banalities (even if she didn't already do that for a job), a girl would want to voluntarily sign up to do it again? Did I miss something? On the bright side, I've now got "medical insurance."

BoomTiger: You sick? Me call! I medical.

Oh good.

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[1] Or rather, how I imagine mating peacocks do as they spread their useless but beautiful plumage.

Feeling Korean

On Thursday, our English department head told us, laughing, that English department heads always get cancer because foreigners give them so much stress. Maybe, she added, I’ll get breast cancer. Ha! Ha! Ha!

            We tried to smile politely because, being veterans of Korea, we know sometimes things are lost in translation. But still we’re not sure if it’s a joke or what the joke is or why our department head is both laughing and why she thinks the very simple issues we’ve raised are nuisance enough to kill her. Surely it’s more stressful for a foreigner to live in Korea than a Korean to interact with a couple foreigners. Surely our requests for our contract to be honored are reasonable. Surely.

Surely?

            The longer I’m in Korea, the more I see and feel Korean. Not only do I finally notice my small face and high nose; I’m happy to have them. Although a medically dubious claim, our department head’s stress to the point of cancer is beginning to make a lot more sense to me.

            When Koreans are told to work overtime, they do it. And they do it without overtime pay, incentives, or ill-will toward their company. Overtime isn’t good news to them, but there’s no furrowing of the brows that says, “Why should I? Is this the best way to increase productivity? Have you thought about x, y, and z?”

            Time is not yours to arbitrate in Korea; you are too far down on the totem pole for that. You may want more time to sleep or to be with friends, but you are a student now: time is dictated by your professors. Now you’re a company worker: time is given to you by that company. You have to earn time; it is not an essential right. Right now the company is busy, so, company employee, you stay until 11 each night instead of the tacitly assumed 9:30 and, for fun, we’ll have a mandatory company retreat on Saturday and Sunday. We’ll play games and drink soju and it will increase productivity through team spirit. You will not experience more stress.

            Why don’t you quit? I asked my friend. She works in a hospital, and for about two months every year they work three hours overtime every day without pay. She shrugged.

            “There’s more work for the hospital at that time,” she explained. “And if I quit . . . other companies are worse.” She laughed. “I finish work at seven or eight on a bad day but on Facebook I see my friends at Seoul writing ‘Early day’ and like that when they finish work so early.”

            Here at Kosin, while we foreigners are dragging our feet on some random government or school stipulation, weighing the benefits for our students and the logic behind the decision, the Korean teachers don’t bat an eye. They certainly don’t raise questions like, “Is it ethical for a Christian school to violate a contract—taking away pensions and severance—in order to save money?”

            Our department head blinks at us when we do. “Everyone is taking a pay cut. No one gets a pension anymore. Even Korean teachers. Actually, three art teachers were changed to part time recently.”

            “In violation of their contract?” We are horrified.

            She didn’t understand why. The next issue—getting into the English department office when the secretary locks us out—was similarly thorny.

“Our secretary . . . I cannot convince her. She is stubborn. The secretary wants extra pay for coming to extra events,” our department chair said, shaking her head in disappointed frustration.

Now it was our turn to be baffled. Convince her? Of what? Why shouldn’t she get pay for extra work?

Photo unrelated except as evidence to my parents that I'm still alive.

It all makes me hate those geography textbooks we had growing up that covered every spare inch of their spreads with colorful pictures of cultural dress and drama and transportation methods of other cultures to explain their differences with America: windmills for the Dutch, yellow and blue-jerseyed Soccer players for Brazil; the Nutcracker for Russia; Sushi and chopsticks for Japan. The unknown and unheard-of traditions. As if those things separated us; as if any of the unknown clothes, language, dancing, chopsticks—were the barrier that kept us from understanding one another.

As if it weren’t the known—the assumptions, the unquestioned—that was the real problem. 

Busker Days

They have begun and they are sweet.

