North Korean - South Korean translator app

It should surprise nobody by now that the languages spoken in North Korea and South Korea are not the same. The two countries have been geographically separated for decades, with no free communication allowed across the border between them. In addition to that, North Korea's government initiated purges of the language long ago to get rid of foreign words or borrowings (from English, Chinese, or Japanese) and replace them with pure Korean translations. As a result, while South Koreans might want to eat 아이스크림 ("ice cream", transliterated) on a hot summer day, a North Korean will dream instead of 얼음과자 ("ice snack").

When I visited North Korea last year, I found myself unable to understand much of the Korean that I heard being spoken. Of course, my Korean listening comprehension level is fairly low, but it wasn't just me -- even the Korean-Americans in my tour group who were fluent in (South) Korean had some difficulties. Most of it was due to the differences in vocabulary, but there was also the intonation of North Korean, which would have been considered a mere dialectal difference back when Korea was unified, but is now one of the markers of the two languages' divergence. (The line between "language" and "dialect" is a fairly blurry one, even for linguists.)

Anyway, when I came across this advertisement/PSA for a new app called 글동무 ("classmate"). I like the name -- the whole phrase means "classmate", which directly references the app's usefulness for North Korean students struggling to keep up in South Korean classrooms, and encourages a camaraderie among youth. Also, the first word (글) on its own means "writing" or "knowledge". The second part (동무) on its own can also mean "comrade", but I don't think that was intentional.

I have taught camps and tutored students from North Korea in South Korea before, and I can say that an app like this would be very helpful for most of them. (For others, especially younger students who basically grew up in China while their families were in hiding, it would perhaps be less useful than a Chinese-Korean dictionary, but those already exist.)

And in addition to the app's usefulness, its beautiful, simple design and hi-tech programming (it can use the phone's camera to identify unknown words automatically and offer translations immediately) are really compelling. This amazing app is the brainchild of linguists, computer programmers, and sociologists who saw a need in South Korea and came up with an elegant solution. I hope that the work I will do in the future can be as beneficial as this!

Drim School English Camp

Teachers and volunteers for the Drim School's first English camp! Left to right: Debbie, Hannah, Carolyn, Leslie, Min, me, Alanna, Dianna, and Nikki.

Hello from Cheonan! I have spent the past two days teaching at an English camp for the Drim School (드림학교). This school is a 대안학교 (alternative school) for teenagers and young adults who are North Korean defectors (탈북청소년). They study in order to catch up on years of lost or insufficient education, become more adjusted to life in South Korea, and eventually take Korean primary and secondary school exit exams so that they can apply to university.

The Drim School, founded in 2003, is affiliated with the Korea Theological Seminary (고려신학대학원) in Cheonan and has been working with Fulbright Korea for about five years. Fulbright ETAs teach volunteer English classes there weekly. This English camp, however, was the first of its kind at the school. The volunteers wanted to provide something similar to the summer camps that the Drim School students can't normally afford. We prepared a program with English classes, cultural activities, games, and lots of time to make new friends and build strong relationships.

I was assigned to teach the lowest-level English students, which means lessons on recognizing letters and the basics of English phonics. This was surprising for me at first, since I teach fairly high-level students at my regular school. However, I learned that the reason I was given the low-level students was that I can speak and understand at least some Mandarin Chinese. The students who cannot speak English are mostly those who have only very recently arrived in South Korea, usually from China. Since they have spent years living in China (and may even consider themselves Chinese rather than Korean), they are completely fluent in Mandarin but have little to no grasp of English. A handful are not even conversational in Korean, so even the regular Drim School teachers have some trouble communicating or connecting with them.

Me with some "star"* students during the scavenger hunt!

One such student was OH. He arrived in South Korea no more than one month ago and speaks only Mandarin and very basic Korean. It wasn't hard to figure out why he looked so lost and lonely all the time; while he could talk to most of the other students in Mandarin, every other exchange in his life was conducted in rapid Korean. Even though he is Korean, he was just as confused as any non-Korean is when they first get here.

OH was in my class, and at our first meeting I told all my students straight off the bat, in Mandarin, that if they ever had any questions or problems and wanted to ask me, they could do so in whatever language they felt most comfortable with. Since I was the only volunteer in the camp who could speak it, many students chose to chat with me in Mandarin (or in a mix of Mandarin and Korean). Even though I'm well out of practice, not having studied it for three years, I welcomed the opportunity to practice and, more importantly, to connect with kids who may have gone months or even years without a teacher who can understand them in what they consider their native language. It was so wonderful to see how OH opened up, not just to me, but to his peers as well, over the course of the camp. I don't really know what his performance was like during the past semester, but he certainly proved to be a diligent student, taking notes in my class and asking me questions, volunteering for every game, and putting in a genuine effort to memorize the numbers from one to twenty.

