Jeju-eo Project Update

About six months ago, I introduced my self-directed research project about Jeju-eo, the endangered variety of Korean spoken on Jeju Island. Since then, I've been happily busy with the linguistic documentation work which I received a small Fulbright grant to do.

In January, I met with a professor of Jeju National University to get his insight and some inside information on what language activism looks like on the autonomous island province of Korea. Then, nothing happened for a while.

This is me giving my presentation on Jeju-eo at the Fulbright Spring Conference 2014. Even without anything concrete to show, I went way over time! But people gave me very positive feedback, at least! Photo taken by Katelyn.

It was not until April, during the Fulbright Spring Conference, that I actually had the opportunity to do any fieldwork! After giving a presentation of my research at the conference itself (which was a bit lacking, in my opinion, since I didn't have any actual data to show yet), I spent an entire afternoon with five native Jeju Islanders who helped me make recordings.

The fieldwork was fun but a bit nerve-wracking, at least for the first part. Through a friend of a friend, I met an elderly couple who live in a rural area outside of Jeju City. They are known to be very involved in the local language activism community, so fortunately, they were very willing to talk about Jeju-eo with a complete stranger, and told me many stories. For example, they explained why Jeju-eo sounded so clipped (shortened words make communication across long distances easier when wind is constantly blowing over the island) and highlighted the main differences between Standard Korean and Jeju-eo.

The nerve-wracking part was that I felt way out of my depth in terms of language ability. These people spoke no English, so all of our communication was done in Korean. It was tough for me to explain exactly how I needed them to elicit the words I wanted to record. Also, there was a lot of ambient noise in the recordings, because we were meeting in their house, which meant that they offered snacks and were busy eating them the entire time. Also, the background noise of refrigerators, clocks, and a farm have probably ended up in these recordings.

The friendly and hospitable first group of consultants. They welcomed me to come back any time in the future!

My second group of consultants were much easier to work with, since they were a mother and a daughter, and the daughter happened to be an English teacher. Again, I was connected through a friend of a friend, and again, even though I was just this random kid with a microphone, they were enthusiastic about helping and showed a great deal of generosity.

Because the linguistic barriers were no longer an issue, the second recording session went much more smoothly, and we worked for over an hour to collect over one hundred words, including many that are unique to Jeju-eo. These are the recordings that I have been putting into the Jeju-eo Online Talking Dictionary.

Ah, yes, the dictionary. The big project. I can freely admit that the lexicographical process is much more of a mountain than the molehill I expected it to be. Although I returned from Jeju Island happy and ready to dive right into the splicing, transcribing, annotating, and uploading work required to build up the dictionary from nothing, well, all of that work took a lot more time than I'd planned for. Weeks went by, and then months, and still I never got close to finishing. Then the semester got busy, and I had to put my project on hold.

Back when I did online lexicography in college, it was as part of a team. Despite my experience -- or perhaps beacuse of it? -- I underestimated my ability to do all the work on my own!

Finally, in early June, the deadline for my final report drew nearer, and I realized that it was now or never. I spent hours upon hours one weekend churning out data, giving myself just enough to work with for a few key observations in my report, and finished the eight thousand-word paper just before the deadline! This wasn't the worst I've ever procrastinated, but -- whew! -- It certainly was a wake-up call to the kind of work I might be doing in grad school. Note to self: no full-time jobs when you're doing full-time research, too. :)

Anyway, what I have to show for my work now is a modest online dictionary of Jeju-eo that you can browse at your leisure here. It's not complete by any means, and it's also imperfect. (This is mostly due to my imperfect translations and transcriptions. I do need help with the Korean, so if you know anyone who's willing to lend a hand or an ear, let me know!) But, as my friend Coby put it, "Something now exists that didn't exist before because of your work. That's awesome!"

In other news, I learned that a Fulbright Junior Researcher for the 2014-2015 grant year is going to be doing a similar project! Actually, let's be real here: her project is essentially exactly the same as mine. But she will have full funding for a year's worth of research and dictionary-making, and she will also be based on Jeju Island, so she can develop better connections and do more in-depth fieldwork. I've already been in touch with her, and I'm excited about the prospect of collaborating.

Fulbright Spring Conference 2014

Just a few photos from Fulbright's Spring Conference held at the beginning of this month. Hard to believe April is almost over, now that I think about it... Anyway, the conference was nice. Good to see my friends again. The programming was long and pretty tedious since a lot of it I'd heard before (last year), but if I'm honest with myself, you can never learn too much or prepare too well. Satisfaction with one's current performance is mostly a lack of desire to keep growing and improving, and that leads to complacency. So I took notes. Said notes are in my office at school, so I'll type them up later. But without further ado, here are some of the aforementioned photos!

Spring Conference peer-led workshops. I led one that was a panel discussions for first-years wondering about what doing a second-year is like.

Spring Conference is when the Fulbright researchers present the contents of their research projects, so we also had discussion small groups with them. The cool researchers held their small groups outside!

I went to my friend Adam's small group. He's been studying street dance and performance art in Korea, so our "discussion" mostly revolved around him teaching us some basic hip hop moves. Ha! All the other small groups may have been more professional, but ours was more fun.

And this was the view from our hotel on Jeju Island. Gorgeous. Perfect weather. I want to go back!

On Friday night, there was a fundraising game night that involved an "ice cream pie" contest. Contestants had to search for a missing gummy bear inside a dish of ice cream... using just their faces.

It got pretty messy pretty quick. Entertaining, though.

Our winners! Or did everyone lose?

Saturday night, we had a special dinner of Jeju's specialty, black pork. We ate a ton! I'm really going to miss Korean barbecue when I leave. (Actually, I think I'm going to go back to being vegetarian in the States...)

Saturday night was a fun event at a local club called Monkey Beach: "Fulbright Prom", organized by some Fulbrighters as a fundraiser and a party just for us. I never went to my high school's prom, actually, so it was kind of funny for me to go. L to R: me, Ashley, Amy, and Anna.

Seogwipo's Monkey Beach is so legit! It was huge, for one, and had game rooms, arcade rooms, karaoke rooms, a stage, and even a waterslide! I had a really great time.

Having a great time at Fulbright Prom! L to R: Cait, Patrick, Katelyn, Jennifer

The club's actual waterslide! It was ridiculous and amazing!

Jake and me. Hm... I've got to stop making it a habit to put my arm around the shoulders of people taller than me.

Our fearless Program Coordinator, Andrew, and Executive Assistant, Liam. Props to them for putting together a great conference!

What are you doing next year?

The Question.
I've been mulling this over for a few months now and still have trouble answering.

I haven't talked about my future plans on this blog very much. In the past, this was because I didn't have any future plans. But I decided last year that I wanted to obtain a PhD in Linguistics, so I applied to graduate school programs in the fall. At this point, I've heard back from the six schools I applied to, and now, well, the silence about my decision stems not from the absence of plans but from simple reluctance to think about it.