The weather’s gotten crisper, but the sun shines warmly to mix with the blustering autumn wind. Lee and I usually walk for at least five minutes before settling into a spot, Lee leading the way through tight crowds of Korean shoppers. When we find the spot—that in itself is the art: a spot with lots of foot traffic, but still room to play, where there aren’t any angry street vendors or too much blasting music from the nearby stores, where we can have a solid wall behind us to amplify Lee’s voice, away from any sewage grates where it smells bad—when we find that spot we detach from the stream of shoppers and swing our instruments from our shoulders.

Lee’s guitar appears seconds later, and he begins to fiddle around while I go through my more laborious process of suiting up my violin. My case is in sad disrepair, the shoulder strap broken twice over and the black exterior shamefully scuffed from toting it through buses and subways and setting it on dirty sidewalks for busking. My rosin broke a while back, and the little shard of it I’ve been using won’t last much longer. I don’t take time to look at the scuffs on my violin’s body anymore, the fingerprints, the divots and dents, the little bit of blood on the D-string from where I broke open a cut on my first finger. The discolored, slightly warped bridge has gone long distances with me—the Tennessee Waltz in the Degage homeless shelter, symphonies in LaPorte amphitheaters, Blessed be Your Name in Chiang Mai, Jason Mraz on the streets of Busan. We’ve been together for a while.

I’m not a good violinist anymore, but I like to think we’re still close.

The crowds start to gather as we tune up. Lee asks me to play a B for him, sometimes, and I wonder if he knows I don’t have a B-string and how problematic it is to tune to my whimsical second finger on the G-string. A crowd gathers, people taking pictures and video as soon as the instruments are out. We’ve learned to ignore them until the money hat is in place. Seeders—a couple of 천원's (very roughly $1), a five(오천), a ten (만원, give them options)—come out of our wallet and into the hat first. Once a group of high school boys gave us money before we even started playing. Sometimes nearby street vendors drop in a couple 천’s for us. You learn a lot about generosity and joy when you’re busking.

The ahjumma (older lady) vendor next to us smiles, showing her gold-capped tooth, and encourages us to play nearby when we ask. The jewelers down the street glare at us, certain we’ll clog up traffic (we will) and impede business (we might). Couples snuggle closer into each other’s linked arms and whisper as we play. Kids point and their parents gawk. We play for the smiles and for the schoolgirls leaning out of the sixth story window to wave at us.

Our first song is a crowd-gatherer (Stand by Me), if the crowds are willing. We cater. All the girls stare and giggle at Lee. The ahjummas smile at me and the men look baffled or concerned. When other musicians walk by, their violins at their side, or guitars or a cello strapped to their backs, they give us a nod, a smile. The bold ones jump in and play for a song or two, but that’s rare. When we finish the first, we “kahasamnida” the heck out of those who give a little money and start right into the second.Then the third. Jason Mraz, Ingrid Michaelson, HakunaMatata. Lee sings, Lee strums, I waffle about on the arpeggios, occasionally remembering harmonies and the licks we’ve practiced in between classes in our office.

Our third member for this day was Grace, a wonderful
percussionist and singer.

After four songs, Lee yells, “마지막 노래!” (last song) and we finish the set with “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You.” Sometimes people send their kids forward with money, sometimes everyone slinks away looking bored, sometimes we get large rounds of applause, and sometimes people want pictures with us. We take a break or, if the nearby vendors or shop-owners look peeved and we don’t like the acoustics or the crowds are stingy with smiles and 천원’s, we take off and move to another street corner.

Eventually we pack it in, give out our last smiles, and blend back into the crowd. On the bus we fish the천원’s out of the hat and guitar case and check the loot, straightening and counting all the single bills like a couple of change-machine heist-ers. How much do we make? Depends.On the whimsy of the crowd. Sometimes it’s good money, sometimes less so. Either way, it’s a perk.[1]

It is definitely work—it’s tiring and it takes a quick mind, a happy heart, and, for me, quite a few years of violin lessons—but it’s terribly fun. It’s like having a license to make people happy, to smile at them and to play a little music. It’s a way to connect with people who can’t speak to you about anything that matters, a way under the language barrier to something deeper and more joyful than words, a way for us to recharge, to learn that God is generous and joyful as well as merciful and just.