Besides English classes, I also co-led an extracurricular class on guitar and songwriting with my friend Alanna. At first, we had no sign-ups, but eventually we had too many students in the classroom to keep the class under control! It was very loud and very fun; we just taught two simple chords and a strumming pattern and wrote a simple song about love. (It tastes like sweet chocolate and feels like the warm sun.) I think that more than anything, the students learned that learning how to play the guitar isn't easy! I'd forgotten how much it hurts your fingers when you first start out. But I think they all enjoyed it, anyway.

Hannah and me with the 동그라미 (circle) group!

There were other cultural activities, like t-shirt tie-dyeing, baking, and a Konglish photo scavenger hunt, that were quite enjoyable. I'm really impressed with how much effort the other volunteers put into their classes and activities. I myself was scrambling to throw together my lessons right up until the start of camp, because I literally moved out of my apartment the day before it opened and had been very busy and just a bit frazzled. Though like any camp, it had its hectic moments, unexpected snafus, and last-minute schedule changes, overall, I think it went splendidly. It was only two days, but that was enough for me to get close with my students and show them some love.


The vice principal of the school mentioned in her closing ceremony speech tonight that she was grateful that through our camp, the kids could experience some of God's love. And it hadn't occurred to me before, but I guess it's true. The Drim School, along with the majority of non-governmental South Korean-led initiatives to help North Korean defectors and achieve peninsular reunification, is an evangelical Christian mission. I have to admit I rather admire the passion that the Korean church has for reunification (this is despite my personal misgivings about its actual possibility in the near future), and I am grateful for the way their devotion to God has translated into tangible good works for those in need.

My father, who just finished a missionary English camp of his own in Taiwan, asked me recently if I had used my time in South Korea to share the Gospel with my students or others in my community. The simple answer is no, unfortunately, but now I wonder if there can be such a thing as "passive witnessing," wherein my students know that I am a Christian and can observe how I live and act in light of this information, or else I volunteer with the Drim School and reinforce the school's teaching that all good things are a blessing from God, including fun foreign teachers who speak Chinese.

I also admitted to a friend a while back that I'd sort of marked the last two years in South Korea as a spiritual lost cause -- this was mostly in reference to my frustration with church before I started attending Redeemer -- but on the other hand, I might be looking at things overly pessimistically. No one is a lost cause to God. He isn't in the habit of giving up on people, so I won't give up, either.

Okay, sorry for the tangent. Anyway, I am very happy and grateful to have had the opportunity to help with the Drim School's very first English camp, and I wish my students all the best in the years to come. I'll surely visit them when I return to Korea in the future.

- - -
* I'm covering my North Korean defector students' faces with stickers in my photos, because I am not allowed to show them anywhere online for security reasons.

The Fulbright Researchers (2014)

Last year, I wrote a very long post that detailed the research projects of the Fulbright Junior Researchers. (They make up the other "half" of Fulbright Korea; every year we have about 120 teachers and two dozen researchers.) Though I'd planned to do the same after this year's spring conference, I quickly became too busy to transcribe my notes.

This morning, while cleaning my desk, I came across them again. They're not as pretty or doodly as my notes from last year, but I still think the information is worth putting down somewhere. So, better late than never, here are brief descriptions of some of the 2014 Fulbright Researchers' projects:

Multicultural Korea

Dorry Guerra informed us that in 2010, 1 in 3 Korean births were multicultural -- that is, babies were born to one ethnically Korean parent and one non-Korean parent. Korea now leads the world in international marriages. This is a cultural phenomenon due largely to the fact that men in rural areas of Korea can't find wives, so they marry immigrant women from China or Southeast Asia. In a sense, these women are mail-order brides, but whatever their circumstances, they arrive in Korea and then they and their families have trouble fitting in. Korea's bloodline ideology, the idea that Korea is one completely homogeneous race and should stay that way, is actually a recent bit of propaganda that promoted national solidarity in the early 20th century, back when the country was in a shambles. Now that that is changing, what is going to happen to the multicultural families? (By the way, Korea is not nearly as homogeneous as the history books like to claim: their blood has been pretty well mixed with Chinese, Japanese, and Mongolian over the centuries.) According to Ms Guerra's estimates, up to 10% of the country will be multicultural by 2050. That's a huge jump from one generation ago. She warns that belief in racial essentialism, or the idea that the different races have deeply-rooted "essences", is a reliable predictor of stereotyping, prejudice, and conflict. So if Koreans generally believe in racial essentialism, then multicultural Korea is in for a rough ride for the next few decades.