You see, I do a lot of my thinking by writing. Without this blog, a lot of the thoughts I have day to day would never be processed. I like to get these thoughts out somehow, and making them public on this platform encourages me to be honest and straightforward about them. Does that sound counterintuitive? Surely a private journal would allow for more truth and less self-censorship. But what I mean is, I like to imagine that I have an audience, reading what I type here as if I'm telling them in person, so for their sake I can't write anything that I wouldn't say in a casual conversation... and for their sake I can and do write everything that I usually want to say in those situations.

The point is, I am at a moment in my life where I need to make a very big decision, and I feel unprepared to do so because I haven't thought about it enough. (And I haven't thought about it enough because I haven't blogged about it yet, see?)

The last two weeks have been busy and exhausting for various reasons. Right before I left for conference, I was feeling considerably 답답해, a unique sentiment to Korean culture that refers to the inability to say what one wants to say, the mentally suffocating discomfort that stems from not expressing one's true thoughts satisfactorily, or even just the confusion of not knowing what to say or think in a difficult situation. Due to my stress and uncharacteristic lack of sleep -- topping off a week of 4-to-5-hour nights with an all-night baking party of one -- I resolved to spend my time at the Fulbright Spring Conference getting as much rest as possible. In between napping and enjoying the wind and sun of Jeju Island, I thought that I'd also have the opportunity to ponder and pray about my future.

Fortunately, I did have time to do this over the weekend. Actually, I did not end up getting much sleep. There was also very little time in the schedule for personal introspection; I guess it was assumed that we ETAs would use our odd free hours for that... but I spent my free day conducting fieldwork. That's another story for another post. The important thing is that during the conference, I finally got to talk about my future plans with my friends, and that was when I finally began to get a clearer picture of what they might look like. So, I'm very thankful that going to the conference allowed me to process the ideas bouncing around in my head in a different, albeit obvious way: seeking my friends' input. Rather than writing things down and clicking a button to send them into the void, I simply sat and talked. I don't often just sit and talk anymore; isn't that a bit sad?

Anyway, now that I have returned from the conference, I figure it couldn't hurt to, once again, write things down and send them into the void. If you're interested in where I may possibly end up going for graduate school, read on.

The Applications.
My dream is to be a linguist. I want to work with endangered language communities and teach them how to use the tools they need to preserve and revitalize their language and culture. I don't know exactly how feasible this dream is, but it's where I began when I applied to various top Linguistics programs around the country. I set my bar particularly high: Stanford, Yale, MIT, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC Santa Cruz. All six of these programs are very good and very difficult to get into, though not all necessarily focus on language documentation.

What I also found was important -- a bit to my own surprise -- was location. I felt like if I was going to spend another five to six years in school, I'd only be willing to do it in a city or region that I could thrive in. Hence the many schools in California. I'll admit it: as the winter chill set in and I wrote those neverending personal statements, I was pining for my home state and its perfect climate and food.

Almost absurdly soon, I heard back from Berkeley and SC! An offer of admission from the former in late January and an interview with the latter, which soon became a second offer of admission in early February. This was a fantastic way to begin my decision-making process, and I was optimistic. Alas, this y turned out to be a negative x, and in the week that followed, I bombed an interview with Yale and received two rather impersonal rejection letters from MIT and Stanford.

In mid-March, I learned that I'd been waitlisted at Yale (while a fellow Swarthmore linguist had been accepted, which likely slims my chances of getting in) and also received news of my funding packages for Berkeley and SC. Berkeley's is better, no question about it. Also, they somehow secured me an extra scholarship on top of the standard five years of full funding. UCLA remained oddly silent, and the suspense would have been unbearable had I not already learned from a friend there that my name was not to be found on the list of admited students. I found out just prior to leaving for the Fulbright Conference that I was waitlisted at UCLA.

The Dilemma.
So, that's where I was before my weekend retreat: 2 Yes, 2 No, 2 Maybe. Now, the question you'd think I'd be asking is, "Which will you choose, Berkeley or SC?" Actually, the question I began to ask myself -- weeks ago, even, after my late-February screwups and before I got any news on the funding front -- was, "Which will I choose, grad school or another year (1) in Korea?"

As soon as the semester began in early March and I resumed teaching, I realized that there are so many wonderful aspects of my life in Korea that I couldn't imagine giving up in a matter of months. I had just begun volunteering with North Korean defector students. I was beginning to get more involved in the expat community in Changwon, after a year and a half of being a quasi-hermit. I was really enjoying the work I was doing for the Fulbright Infusion, our literary magazine. All of these things I felt considerably more enthusiasm for than the distant prospect of furthering my own education. Also, I realized that my Castleberry research project on Jeju-eo was turning out to be a much bigger project than I'd imagined at first. Although I had to scale it down, I began to wonder why I couldn't just stay in Korea a bit longer -- maybe a year longer -- to continue my research uninterrupted. After all, the dictionary project is very much in the same line of work I dream of doing for a career.

Most importantly, when I went back to school and saw my students -- my old second- and third-years and a new crop of fresh-faced first-years -- I knew that leaving them in July would break my heart. When I mentioned to JH that I speak French and could teach her in her spare time, she excitedly said that it would have to wait until after she is finished with college applications in the fall. I didn't tell her that I might be gone by then.

And it's kind of a silly thing, but after my very first semester of teaching, back in 2012, one of my favorite students, truly a standout in her class, wrote me a note asking me to stay at their school until she graduated. This is an odd request, since normally, native English teachers at public schools don't stay longer than one year. Students get used to them cycling in and out in the middle of their school year. But I'm not quite normal; I've stayed for two years. And DH isn't quite normal, either, for a science high school student; while 90% of her classmates were awarded early admission to college last fall, she was not and is now completing the final months of her educational prison sentence. If I leave, I'll have to break the silent promise I made to her one year ago when I read her special note.

I'll admit it: I'm jealous for my students. I love them. I feel like I know them pretty well, and I like to think that I've had a positive impact on their lives, even if some of them still sleep in my class and write in their journals that they hate journaling. I couldn't bear leaving them, especially leaving them in the hands of another NET I don't know. But since I'll have to leave them eventually, what exactly is the difference between leaving this July and leaving next July?

Here's an analogous question: what exactly is the difference between entering graduate school this August and entering next August? As I considered my graduate school options and weighed them against renewing my Fulbright contract for the second and final time, I asked the graduate departments about my options for deferment. I am allowed to defer matriculation: that is, I can wait one year and enter without having to re-apply in 2015. However, I am not allowed to defer the funding I've been given, especially not the additional scholarship I received from Berkeley. Deferring for a year puts me back into limbo regarding money; I could get the same amount next year, or more, or less. It's a gamble.

Is it any surprise that in spite of all my feelings, my goals, and my desires -- or rather, in spite of all the careful consideration I'm putting into these abstractions -- it really is just going to boil down to the issue of money?

Who can walk away from such an amazing opportunity? I'm looking at you, Berkeley. The best public university in the country is willing to throw thousands of dollars at me so that I can become educated within its hallowed hipster halls. What fool chooses a low-paying, non-career-advancing, intellectually dissatisfying job any twenty-something with a bachelor's can do over that?

... But what fool willingly gives up living more freely and comfortably than he ever has before, yet growing, learning, and being stretched in many wonderful ways, developing precious and unforgettable relationships, and helping people's lives directly and tangibly every day... for an excuse to scurry back home and bury himself deep in books for five years?

