Teaching in South Korea

Today is "Sports Day," or Track & Field Day as we call it in the US. 

On Wednesday I came back from classes to find the annual Sports Day towel sitting on my desk. Thoughtful gift, it was.

Yesterday before my co-teacher left for the day she told me to wear track pants today. 

"Do I have to run tomorrow?!" 

"Yea, maybe." she smiled. 

The thing is, when Koreans say maybe they mean definitely. 

"Are you okay?" she asked as she walked out the door. 

I've learned two things about "Are you okay?"

1. It means, is that okay

2. It doesn't matter what your answer is, it has to be okay because it's happening regardless. 

Track & Field day started around 8:40 with the kids gathering outside on the bleachers. Parents streamed into the schoolyard. The 6th graders stood in formation in the middle of the yard. I stood from afar trying not to be noticed. I didn't want to run.

My curiosity got the better of me (and the vice principal spotted me and told me to sit on the other side). I ended up standing next to a first grader's mom. She's Filipino. 

"Is your husband Korean?" she asked me. Even after we'd already talked about me being the English teacher at this school for the start of the third year. When I laughed and told her I wasn't married her next question was, "So then you'll marry a Korean man?" Nope. No marriage at all for this girl.

Fingers crossed.

Events at Sports Day consist of:

Finally, the run I had to participate in. I had no idea it was coming. I thought maybe I was safe at this point. I wasn't. While I was taking pictures, one of my co-teachers told me it was time for me to go to the field to run. I was smart, or I thought. I had worn flip flops so that when they told me I had to run I could say, "Oh, sorry, I'd love to, but I'm wearing flip flops." I had no idea they wouldn't care what I was wearing.

The sixth graders race was a Missions Race. They'd run 4 at a time to cards that had been put on the ground. On the card was a mission, "Run with the 5th grade class 4 teacher" or "Run with 3rd grade boy student." I got chosen to run 4 times. Every time I kicked my flip flops off and ran on the dirt. But this dirt is like the dirt on a baseball field. A little gritty, kind of gravely, hurts a bit if you're running barefoot.

I took 2nd, 1st, 3rd and 4th place. I lost the last race because the student I was running with fell. She wouldn't get up. I contemplated running without her. Then I remembered the race was for her, not me. I got nothing out of winning or losing the race. I went back and collected her. We walked for a bit until her mom came out of the crowd and told her to finish running.

For the rest of the day when I passed students in the hall they would say, "Oh, Anne Teacher! So fast!" When I'd pass teachers they would say something in Korean with a big smile on their face. Sometimes a thumbs up. The principal mentioned something later at lunch. And my feet hurt for the rest of the day. My legs are still sore now.

Moral of the story: Don't think that by wearing flip flops on Sports Day you don't have to run. You do. It hurts. 

And, finally, this is how my life feels on a daily basis in Korea:

2. Suddenly students stop and get in line. They follow their teacher around the playground. The teacher plays rock, paper, scissors every time s/he passes another teacher.
3. All classes find a place at the edge of the playground.
5. The entire school does the daily exercise routine together. 6th graders find their place in the middle of the playground.

Today, after the gym Crystal and I walked over to Kyungsung to meet Jinho for dinner. The weather was warm (and I was sweaty from the gym) so I looped my Puma track jacket through my purse for the walk. 

Two hours later, as we were leaving the restaurant I realized that my jacket wasn't with me. Crystal, being the sensible 너니 (my made-up word for "older sister") that she is, made me retrace my route. 

Low and behold, some kind stranger picked it up and set it aside so I would find it. 

This morning I sat next to a 할머니 (grandmother) on the subway. She'd cough for a bit, then dig into her pockets for some hard candy to suck on. 

I've also been fighting my first cold of the season so when I coughed for the first time, she offered me some of her hard candy. I told her, "괜찮습니다" (I'm okay) but she insisted and plopped them into my hand. I nodded and told her "감사합니다" (Thank you). 

When we arrived at her stop, she dug in her pocket one more time and pulled out a Choco Pie of sorts (think Little Debbie cakes) and tossed it into my lap before leaving.

When I made it to my stop, I waited by the door. There was a young Korean girl standing in front of me, maybe 20 or 21 years old. She looked at me in the reflection, smiled and waved. I wasn't sure that she was aiming it at me, but then she said, "Hi!" I smiled and reciprocated the greeting.

Just before we pulled into my stop I noticed the 할머니 (grandmother)  in front of me had dropped 만 5천원 (15,000 won, $15). I picked it up, touched her shoulder and said, "할머니!" She smiled and took it while the other passengers around me beamed with pride at the honest 외국인 (foreigner). The guy next to me said something like, "주세요 in my pocket. 좋은데, 좋은데!" I'm not sure what he meant, but what he said was "Give me in my pocket. Good day, good day!" He mumbled a few other words that I didn't catch, but he had the biggest smile on his face and couldn't stop looking at me until we got off the train. 

It was a weird day on the train. 

Today, I was signing off on one of my student's homework. She handed me one of those nifty pens that has four colors. She chose blue. 

Being a teacher, I always associate red with being official, so I clicked it over to red and went to sign my name. 

She gasped.

Then I remembered. 

"Ah, because then I will die?" I asked my student. She smiled, nodded and clicked my pen back over to blue.

In Korea, they only write people's names in red when that person has died.  If you write someone's name (or even your own name) in red, it can be seen as a threat or a sort of omen that that person will die soon. 

Thankfully she caught me before I killed myself!!

There's this great phenomenon in Korea called:

This literally translates to "flower jealous cold" but means that the cold is jealous of the flowers so it lingers a little longer making spring seem like it comes late. We've had some warm weather days here and there, but this week I can tell that the cold is still jealous of those damn flowers.

(I think in Wisconsin, by the sounds of it, we could say the snow is jealous of the flowers, huh? Not funny? Too soon? We'll talk about it when you've had 30 consecutive days of no snow.)

And so on and so forth. They're also upset because Japan didn't talk to them about dumping their radioactive water in the sea. And even though they gave Japan money and food and rice, Japan still insists that Dok-do is theirs. 


I asked my co-teacher today if this was the radioactive rain. She smiled and said yes. Then she told me that some schools were closed today. She also said that (because she's pregnant) her mother-in-law told her to stay home today, but her mother told her it was okay to go to work. I told her her mother was smart.