Chaebols

Mike Chung gave an economic lecture on the Korean 재벌, or conglomerate. The word chaebol is derived from the Chinese 財閥 (cai2fa2), or "wealth clan". These rose to power during the regime of Park Chung-hee in the 1970s. His government, to put it frankly and with a touch of bias, allowed certain businesses to cheat for the sake of national economic growth. Now, the conglomerates hold unimaginable power over the country. They are seen as both necessary for its success and dangerous and unfair for a developed country that needs to switch to a more fair-play mode.

Korean Adoption

Hollee McGinnis (who was published in the last issue of the Fulbright Infusion!) talked about the mental health of adolescent adoptees and orphans. Following the brutal Korean War in the 1950s that ripped many families apart, 2 million children without parents have been sent to orphanages. In contrast, 85,000 have been sent abroad for adoption, and less than half that number have been adopted domestically. The statistics for 2010 alone show that 15,700 children needed care, 1,400 were adopted domestically, and 1,000 were adopted internationally. There were 8,590 abandoned infants. So the problem of parentless Korean children is not just (or no longer) a direct result of war. But adoption is still stigmatized in this country: it is usually carried out in secret so that a family's friends and neighbors don't know that the new child is actually from another family. Infants are preferred over children and adolescents. Also, because sons in a family usually perform ancestral rites on traditional holidays, and without a direct blood connection this can be seen as wrong, females are also preferred over males. So, Mrs McGinnis' organization, Also-Known-As, provides help and support to adoptees as well as their families.

(Another researcher, Andrea Cavicchi, also focused on adoption, especially on its history -- the 1962 Family Planning system instituted by Park Chung-hee, the controversy surrounding "baby-selling" during the 1988 Seoul Olympics -- and on the issues that make it so enticing for unwed mothers to give away their children. In fact, tens of thousands of orphans do not actually indicate that Korea has an orphan problem. It has a child abandonment problem.)

Nuclear Energy

Andrew Ju told us that South Korea imports 97% of its energy. That's quite a lot, but understandable for a country that has so few natural resources. Unfortunately, less than 1% of the energy that the country does produce is renewable. On the other hand, Korea's nuclear program, which began in 1978, is the fastest-growing in the world, and it exports a ton of its nuclear energy. (Well, these statistics may have come before the near-nuclear meltdown at the Kori Nuclear Power Plant in 2012, which led to some shutdowns and public outcry against nuclear power. And then there's Fukushima...) Anyway, South Korea wants to continue using nuclear energy, especially since it stands to gain quite a bit from an energy alliance with the US. But I personally hope that it decides instead to lead the world in green energy.

Healthcare and Migrant Women

Sangita Annamalai cited the rapid birth rate decline in Korea (now at 1.24 children per woman, the 5th lowest in the world) and connected it to the rise of immigrant wives for men in rural Korea. The subject matter is related to Ms Guerra's project on multiculturalism, but Ms Annamalai focused on the women themselves and on the public health resources made available to them in a country and language not their own. She went to public and private migrant shelters in rural and urban areas, where women who came to Korea through marriage brokers and found themselves struggling could go for help. There, she found that Chinese (or Chinese-Korean) women had much fewer problems than most; that Vietnamese women had problems with using contraceptives and tended to begin having children right away, which led to even more adjustment difficulties; and that Eastern European women could sometimes pass as half-Korean, but were generally more outspoken than Southeast Asian women, which led to domestic trouble. When the difficulties become too great, the pressure put on these women (by the government and even by the public women's shelters) to reconcile is strong, because in the event of a divorce, the citizenship of the wife is revoked. It's quite a sticky situation, isn't it?

North Korean Defectors

Stephanie Choi, who visited North Korea with me last February, gave her presentation about the acculturation of North Korean defectors in South Korea. There are an estimated 300,000 refugees from North Korea in the world: people who have escaped the tightly-controlled borders of the country seeking political freedom or just a better life since 1953. In the early 2000s, the number of refugees entering South Korea specifically grew exponentially as a result of a devastating famine in the North, but it has tapered off in recent years, following the death of Kim Jong-il and a tightening of security by Kim Jong-un's regime.