The Discussion.
So here is where talking with my friends came in. I asked friends back home what they thought; I asked my old professors for advice; I talked to a lot of people here in Korea, too. More people than I expected to, since I was initially unwilling to divulge a lot of information to anyone who might inform my students that my time with them was now possibly limited.

It seemed that a lot of people from back home (2) were very supportive of my desire to stay in Korea, to continue doing what I love. After all, you're only young once. There's no hurry to move on to something different or more "adult" if where you are now is where you most strongly feel you should be. Even my Linguistics professor advised asking about deferment, along with the note that I'd spend my extra year continuing my self-directed research project.

On the other hand, most people I spoke to in Korea, including my fellow ETAs, other expat friends, and my Korean friends, took the opposite stance: why turn down all that money? An American education is expensive, and if you risk losing the scholarship, Korea might not be worth it. You may enjoy what you're doing now, but you shouldn't get too comfortable. (3) And at the very least, Korea isn't going anywhere: you can finish your studies and then come back.

"Why did you apply to graduate school in the first place," my Korean friend asked me, "if you didn't actually want to go?"

I do want to go, but the strength of that desire can wane, can't it? It's a little scary to consider how easy it is to make huge, life-changing decisions depending on an arbitrary lingering mood. If I had just had a string of crummy experiences in Korea, I'd probably be counting down the days until the end of my contract. But that mindset could just as easily be reversed by a classroom miracle, a completed bucket list item, or simply a day spent counting my blessings. Thus, it's all about the timing: when it comes time to make my decision by the deadline in mid-April next week, how much will I love Korea? How excited will I be about beginning graduate school? Which future will prevail in that moment?

The Decision.
I don't know. But I'm learning toward Berkeley.

Good night!

- - -
(1) Fulbright Korea uniquely allows its ETAs to renew their contracts two times. Most Fulbright commissions in other countries cap the grant duration at one year, maybe two. Three is the limit for us ETAs at Korean schools.

(2) The exception, of course, being that my family wants me home as soon as possible, especially my parents. They are extremely uncomfortable with how far away from them I've been for the past six years.

(3) Other factors that may take the luster out of a third year in Korea: our ETA contract is slated for some drastic and potentially unpleasant changes. Pretty much all of my Fulbright friends are leaving the country in July. Also, I miss going to a real church.

My Work Published in the Fulbright Korea Infusion

The Fulbright Korea Infusion is Fulbright Korea's literary magazine. Its winter issue was recently published and can be found online here.

I am one of the magazine's co-editors for photography this year. Neal and I worked our butts off and spent hours in video conferences to get everything together; the bulk of the editing process happened while both of us were traveling in Southeast Asia. That said, I'm proud of our work and of the excellent work done by the designers, managing editors, and EIC.

In particular, I'd like to draw your attention to three pieces:

First, "Where Do I Begin", by Helen Li, a first-year ETA. Helen keeps a great blog, and I admire her writing and poetry. Her piece captures very well the happiness students bring into their teachers' lives. I paired it with one of my favorite photos of my students, taken last year on Sports Day.

Second, "Sea & Clouds", a poem I wrote but never published on this blog. The poem was inspired by my recollections of going to Haeundae Beach in Busan (haeundae/해운대/海雲臺 means "sea and cloud pavilion").

Third, "08.18.13", which longtime readers of my blog may recognize as a slightly-edited version of a letter I wrote to a student last August and published without a title. It was featured in Infusion vol. 7 issue 1 alongside a photo taken by Thomas Owens.

I hope you enjoy reading Infusion!

America, the Superpower of the Present Age

I sound like a Tea Partier, don't I? Ha.

My co-teacher spent seven weeks in Austin, Texas this past winter break. She participated in a Fulbright-sponsored teacher training program that brought Korean English teachers -- most, but not all, associated with Fulbright schools -- to the US for cultural immersion and educational exchange. She stayed with a Texan homestay, visited cultural landmarks in Austin, and taught classes on Korean culture to students at a low-performing high school.

I've been very eager to talk to her about her experiences in the United States, as this was her first time there, and it was for such a long time, too! Seven weeks is longer than my orientation training for Fulbright.

So, I asked her over lunch what her most enduring impression of America was. Surprisingly, she said that although seven weeks was not enough time to draw any strong conclusions, she saw enough during her time there to understand why America is the strongest nation in the world. I raised an eyebrow. She explained, "the sheer number of garbage cans on the streets was so impressive. You know, having garbage cans everywhere means that the government can afford them. Even though it's a seemingly small thing, it kind of represents how much abundance there is in America."

I commented offhand about how I would have interpreted the profusion of garbage cans as a sign that Americans produce far too much garbage. "Well," she replied, "maybe it's both."

She also spoke in slight awe of the enormous bathrooms ("Necessary for all of those fat Americans?" I asked.), the impressive museums and art galleries ("Well, compared to D.C...."), and the fact that they would turn on the air conditioning when it was 75°F outside. The wastefulness of this behavior notwithstanding, all of it pointed to abundance, and my co-teacher went on and on. Austin is only the 11th-largest city in America, but it has airports, museums, and beautiful buildings to rival Seoul and Incheon. It's as if the United States has at least eleven Seouls -- the magnitude was overwhelming.

Obviously, Seoul is inimitable and there's no comparing it with Austin or any other American city for that matter, but the point is that she came away from her experience in the US thinking that Japan, France, and even England now seemed like superpowers of the past, while America is the superpower of today.

So that was interesting.

On a different note, my co-teacher also talked about the thing that surprised her most about American schools: she and all of the other Korean participants in the program agreed that the American students they encountered in every classroom situation were on the whole far better behaved than their own country's students. They were extremely polite and extremely PC: one class hushed an ESL student when he asked my co-teacher how long she'd been studying English, but she smiled and simply asked him to guess. The Korean teachers came away with glowing reviews of American high schoolers. I had a hard time believing this, but I guess there's something in the lunches in Texas...

Also, she was extremely shocked to find the extent to which America's "melting pot" was actually more like a 3.79 million square-mile pizza with 314 million toppings on it, all squished together but never mixing. Case in point: Spanish-speaking students who had been living in the States for two years who could still only manage, "Me no speak English." She described it as students learning EFL (English as a Foreign Language) instead of ESL (English as a Second Language), since they were living in a completely Hispanic community and weren't even encountering English in their daily lives, not even at school.

We chatted about immigration and how it forms a dynamic society, the deal with the over-achieving Asian immigrant stereotype, and some of her other experiences with places she visited and the Americans she met. I've been thoroughly enjoying all of these conversations, as my casual cynicism is being given a run for its money by my co-teacher's rave review. And the best part is that I find I'm learning a lot about my country.

My country? Every time my co-teacher shared her stories about the United States with me, she would call it "your country". To be honest, that sounded strange to my ears. It's because she went to Texas and experienced Southern/Southwestern culture. I'm from California, and I've never been to Texas. Although I introduce myself as American or Taiwanese-American, I consider myself culturally Californian, not simply American (Since "American culture" can mean so many things, it tends not to mean anything at all.), and I certainly can't identify with any part of Texan culture. All I know about it are stereotypes. So the foreign experiences my co-teacher had had sounded somewhat foreign to me, too. This has gotten me thinking about how the United States of America really are united states, discrete and different but all trying their darnedest to get along.