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[1]A perk that pays for my choco-pie and ice-cream habits, unfortunately.

A New Seong

            I saw a student on the bus last night, which ordinarily is some cause for awkwardness. Many students aren’t sure whether to bow or wave or pretend they don’t see me while fervently hoping I don’t see them and wondering “Why, O God, why don’t teachers stay in school where they belong?” Luckily this is one of my good students—outgoing, sweet, eager, smart—and as soon as he got off the phone he said hello. We chatted pleasantly the entire ride home[1].

            “So, what does your father do?” I asked at one point. We’re on the Talking about Family unit, so it's on the mind.

This boy, Peter Seong, is a theology major taking extra English classes because he wants to be a missionary. He’s my golden boy of that class, geeky-looking behind his glasses, sitting up straight and answering every question in class, smiling his kind of goofy smile. He runs and makes copies for me when I forget to bring enough. I assumed his father and all of his ancestors had been pastors.

            “I don’t know,” he said.

            Maybe he misunderstood the question. Maybe he didn’t know how to say his father's job. In one class I had a student tell me his parents were “printers” as if carrying on some kind of Gutenberg tradition.

            “I come from a broken home,” he explained, interrupting my confusion. “My parents separated when I was sixteen.”

            “I see." I silently gave him a vocabulary point. “So what does your mother do?”

            “I don’t know. I live with my grandmother.” The bus chugged up Yeongdo’s mountain and Peter had to find his grip on his handholds again. “It’s okay.”

            “Do you have any siblings?” I asked. Why doesn’t one of your parents take care of you? I wanted to ask.

            “Yes. I have one sister. She’s older than me. She’s 31.”

            “Does she live with you? Or…?”

            “She is getting married next week! Actually she was not a believer, but her fiancé’s whole family is Christian, so now she is!” He grins at me—beaming like the world is too small for joy. 

             Maybe it is.

            “So. . . how did you become a Christian?” I asked. How do you smile so much? I wanted to ask. What's the secret?

            “Actually, I wanted to die,” he explained. The bus chugged and jolted up a corner. Skinny Peter settled into his stance and held firm. “I went to a church. Just me. We were worshiping and God told to me—just to me—” He pointed to his heart. “He speak, ‘I love you. I love you always and I forgive you.’ I was weeping and I said, “Yes,” and . . .that is why I had to forgive my parents for separating. Oh!”

            He had to jump off the bus at his stop, but not before waving a cheery goodbye. Aside from his confusion with say, speak, and tell, Peter had completely surprised me. How could I have predicted abandonment and estrangement in his goofy smile, his sweet eagerness to please?

(And about the title: like I could help it.)

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[1] A rarity; it’s a long bus ride.

It's All Relative

I was worried I’d come to a place called “home” that wasn’t actually. I was scared I’d spend the whole summer halfway between America and Korea, thinking of both of them as vacation spots, equally exotic. I thought maybe I’d come back to Indiana and feel lonely in all this space or harried by the flood of suddenly understandable language. Maybe I’d come back to Chesterton and Valpo and find everyone gone or changed, disinterested or, worse, dis-interesting. I thought I might spend the ride home from the airport begging to get back on the plane to my safe cheese-box of an apartment where even if it didn’t feel like home, it felt like a fortress.

I was steeling myself to relive the realization that words like “home” are meaningless. Words like that wander around your brain when you’re on the road so that any little pocket of comfortability feels like “home.” I believed it, too, that home would disappear simply because the idea of it was no longer clear to me after months of hopping from here to there.

I’m home. Undeniably. There’s grass everywhere and clean, fresh air. My mom’s garden is flowering beautifully and the elephant tree stands in the front yard with a new haircut.[1] My beagle patters about like always and there are exactly as many steps up from the first floor to the second and they are still hazardously carpeted so that I’m liable to fall down when in a rush. My room still has the ugly green walls my parents allowed me to paint despite the pink carpeting.