Today, the 26,000 defectors in South Korea make up just 1% of the country's minority immigrants. The North Koreans in South Korea are much different from the first waves of refugees. Instead of political elite who were lauded as heroes when they defected pre-Soviet collapse, defectors are now mostly women and children just looking to survive. And they are not treated very positively once here. After a long three-month investigation and assimilation period at Hanawon, where they are simultaneously interrogated in-depth about their background as North Koreans and scrubbed clean of that identity in order to fit in in South Korea, they encounter a host of problems. Some try to hide their identity, but their accent and unfamiliarity with basic skills required in a capitalist society, such as managing a bank account, can give them away. Others are fiercely proud of their background and, stating that you can't change where you were born, are involved in activism to try to change South Koreans' stereotypes about North Koreans (e.g. that they're staunch Communists, freeloaders, or a drain on governmental resources). Many are lonely and turn to each other for support (much like the Fulbrighters, scattered all over the country, tend to hang out together) or to religion. 80-90% are Christian, having been converted by missionaries involved in rescues and border crossings in China. These days, reunification is being talked about more and more. At the beginning of 2014, President Park announced that it would be possible by 2050, calling it a "reunification jackpot". I don't know how I feel about this, but I hope that whatever change occurs will come about peacefully. 땅의 통일, 사람의 통일. One land, one people.

Patriarchy and Politics

Chelsea Carlson researched women in politics, asking the question, "Why aren't there any?" Or at least, as many as there should be? Korea is notorious for its gender inequality, but why is this happening in politics? And will Park Geun-hye, the first female president, change things? Ms Carlson outlined the strictly-defined systems of networking in Korean politics: for men, their classmates, fellow alumni, and seniors/juniors (선배/후배) are all that matters, but women depend mostly on their families and husbands to make connections. This, coupled with a secretive nomination process to select candidates for publicly-elected office, makes it hard for women to get a foot in from the get-go. Women just don't have enough social clout to be elected, it seems, and the system, while not explicitly sexist, isn't helping. In my own opinion, Park Geun-hye utilized the networking system to secure her win. Her family is famous, of course, as her father was a former president(/dictator), and regional loyalty to the Parks is indomitable. Unfortunately, I don't think Park is a champion for women's rights at all; she has done nothing to close the gender pay gap or balance the systems of parental leave in order to help mothers return to their careers. So, gender inequality in politics will likely persist. Ms Carlson then offered a few ways this could be remedied, including a "local service requirement" for candidates (which women could easily attain and use to their political advantage), more transparency in the system, and even affirmative action.

(Another researcher, Aileen Kim, did her research project specifically on Park Geun-hye, and focused on the power of "dynasty" that helped secure her presidential win.)

Hip-Hop and Racial Consciousness

Whitney Barr countered the idea that Korea's infamous racial insensitivity could no longer be deemed as a mere product of ignorance, since Korean millennials have grown up with decent exposure to Western media and other cultures -- specifically, black and hip-hop culture. She explored the positive appropriations of hip-hop culture in Seoul, but also contrasted it with general dismissiveness or outright racism against black people, including the double-edged usage of words like 흑형 (black brother; Google that to get the idea) or 깜둥이 ("darky"), and the consideration of multiracial icons as purely Korean or "at least" half-Korean, discarding their other identity.

Performance Art

Adam Glassman described in colorful detail his experiences with shamanism and street dance in a project that aimed to capture Korean performance art in all its vicissitudinous adaptation to the present day. Why are shows like Nanta, in which the performers encourage tons of audience participation and turn it more into an interaction than a "show", so popular? Why has street dance skyrocketed in Korea in recent years? Mr Glassman suggests that it has something to do with the long-standing performers' directive to "create joy together" with their audience. Focusing on the 무당, or shamans, who practice a traditional religion in decline but still deeply-rooted in many people's belief systems, he described how the rituals they perform attempt to establish a tangible, physical connection between the people and the gods. Of the over 40,000 registered shamans in Korea, Mr Glassman was lucky enough to find one who opened up his home to him so that he could observe daily life and learn more about shamanism. From watching and recording the performative aspects of shamanism, he looked for similar patterns in modern iterations of performance art. Mr Glassman's eventual goal is to return to the United States to reinvent American theater, so that the audience is no longer merely a cold, voiceless participant but living and breathing, with just as much a stake in the performance as the performers themselves.