Ah, USA... you are a bottomless well of culture and cultural issues that make every conversation about you utterly fascinating. Keep it up, home country. Keep on being the beautiful mess that currently controls the rest of the planet. I'll be back soon.

Volunteering with North Korean Defector Children

This photo is courtesy of the Facebook page of the Korean Red Cross Gyeongnam (대한적십자사 경남지사). It was uploaded today with a caption I've roughly translated as, "Today was the Mentor-Mentee Matching and Opening Ceremony for the KRC Gyeongnam's mentoring program with college students and defector children. After the matching, everyone went to the first floor baking kitchen to make muffins and have some great bonding time. We have a ton of enjoyable and edifying activities planned for the future. We are all rooting for you!"

As some of my readers may be aware, I recently traveled to North Korea (DPRK) on a tour with the Pyongyang Project. I have a lot to say about that trip, but because I'm still processing some thoughts (and because I haven't finished recapping Southeast Asia), I'll hold off on blogging about it for now.

However, I am remaining connected in a small sense to my experiences there by beginning a new volunteer activity this semester. Fulbright Korea sponsors many educational and cultural initiatives far beyond mere teaching, and one of its most successful programs has been the English tutoring program for North Korean defectors.

North Korean defectors are DPRK citizens who illegally leave the country to attempt to live and acquire citizenship somewhere else. If defectors successfully make it to South Korea (ROK) -- which is difficult and dangerous -- they can acquire South Korean citizenship and adjust to life here. But things don't get easier for North Koreans in the south. In addition to culture shock and the stress of daily life here, many find themselves at an economic disadvantage fueled in part by linguistic disparity.

North Koreans can face prejudice because they speak Korean a bit differently, but even worse, many defectors have had little to no English education, which bars them from applying to better-paying jobs and stymies economic mobility. As for children, many who have spent more of their lives living in China than in either of the Koreas, they must hit the ground running with their education and play catch-up for years before they can match their peers in linguistic ability.

One of the children I met today is a typical case: MS is fifteen years old but looks much younger than his age. He wasn't exactly shy, but he wasn't speaking much, either; the reason, I soon realized, was that he is more comfortable speaking Mandarin than Korean. He told me that he arrived in South Korea one year ago; prior to that, he spent eight years in China. As we chatted in Mandarin, South Korean volunteers looked on in interest, unable to understand. MS used Korean with his official mentors and the other children but Chinese with his younger sister and me. I taught him a handful of English words, but when I'd try to switch from speaking in Mandarin to English, he'd stop and say, "영어 어려워요." English is hard.

When MS enters high school in a year or two, he will be required to take intensive English grammar courses. Right now, he cannot even introduce himself. It is for people like MS that Fulbright organized its English teachers all across South Korea and began the English tutoring program. At the Hana Centers (where defectors go for resettlement and living assistance) in cities including Seoul, Daegu, Gwangju, Jeonju, Jeju, Busan, and Daejeon, Fulbright teachers conduct classes and/or one-on-one tutoring for defectors who want to improve their English. Changwon's Hana Center, which is operated by the Korean Red Cross, made plans to begin its English tutoring program this semester -- via me.

So that's how I found myself at the Gyeongnam Red Cross building, making chocolates and baking muffins with twenty adorable and high-energy kids and twice as many local college students, who were the defector childrens' official mentors for the year. The classes will begin in a week or two, but for today, I was just there to meet my future students and have some fun. And I did just that! I've never made chocolates before, and to do so with a bunch of kids with wild imaginations and a rather typical lack of self-control was the best way to learn how, I reckon.

Handcrafted chocolates courtesy the kids of the Gyeongnam Hana Center!

Some of the children were very reticent, but others opened up very easily. One bold girl who told me her name was Sandy and tried out her entire English vocabulary on my throughout the day was utterly incredulous when I told her that I was American. (Even some of the college students mistook me for another mentor who happened not to have a mentee.) But Sandy insisted that I was Korean and was just pretending not to speak Korean well because I was the English teacher. I don't know if I managed to convince her in the end, but the playful misunderstanding didn't keep us from having a great time when we played tag outside or packaged the colorful chocolates and freshly-baked muffins into bags to take home.

I had such a wonderful day today, and I can't wait to see Sandy, MS, and some of the other kids soon in my classroom. I'm nervous about teaching low-level students for the first time, but I'm committed to this and I know it'll all work out.

My Korean Students Speak

Korean Students Speak is a neat photo project that a fellow Fulbrighter began two years ago. The premise is simple: English education in South Korea focuses on skills for standardized testing and rarely offers students the opportunity for self-expression, so we foreign English teachers give them just that. A blank sheet of paper and the freedom to write whatever they desire. Then, we share these writings with the world.

I'd been itching to do KSS with my students for a long time, and finally I incorporated it into a unit on "speaking up" last semester. The lessons were centered around the power of words to build people up, bring people down, and change the world. On the day I introduced the project, some students took this idea to heart and wrote inspiring, meaningful messages to share. Other students wrote, "I need more time to sleep!" But every student wrote something.

Now, a few months after I submitted my students' work, they've begun showing up on the website! I'm quite excited to see them, and I'm thrilled that a handful are getting large response from the tumblr community (over 1500 notes!). My favorite so far has really struck a chord with the blog's audience:

"You just haven't found what you're good at."

Visit Korean Students Speak to see thousands more funny, wise, moving, or random sayings!

제주어 (Jeju-eo)

Map of Korea, Jeju Island in pink.

My friend Jessica recently brought to my attention the extremely interesting fact that there is an endangered language spoken in Korea! I used to think that Korean was essentially the only language spoken in this country. Then, I learned about 방언/사투리, the fairly dissimilar regional dialects that make it possible for a Korean to tell where you are from after a minute of conversation.

As it turns out, the local dialect spoken on the island province of Jeju (제주) is even more unique than the dialects of the peninsula. It is so different, in fact, that it is nearly mutually unintelligible with standard Korean. For example, Jeju-eo has retained a low-back vowel that standard Korean no longer uses, and its lexicon includes hundreds of words borrowed from Mongolian, Chinese, and Japanese that don't all appear in standard Korean. In addition, standard verb endings, which are critical to Korean morphology, are completely different: compare Jeju-eo's 알앗수다 alassuda to standard Korean's 알았습니다 alasseumnida, both of which mean "I understand." Thus, a person from Seoul would not be able to understand most of what a Jeju Islander is saying if the latter is using Jeju-eo*.

Unfortunately, common use of Jeju-eo is slowly diminishing. Between 5,000-10,000 Jeju Islanders can speak it natively today, but the grand majority of them are senior citizens. Children are not being taught Jeju-eo at a rate fast enough to keep the language alive for the next generation. Consequently, a few years ago, Jeju-eo was classified as an endangered language by UNESCO.