As nice as the grass feels and as comfortable as it is to sleep on a bed that’s actually comfortable, those things are nothing compared to seeing my mom and dad drive up at the airport in the red Prius and give me big, long hugs. Dad’s smiling and telling everyone we see—mostly ourselves—how good it feels to have the little one back home. He pats his heart a little bit when he says it and I know that “home” isn't meaningless or mysterious.

Children’s children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children. (Proverbs 17:6)

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[1] Mom hates the elephant tree and vows it will be terminated. Dad has put it on his summer to-do list. I will lobby for its safety as long as it stands elephant-like in our front garden.

Party in the Subway

Japanese book in hand, I stepped onto the subway. Even though I only had two minutes of a ride until my transfer station (Seomyeon), I automatically glanced through the car to see if there were any easily accessible seats. I’m a city dweller now, and practiced in the art of scanning for subway seats. I looked first for the rare space of two or three open seats, then for the prized seats nearest to the door where you only have to touch one person on either side of you. Eopseoyo.[1] There were only a couple of half-open seats neighbored by puffy-coated Koreans trying to cover as much of said open seat without being rude but simultaneously defending that precious bit of breathing room for all they are worth.

I didn’t even glance to my left at the special seats reserved for the elderly, the pregnant, the handicapped, and me during my first week here when I didn’t know any better. But I do know better now, so I calmly stood by the closing doors and waited for the two minutes to pass until I could hop onto the orange line and home. I opened my Japanese book and started deciphering the once-familiar symbols into half-remembered words. I heard some rickety Korean by my left elbow.

The area of special seats on the subway is often empty, or maybe only one or two seats are filled by slightly smelly ajeosshis[2] (old men) or babbling ajummas[3] (old women). But sometimes—sometimes!—they’re packed with old folks who may or may not know one another and whose shouts and laughter ring out throughout the otherwise quiet subway car. At times like that, the rest of us glance up from our i-phones, i-kindles, and i-newspapers—maybe even remove an ear bud—in order to observe the raucous impromptu party we weren’t invited to due to our lack of dentures.

Gyu says, “That is the ajeosshi and ajumma way of talking. They like to be loud and they don’t care if anyone else is really listening. They are always yelling and they are self-important.” And they’re definitely having more fun than the rest of us. They’re the cool kids at the other lunch table who are always laughing about something while your table is quietly munching on your lunchables and ham sandwiches.

Looking gangsta. Nbd.

So you can understand why I felt so shocked and honored when the ajumma behind my left elbow scooted over and patted the special seat beside her. I sat—hesitantly—by her side and nod/bowed in her general direction. She smiled and half-nod/bowed back at me, and I opened by Japanese book once more.

She leeeeeeeaned all the way over my shoulder to look at what I was studying. Koreans are remarkably comfortable rubbernecking on the subway and ajummas are the opposite of the exception, but rather the intensification of the rule, as so often is the case with age in Korea. The following took place in a garble of English, Japanese, and Korean. I’ll translate the important parts:

Ajumma(Korean): Japanese garblegarblegarble?

Me: (Korean) Uhhhhhhh (Japanese): Yes, I’m studying Japanese.

Ajumma (Korean): Russian garblegarblegarble?

Me (Korean): uuuuuuuhAmerican person!

Ajumma (Korean): Ahhhhh. Korean garblegarblegarble know?

Me (Korean): I am studying Korean. GarbleIcanonlythinkoftheJapaneseword...(English) But it’s difficult.

Ajumma (Korean): garblegarble?garblegarblegar?blegarble

Me (English/giving up): uuuuuuuuh—gotta go! My stop!

My two-minute ride was up, as was my ability to speak in Korean. With yet another nod/bow thing I slipped off the green line and onto the orange grinning like a mad thing. Clearly I’m well on my way to both fluency and fame. If I can break into the ajumma circle of popularity, who knows what will happen next? I might even get invited to all the coolest subway parties!

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[1]없어요 = Don’t have

[2]아저씨 = old man, but in a respectful way

[3]아줌마 = old lady, but in a respectful way