Miscellany

Other Fulbright research projects focused on more scientific matters that might have interested my students, but weren't necessarily compelling to me. One researcher is researching cancer treatment using electric plasma. Cool! But most of his lecture went over my head. Another is looking at the antihistamine effects of the Korean 다래, a fruit that is essentially a small kiwi. Also, two researchers did their projects on art and painting, and one of them is having a solo exhibition in Seoul in a few weeks! That's pretty exciting.

North Korean Defector Conference in Daegu

I'm writing this from Daegu, where I attended a conference for English teachers who volunteer with North Korean defectors around the country. The weekend-long camp, the first of its kind, I believe, was an opportunity for the teachers as well as their students to connect and have fun together. Since none of my students attended the camp (we had our own fun activity yesterday at the movies: Edge of Tomorrow in IMAX 3D!), I came just for the workshop programs today.

Besides getting to hang out with some of my Fulbright friends, which I always appreciate, I was able to get a refresher on teaching tips and tricks and learn more about the background and organization of South Korea's Hana Centers. I was surprised to learn that the centers are a relatively recent government initiative (most having been established within the past decade) and that they are all somewhat independently managed. Changwon's Hana Center is hosted in (and maybe by) the city's branch of the Korean Red Cross. Daegu's is in the care of the Empathy for a Better World Foundation, which actually runs tons of other defector- or reunification-related programs, too. The Empathy Foundation does a lot of stellar work with defectors; if you're interested in NK defector issues and in Daegu, go check them out.

Anyway, I had a great day, but unfortunately I can't stay the night or attend Sunday's programming. My black belt test for taekgyeon is tomorrow morning! I have to get a good night's sleep at home.

P.S. Completely unrelated: in downtown Daegu, my friend and I espied an older Korean man wearing a UCLA t-shirt! I pointed at him quite unabashedly, having forgotten for a moment that not being Korean doesnt make you invisible in this country-- in fact, quite the opposite. To hide my embarrassment, I went all in and called out, "UCLA!" The man stared for a moment, then laughed when he realized that I had only been reading his shirt. And he called back, "Ooklah!" My friend, who happened to be a UCLA graduate, turned to me and remarked, "I guess that about sums up how much he knows about his wardrobe choice. Funniest thing I've seen in Daegu today!"

Baking for 드림s

Did I mention that I love to bake? I never did much of it before I began living on my own in Korea, but now, I only need the smallest of excuses to make good use of the big oven in my small apartment. Last weekend at the Fulbright Spring Conference, some ETAs held a bake sale to raise money for a special school in Cheonan called the Drim School (드림, pronounced "dream"). This school was established for North Korean defector students to help them obtain the education they need to compete with their South Korean peers. Often, young defectors who begin attending school in South Korea are at a disadvantage due to poor education in North Korea or no education at all during the years of their escape and refugeeism.

I was happy to be able to contribute a little bit to the bake sale. As I mentioned before, I pulled an all-nighter (from 2am until well after sunrise) baking a ton of cookies, cupcakes, and cakes. Here are some photos:

Soft chocolate chip button cookies! Also, pre-frosted strawberry cupcakes in the back.

Double chocolate chip cookies -- these were a hit. Tracey said they tasted like chocolate snickerdoodles!

Walnut maple syrup bread with cinnamon sugar. This is super easy to make; I might just do it again for breakfast.

And lastly, the seasonal specialty: strawberry cupcakes with strawberry frosting! Real strawberries used all the way.

Although I didn't keep close track of my sales during the fundraiser, almost everything I made sold out, which puts my contribution at over seventy dollars. Success! My next step will be to bake cupcakes for the Drim School students themselves. :)

Nothing to Envy

I recently finished the book Nothing to Envy, by Barbara Demick. The book is a compilation of stories from North Korean defectors, taken from six years of interviews of a hundred defectors. I was completely engrossed by the narrative that followed six defectors' lives from the death of Kim Il Sung, through the catastrophic famine of the mid-90s and the rise of the "underground railroad", up until the currency reform of 2009.

I've come away from the book reeling slightly, because it's hard to process the naked truth -- to be presented with real human evidence -- of North Korea's misery. A woman who watched her husband and son die of starvation. Her rebellious daughter who became mired in the underground business of trafficking defectors out of the country. An orphaned boy who skipped school to forage for food and learned nothing but how to survive.