This is exciting for me, because I want to become a linguistics researcher, and my passion is for endangered languages. Thanks to Jessica, I got a great idea for an independent research project for this upcoming semester. I will travel to Jeju Island, meet a professor at Jeju National University, and work on compiling an English-to-Jeju-eo online dictionary similar to the ones I worked on at Swarthmore. I received funding for my project from the Fulbright Korea Alumni Fund (also called the Castleberry Grant), and I'm thrilled that I can begin right away!

Here are some links to informative articles related to Jeju-eo:
- A professor at the University of Hawaii calls for the preservation and revitalization of Jeju-eo.
- A Jeju Islander reflects on the ongoing loss of Jeju-eo.
- A feature on a Jeju poet who writes only in Jeju-eo.

- - -

*The "eo" (어/語) in Jeju-eo means "speech", which is normally translated as "language", as in 영어 ("English language"). It is also called 제주방언 ("Jeju dialect"), but it seems that native speakers prefer to consider it a language, as do I. This is more an issue of politics/semantics than linguistics, however.

What I'm Thankful For

It's Thanksgiving once again! Last year, I was thankful for friends, family, Fulbright, food, faith, and a lot of other things, not all of which begin with the letter F.

This year, I didn't think about Thanksgiving very much, in part due to being so busy these past few weeks. I don't get to work this little tidbit of American culture into any of my lessons, since most of my students are doing their speech tests now, and I spend every extra minute of every day correcting drafts or journals.

But it's only appropriate that I take some time now and list at least a few of the very many things for which I am grateful this year.

1. A healthy and active body. I'm thankful that I'm surviving (so far) a winter in Korea without unlimited heating. (On that note, it snowed in Changwon today! But it didn't stick.) I'm happy to be doing taekgyeon to keep myself fit even though I bake cookies and eat them all by myself every weekend... Here's a photo of my taekgyeon performance in Seoul during Fulbright Thanksgiving the weekend before last.

I'm performing with 장봉, but it's moving too fast for you to really see ;) Photo taken by Vinnie Flores.

2. I'm thankful for all of my friends, new and old. I love Skyping home to chat with people after going months or even years without seeing them. I'm also lucky that folks in Changwon are really friendly, so even though I'm basically a hermit, I have friends here in my city. Last Sunday, I ran into Nadia, a friend I met at church but hadn't seen in a few months. Ever the hospitable host, Nadia promptly invited me to dinner at her place that night, where she and some of her friends were celebrating an early Thanksgiving. She had gone to the army base in Jinhae to get all the proper food: an enormous turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, and even candied yams with marshmallows, roasted in a 된장찌개 pot! My second Thanksgiving this year was very spontaneous and simply fantastic.

Romi and part of our Thanksgiving feast, prepared by Nadia. Look at that turkey! I helped carve it. :)

New friends who live in Jangyu/Gimhae, which means I don't know how often I'll get to see them, but they're awesome all the same!

3. I'm thankful for my family, even though I haven't seen them for a while and won't for an even longer while. My parents went on a vacation to New Zealand recently, so that put them in the same hemisphere as me, but they were actually 600 miles farther away from Seoul than the Bay Area is. Also, my cousin Johanna got engaged last weekend! Congratulations, Johanna! I know you're reading this. I love my family and I love that it keeps getting bigger literally every year.

As many of you know, my grandfather passed away a few months ago. I miss him, but I'm also thankful that this event was able to bring my large family and my even larger church family together in September. I could clearly see how God used him to bless hundreds, of not thousands, of people in his long and well-lived life.

My grandparents, with A-kong sporting some killer snorkel gear, in a video hangout last year.

4. I'm thankful for my job and for the excellent Fulbright community. I'm lucky to be a part of it! My fellow teachers inspire me; they make me laugh; they keep me sane; they take my money to fund amazing progressive educational initiatives. I would be a lost and lonely 외국인 in Korea if it weren't for them.

Fulbright at the 2013 Thanksgiving dinner with the US Embassy in Seoul. I'm the one in the shirt. Taken by Vinnie Flores.

5. Last, but not least (maybe even most), I'm thankful for my students. I love 'em, and though sometimes they bring me grief, most of the time they make my life complete. I don't spend twelve hours at school every day because I like my desk, folks.

And sometimes, I find out that my students are thankful for me, too, and that just makes me melt.

A student's answer to the last journal question of the semester: What have you learned in my class?

So, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Enjoy your turducken and your parade, while I enjoy an endless feast of blessings from above. 추수감사절 축하합니다!

Fulbright Youth Diplomacy and Activism Conference (YDAC) (& two random holidays)

Dear friends, happy Pepero Day! I got a large chocolate pepero (called "pocky" in Japan and the US) from an anonymous student, and today's lunch included a packet of almond pepero, but otherwise, nothing special yet.

Pepero Day is a day to show a little love... and a lot of consumerist tendencies. The holiday was completely manufactured by snack food companies. What better day than 11/11 to buy your friends and lovers (literally) tons of the sweet stick-shaped crackers and spend money that you could otherwise be donating to...

YDAC! The Youth Diplomacy and Activism Conference, run completely independently by Fulbright teachers in Korea, is held once each semester. Teams of bright and hardworking high school students compete in a day-long series of debates about everything from foreign policy to social issues in their own country. There are four conferences throughout the country, including one in my province. My students do not participate, but my colleagues' students do, and they need your help!

Without warning, YDAC lost its funding for its upcoming fall conference, and its organizers are scrambling to come up with enough money to secure transportation, food, and the venue for the conference, all of which have been completely free for students in the past. Will you help us meet their fundraising goal? About $300 more is needed! There are only 5 days left!

You can contribute to their fundraiser here: click on this link.

That's all for my shameless plug. 안녕!

[edit] I found out from a student today that there's a traditional Korean holiday that also falls on 11/11 but which has been around for quite a bit longer. That holiday is 농업인의 날, or Farmers' Day. Farmer's Day apparently started in the mid 1960s, a few decades earlier than the earliest recorded Pepero Day observance, when livestock and agriculture cooperatives in the northern province of Gangwon-do (a very rural part of the country) got together and... did stuff? They chose the 11th day of the 11th month because in hanja, or Chinese characters, "11" is written as 十一 (shibil/shi2yi1), which can be combined to form 土 (to/tu2), the character for earth or soil.

About a decade ago, when Pepero Day was really taking off, people either 1) didn't like the cultural competition, 2) were concerned about the amount of sugar and empty calories kids were consuming on the day, or 3) both, and launched a campaign to distribute 가래떡 (garaetteok), a kind of long sticky rice cake which, when paired, is also shaped like the number 11, instead of the chocolaty 과자. Hence, 가래떡 데이 vs. 빼빼로 데이. Today, after taekgyeon practice, I received two cute packages of 가래떡, bringing my own 11/11 full circle. Well, tteok is certainly healthier than pepero, but honestly, it's not as good a treat. ;)

가래떡 (garaetteok), squishy cylindrical rice cakes, shaped like the number 11. Happy Garaetteok Day!

Final

Feeling nostalgic... and thus in the mood for odd Photoshop filters. This is a bunch of photos with Fulbright friends overlay-ed on a sunset view of Seoul from the 31st floor of the Hotel President.

Final exams (학기말시험) begin tomorrow at my school. What this means for me is four days of no classes and plenty of time to get other work done. Or, it could mean four days of deep reflection and looking back on one year in Korea with Fulbright.

This past weekend, the 2012-2013 Fulbrighters had a last hurrah in Seoul: our Final Dinner. Held just two weeks before the grant year concludes and two-thirds of us return to the United States, it was the designated time for us to spend quality time together, say our goodbyes, and, of course, take care of last-minute administrivia. But it was mostly about the goodbyes.

Now, I'm not a terribly emotional person. I don't cry over goodbyes. After commencement last year -- after the culminating finale of a truly life-changing and unforgettable college career -- I had to throw all my stuff into the trunk and hightail it off campus with my family. I barely saw anyone, and I didn't even have time to shed a tear. This year, the Fulbright Final Dinner felt like its own sort of graduation ceremony. We had no robes, but dang, everyone looked sharp; no diplomas, but many people won awards. We even had a "commencement speaker", the ever-inspiring Sam Morrow, and slideshows of smile-filled photos set to really great music.

There were also reports from the amazing projects my fellow grantees had done over the year, which were inspiring and impressive. Fulbright is not just about standing at the front of the classroom to which you're assigned; we began cooking clubs, hosted language exchanges, held sports events for underprivileged students, sent pen pal letters around the world, and founded nonprofit educational organizations. (By "we" I mean "they", my colleagues who are much more proactive than I.) In addition, the hardworking staff of Fulbright Infusion, our six-year-old literary magazine, presented this year's beautiful issue.

What with all these speeches, presentations, and formal niceties, I realized long before the evening was over that I wasn't actually being given much time to interact with the hundred friends with whom I'd gathered. Not even the ones sitting at my table eating delicious catered food with me. (Dining chatter was interrupted by a program of very nice and nostalgia-inducing performances by ETAs, including myself and Katelyn.) And then, we were finished, and it was time to take photos and hustle out of the hotel.

It didn't feel very final, because, once again, I was just being rushed from one place to another, and the whirlwind of quick goodbyes and random promises to "meet up again soon" wasn't cutting it for (what I realized with some surprise was) a strong desire to "end things" properly, with the right amounts of gratitude, humor, and hope.

I suppose that that's just the way things had to happen, though, and at the very least, I'm glad I got the photos. The rest of the weekend was filled to bursting with great moments with these same friends -- I'll write about them presently -- and perhaps even more pleasant than the classy affair were these absolutely normal hours spent eating, talking, and not being even remotely sad.

Now that I'm back in Changwon for a solid two weeks -- and I am quite sure I won't see any Fulbrighters for that duration -- I'm looking at a good amount of time for retrospection. I'll be filling out evaluation surveys and thinking back upon what, if anything, I've accomplished since July 2012. No doubt the weight of the realization that I won't see many wonderful friends for a long, long while will too find time to settle into my heart and grip it with nostalgia or melancholy. I guess I ought to welcome it, because a new chapter is about to begin, and since I'm not the one turning the page, resistance to it might be painful. Plus, it's better to read slowly but savor every memory than to skim through your emotions and only pick out the parts you enjoy.

Okay, I've got to end this post before the metaphor becomes any more overextended. Goodbye, Fulbright 친구들! In the wise words of Ammy Yuan, "I'll see you when I see you."

세계평화의 종 - The World Peace Bell

Let's break that down:

세계 (se-geh) means "world".

평화 (pyoung-hwa) means "peace".

의 (eh) is a possessive particle.

종 (jong) means "bell".

Fulbrighters and Hwacheon Peace Forum campers at the World Peace Bell. (taken by Ammy)

The World Peace Bell, located in its namesake park in Hwacheon, was cast in 2005 for the 60th anniversary of Liberation Day (August 15th, 1945 -- the end of Japanese colonial rule). The metal in this 37.5-ton Buddhist-style bell was recycled from empty ammunition cartridges from the Korean war and various conflict-ridden regions of the world. This gives the bell a certain special significance in its symbolism of world peace.

Making wishes. Btw, this bell is huge.

During the Hwacheon Peace Forum, we visited the World Peace Bell Park and learned about the bell, the nearby Hwacheon Peace Dam, and a little bit about the hopes of those who created this park. The dream, of course, is peace, but then there's also Reunification (통일/tongil). The top of the World Peace Bell is decorated with pigeons (비둘기, which represent peace, just like doves do; it's worth mentioning that pigeons and doves are in the same bird family). However, one of the pigeons is missing half of one of its wings. The missing piece is being kept with the promise that when North and South Korea are finally reunified, it will be reattached, thus finally completing the bell.

In the style of Buddhist bells, this one is rung by being struck on the outside by a large wooden beam (a battering ram?) The beam is very heavy, and it takes many people to swing it. All of the campers got a chance to strike the bell. The sound it made was very deep and powerful. As soon as it was struck, we were supposed to gather around the bell and place our hands or backs on it to feel the resonance, as well as to make a wish. I rested the back of my head on the bell after I had rung it, and it felt like a nice massage. While I did feel to an extent that the symbolism was a bit tacky, I did learn later that it actually costs about fifty cents for tourists to ring the bell, and each year, all of that money goes toward a full scholarship for one Ethiopian university student to study abroad in Korea, as thanks toward Ethiopia for fighting alongside Korea during the Korean war. I feel much better about that.

HL and SY with an otter (수달), which I believe is Hwacheon County's mascot.

After visiting the bell and watching a short video about the Peace Dam (평화의댐), the camp participants had some time to discuss what we had learned over the past two days and share our thoughts about peace and Korean Reunification. My two student partners, HL and SY, were two bright girls who, despite being good friends, plainly disagreed on whether Reunification would be good or not.

HL, whose father is in the army, was against 통일 because she knew the risks were great: Korea would be plunged into an economic and humanitarian crisis if it suddenly had to take care of millions of refugees from the North. SY, on the other hand, was more idealistic and remained convinced that North Koreans are "our family" and that the current separation was neither tenable nor the desire of most South Koreans. We didn't have enough time to elaborate on these thoughts, but I could tell that both of them had actually thought through their positions, and I appreciated that.

Both did agree, during our discussion, that the conversation about 통일 was likely more often had in Hwacheon than in other parts of the country, due to the county's proximity to the De-Militarized Zone between the North and the South. It seems like the farther away you get from the border, the less people tend to think about the issue. I know it hardly comes up in my life, way down here in Changwon, but it's not hard to see why people who live a mere thirty kilometers away from an enemy state would be more attuned to this dialogue. So, it was no wonder that the students of the Hwacheon Peace Forum, some of whom have participated in the camp several years in a row, were capable of expressing themselves so well about a matter very important to them. I was both impressed and inspired.

That said, I don't have any grand, sweeping conclusions to make about world peace or Korean Reunification. Not yet, at least. I've learned a great deal about this issue over the past few months, and I'd like to get all my thoughts down in writing at some point, so stay tuned.

The Researchers (+ an announcement!)

The Spring Conference was not only a chance for Fulbright English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) to get together and share what new and exciting things they were doing, but it was also a major gathering for the Fulbright researchers, affectionately known by us ETAs as "our other half". These two dozen-or-so independent academics, some fresh out of college and others working on their Masters or Doctoral degrees, have been in the country since last fall. Their research spans a wide variety of topics all related to South Korean history, culture, economics, health, or politics, and it was all quite well done.

During the last day and a half of our weekend in Jeju, the Fulbright researchers presented their research -- mostly background and updates, since they have not been here for too long yet -- to the entire Fulbright community. I actually expected it to be tough to sit through tons of these presentations at a time, since I knew that I'd be tired from the island tour and also probably not very interested in their subject matter. Boy, was I wrong. I was completely engrossed by more than half of the presentations, and I didn't doze off once. I think the doodle-notes helped a bit; during the presentations that didn't engage me as much, I took to "enhancing" the notes I'd taken on other segments and ended up with a pretty page of tons of information about South Korea. Here are some notes! Browse at your leisure and leave a comment or question!

Suicide
Joanne Cho is researching suicide in the country whose suicide rate is the greatest among all OECD countries. Suicide (자살) is the leadingcause of death for Koreans aged 10-40 (age 10?!), although a higher proportion of older men and women commit suicide, which makes this a social issue on all fronts, for all people. The reason behind this is often cited as stress, social pressure, and inadequate mental health care, but Ms. Cho thinks it's not so simple. She is investigating not only the mental health care system and its purported deficiencies, but also the stigma and the paradoxical influence of high-profile suicides on public perceptions of how to deal with shame.

Obesity
Emerson Song is researching the effects of 한식 (hanshik, or Korean cuisine) on obesity. Koreans have a significantly lower average BMI than residents of all Western countries, but the number of overweight and obese adults is rising. Also, did you know that Asians and Caucasians gain weight in different ways/places in the body? Due to this, it might be necessary to reevaluate the way Western medicine defines "obese". The more you know!

Korean-American Return Migration
Stephen Suh has been interviewing Koreans who have lived abroad (read: in the US) for extended periods of time but have since returned to Korea and are living stably and comfortably here. Why would Korean-Americans want to come back to Korea? For one, the economics prospects in the US still suck, and native-like fluency in English can get you a long way in any job in Korea, not just as an English teacher. But the typical locations of Korean return migrants are indeed English education and international businesses, as well as in the US military, which might indicate a propensity toward vocations that accentuate a return migrant's American identity. Does the US exert a strong cultural influence on Korea without using military force? Yes. (Mr. Suh calls this neo-imperialism.) Do 재미교포 who come to Korea have a role to play in all of this? Perhaps.

Chaebol Urbanism
The 재벌 (chaebol) is a unique type of business conglomerate that has flourished in South Korea and, arguably, been at the root of its meteoric economic rise in the past fifty years. Justin Stern did a unique economic and architectural study of the effect of these conglomerates on the visual landscape of Seoul. There was a lot of fascinating history included in this presentation: did you know that in the 1960's, the South Korean government extended huge benefits to Lotte, then a small confectionery company, so that they could finance the building of a grand hotel, and then an amusement park, and then an apartment complex? These business depended on the government for their big breaks, but once the construction began, it took off and hasn't stopped since.

These days, the mark of the conglomerates is huge. Names like Samsung, Kia, Hyundai, GS, and LG are everywhere: on gas stations, cafes, department stores, office buildings, theaters, phones, and even life insurance. They have spread their influence so far that even the government now wouldn't dare funnel any money into any project without first getting the okay from a chaebol. Anyway, how has this affected the urbanization of Seoul? Well, aside from having everything that makes a city a city owned by one conglomerate or another, each chaebol's headquarters appears to have staked out a geographic portion of the city to call its own, which, when you consider how every chaebol wants its own skyscraper and beautiful, futuristic office complex in its own neighborhood, will give us a strange, scattered skyline in twenty years or so.

Cosmetic Surgery
Kayleigh Nauman is heading up an interesting project investigating attitudes of foreigners in Korea toward cosmetic (plastic) surgery (성형수술). This is informed by the fact that there are between 400-600 cosmetic surgery businesses in the Gangnam neighborhood of Seoul alone -- and yes, they are regulated as businesses, not as medical practice. Loads of foreigners travel to Korea for "medical tourism" (150,000 in 2012), but why do they choose Korea?

Ms. Nauman wanted to dispel the stereotypes that cosmetic surgery in Korea was the cheapest in this region of the world (because it isn't), or that Asians wanted to look like K-pop stars, or, heaven forbid, that Asians want to look more "Western". (I mean, I've realized by now that suggesting that the Korean or Asian beauty ideal is just Hollywood glamour transplanted onto the other side of the Pacific is, in fact, a misguided opinion at best and a white- or American-centric microagression at worst. And it still wouldn't really answer why Korea is such a hot spot for people who want to cut up and realign their legs and boobs and faces. (By the way, I acknowledge that I did write about this very idea a month or so ago. And +1 for embedded parenthetical statements.)) Anyway, this was interesting research that was definitely on my mind as I planned a lesson on beauty standards for my second-years for this week.

Doodle-notes! (Clicking on the photo will make it bigger, but it will not fix my handwriting.)

Miscellany
There was a quintet of Fulbright researchers whose topics involved North Korea and North Korean refugees. They were so informative and intriguing that I took copious notes, and I will write them all up as a separate post later.

Overall, I felt really fortunate to be able to hear the presentations given by the researchers. It was academically fulfilling to tackle these issues and get some dialogue going with my fellow Fulbrighters. It was also very refreshing to see Korea through the lenses of people who have not been dealing with students and principals and lesson plans and classroom management for six months. I'll say, teaching can really swallow you whole; after a while you begin to forget that anything else exists outside of your various classrooms.

In addition to the Fulbright researchers, some other parts of conference were given to Fulbright ETAs who were doing their own side projects, independent research or community events, things like that. As I heard from my colleagues who are compiling cookbooks, editing our annual literary magazine, or developing education-based NGOs, I obviously felt like I've been absolutely unproductive with my time here. I'm so lazy and not driven compared to everyone else! But hearing about everyone's projects was great nevertheless.

This is all such a far cry from Fall Conference in Gyeongju last October. Our last conference was themed around solving the myriad problems that had cropped up in the first-year ETAs' experiences thus far in the grant year. We're all a long way from that now: small group discussions were no longer "how to address school issue X and homestay issue Y" but more for living in Korea (dating advice, dealing with sexual harassment, exploiting every feature of your smartphone) or preparing for life after Fulbright (resume building, pursuing teacher certification). And, as I've noted, all of the large group talks were presentations on amazing projects we've accomplished since last August.

Most importantly, while I was anxious about my future around the time of Fall Conference, I can proudly and excitedly declare that during Spring Conference, I decided to renew my grant. This means that I will stay in Korea for one more year! I get a month-long break in July/August, and then it's straight back to teaching. I'll get to watch my second- and third-years graduate again, and I'll gain so much more experience in teaching and living in Korea.

Hooray!

Fulbright Spring Conference 2013

This entire past week, I have barely had the time to process all the information thrown at us during Spring Conference. It was a lot to digest, and there was such a huge variety of lectures, workshops, and presentations, that it was hard to keep track of it all. Fortunately, I took notes! They started off as doodles, but as soon as I started jotting down points and ideas that interested me, I must confess I reverted straight back into student mode and started mad scribbling. Before I knew it, I had a page of fascinating information, provocative questions, and great new ideas for my classroom. I'll share just some tidbits:

Why is Korea "Real Life"?

Program Director Anthony Cho encouraged all of us teachers, especially the first-year grantees, to rid ourselves of the notion that our grant year was just a "break" between college and so-called real life (i.e. grad school or a job back in the US). Even if our stint in Korea is just a gap year, we shouldn't treat it as if it doesn't matter in the long run. Why not? Because our impact on our students is real and will have real consequences. Because we are discovering and will discover new and important things about ourselves while we're here that we will surely bring home with us, even if we don't pursue careers in education. Because, unfortunately, we're only young for so long, and to discount twelve months of our lives as merely "some time I spent dicking around in Korea" would be simply absurd. It may not seem like it, but what we as teachers are spending one year doing is real -- just as real as the lives of our friends who are already in med school or climbing up the corporate ladder -- and very, very important.

What are some strengths of the Fulbright ETA Program?

During a segment of the conference that was meant both to pat us teachers on the back and to prod us into reevaluating our successes as teachers and cultural ambassadors, the program director and executive assistant revealed that they had sent an assessment survey to our schools. The results of this survey were shared, albeit only in anonymous statistics, to our collective amusement and a bit of surprise. Fortunately, we ETAs earned fairly good grades all around: 85% of us received A's in class preparedness, and 86% received A's in "observing Korean courtesies". It seemed like the biggest strengths were that Fulbright teachers actively engaged their students, were well-prepared, taught quality lessons that catered to student needs, and were very polite and well-mannered. On the other hand, weaknesses included insufficient classroom management, insufficient cooperation with our co-teachers, and insufficient hours spent at school (which, factoring in our contract, is not actually our fault at all; but if a school doesn't like that Fulbrighters get three full months of vacation a year, they can take it to Mrs. Shim).

What are some new things I'd like to incorporate into my classroom?

Great teachers steal. I caught and held on to dozens of great ideas tossed around during conference, including, but not limited, to: encouraging art in my students, but not limiting this to drawing on scrap paper (make a video! write poetry!); playing games that emphasize speaking with emotion, not just speaking correctly; having students encourage one another in the classroom, as in applauding correct answers and learning encouraging phrases ("Good idea!", "Great job!"); and allowing more time for any activity, since it always feels longer for the teacher than it does for the students. I was also very charmed by the idea of considering one's fellow classmates as "learning allies", instead of as competitors, obstacles, or nameless, faceless Others. During the small group session for LGBTQ folk and allies, one common grievance aired was the inability to bring up queer issues in class in a constructive and educational manner. On the bright side, we shared some ideas on how to incorporate respect for sexual diversity in lessons such as family, dating culture, or current events.

How can US education and Korean English education learn from each other and improve?

These notes were taken from a long and thorough workshop session on education. Now, I have never taken a course in Education, and the only experience I can claim is a month of job training and six months of teaching, but I'd like to offer what I can.

Korea has the lowest illiteracy rate in the world, and its overall educational quality, according to the Pearson index, is ranked second in the world, after Finland. 98% of Korean students graduate high school, supported (or pushed) by their families and societal pressure. A huge proportion of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree -- 98% of those in the 25-34 age bracket, according to a 2010 OECD report -- although many people are underemployed in an economy that can't support the ever-rising number of college graduates. Generally speaking, the stats are good, right? But Koreans students are among the world's unhappiest, and they have an alarmingly high suicide rate. Suicide is the leading cause of death of Koreans aged 10-19 (in fact, it's the leading cause of death of all Koreans up to age 40), and the infamously stressful academic environment does not help this.

With regard to this, I believe that the Korean education system needs to step up its game in mental health support and treatment at schools. If mental illness becomes less stigmatized, students with suicide potential will be able to freely get help. Also, there are lots of ways to keep students succeeding without being locked into a rigorous, constant-testing method of education. Especially for EFL education, the absolute dependency on test scores instead of any sort of holistic evaluation is misguided. To get into college or obtain any government job, you need to pass some sort of English aptitude test -- even if you won't use English at all in the post. Those who test well in English will often find more success than those who don't (even if their speaking skill is really quite good). I feel like the stakes are too high for arbitrary numbers to have so much sway over one's future!

While I love teaching English and I love my job, I feel like I could be more effective as a teacher if I taught leveled classes. That is to say, instead of teaching homeroom classes in which a handful of students are conversationally fluent, another handful don't understand me when I say, "How was your weekend?", and the rest are scattered somewhere in between, I would prefer a smaller class for the most advanced students, another class specifically for those who are behind, etc. Foreign language education in the US is leveled in this way with no exceptions; it helps every student learn at their own pace instead of being swept along beyond their ability to understand or feeling trapped and bored in a class that's too easy.

Another change I might implement to the classroom is to simply make classes smaller and meet them more often. Most of us Fulbright teachers only see one class once a week; sometimes only once every other week. This doesn't add up to enough opportunities to actually use English! I use every minute I can outside of class to chat with my students in English so that they can practice, but it would be awesome if I could just have more class time with them.

On the other hand, we have the mess that is the American education system, which I think could also take a few pointers from its Korean counterpart. One thing's for sure: American students and parents need to respect teachers and schools much more. While helicopter parents -- those who not only hover over their children but also descend upon schools to (verbally) attack teachers for failing them -- are on the rise in Korea, it's nothing compared to the levels of crazy you can find in the States. And students in Korea treat even their classrooms and hallways with respect, cleaning them weekly. They contribute so much to their own educational environment. I can't imagine American students keeping their campus clean unless it provided them with service learning hours.

Also, I believe that the US should implement higher standards for its teachers, as well as a better environment for them. Teachers are very highly regarded in Korea, and this is due in part to the difficult and intense process of becoming one. Education programs in the US don't always give fledgling teachers enough classroom experience before throwing them out of the nest, so to speak. Then, when they arrive at their schools, they find paltry institutional support, ridiculous demands from the administration, and not enough resources to invest properly in their students. (This op-ed by Randy Turner in the Huffpost illustrates expresses appropriate frustration at the current situation.) This is all to say nothing of the thousands of simply crappy teachers out there. I think teaching should be elevated in the US. Teachers ought to have the same respect and reputation of all those doctors and lawyers and entrepreneurs, and in turn the quality of the teachers our education programs churn out must also improve. It'll take a while to get there from our current situation, but it can happen.

Doodle-notes from Spring Conference! (Click to enlarge)

Whew. That was a lot to write. If you're interested in more, I've posted a scan of my doodle-notes from the ETA portion of the conference. I have another whole page for the Fulbright researchers' portion of the conference, which I will post tomorrow. And, of course, I'd love to continue discussing any of these ideas. Feel free to leave a comment!