The North Korea that they described matched the North Korea that I saw when I visited uncannily well. Even though I was mostly shown the relatively glitzy capital city, there was no denying that the country is in shambles. In the five years since Nothing to Envy was published, the DPRK went ahead with its Kim Il Sung centennial celebrations, financed extravagant renovations in the capital, and saw a power change from the Kim Jong Il to Kim Jong Un. Yet the brutality of the isolated and self-serving regime and the consequent humanitarian crisis continue. I was saddened when I realized that I was reading recent history during the chapters about the Arduous March: When I was growing up healthy and happy, children in North Korea were dying by the thousands. And then I was horrified when the atrocities kept on being recounted all the way into the past decade: When I was in college enjoying my freedom, adults in North Korea were risking their lives to get out of the deadly prison their country had become.

Now that I'm living in South Korea, our neighbors from the north are both easier and more difficult to ignore. While the bizarre DPRK government is portrayed in popular media as the forsworn enemy and its antics are noted in newspapers daily (and with increasing indifference), the spotlight is rarely shown on its people, especially those who leave and wind up here.

There are North Korean defectors living in my city, quite unnoticed. Nobody expects them. Nobody expects people to be different as long as they appear to fit in on the surface. In order to find their place in a hyper-competitive, trend-following, 빨리빨리 culture, they must change their clothes, hair, and speech. In order to land a stable job or become upwardly mobile, they must learn English. In order to discover self-worth and heal from past trauma...

The current defector resettlement program is a huge social experiment to see if a stable, equitable society is possible in the case of reunification under Southern democracy. To that end, South Korea wants its defector citizens to assimilate, to shed their northern identities, to forget the land they've come from.

But knowing what I know now, I simply don't think that it's possible to forget.

Reflect, don't expect

Expectations are resentments waiting to happen.
- Macklemore, Vipassana

When it comes to completely new experiences, my general rule of thumb is to go in with no expectations. That way, I can never be disappointed or surprised. However, when something is expected of me, I can't assume the same for the opposite party, and I'm sure not going to allow myself to disappoint or surprise anyone.

In this case, the expectation was that I would begin a semester of volunteering with the Changwon Hana Center by teaching a weekly after-school English class to a small group of North Korean defector children. I was given very little additional information: there would be six students of low English ability, and I would be given a classroom of my own.

That's what I had to work with when coming up with a first-day lesson plan. I took a quick look at ways to teach phonics and basic reading. I assumed that the students would be some of the adorable children I'd met at the opening ceremony a few weeks ago, and to be honest, I was excited at the prospect of seeing them again.

Well, there you go: that was an expectation, and it was quickly shattered. First, the students' carpool was nearly forty-five minutes late in getting to the center. Even though I arrived just past five, I still had a long time to get my bearings in the classroom, obtain some supplies, and think things through, because of another twist: the students were to be mostly middle schoolers, the Hana Center employee told me, and they already knew their alphabet. I went through my brain, trying to remember the faces of the middle school-aged children I'd met, but none came up. And when the students finally arrived, I realized that none of them had been at the opening ceremony, so they were all new to me.

I wasn't expecting that.

As it turns out, I had five students come today, and they are in five different grade levels, from third-year in middle school to first grade in elementary school. The youngest two could not read, and the eldest was a model student. The middle two had rudimentary reading skills but definitely did not evince any enthusiasm for being there. It was nearly 6pm when we began, and for an hour they kept telling me in Korean that they were hungry. So, the Hana Center employee brought a tray of convenience store cookies and soda along with the pens and markers I requested.

I wasn't expecting that.

Obviously, I knew (or expected) that the class would be different from my usual high-achieving angels at CSHS, but the realization that I would have to deal with 1) tweens 2) on a sugar rush 3) taking photos of me with their smartphones 4) or staring blankly at the board because they couldn't read anything I'd written 5) and actually teach them all something useful was...

Well, I was determined not to disappoint.

We went over self-introductions and I did some flashcard activities to gauge their reading and speaking levels. Though there was mild chaos in the beginning, eventually my students realized that there was value in what they were doing and focused for a good ten minutes. We ended with a free-for-all game of Pictionary, during which they were clearly more engaged. (Note to self: gamification)

And when class was over, the students had gone home, and I did a teaching reflection, I realized that these North Korean teenagers seemed no different whatsoever from your typical South Korean teenagers. Phones, fried chicken, fighting, fretting about boyfriends (the older students were all girls). I was only reminded of the reality twice: the eldest girl would burst out in Mandarin from time to time, but then quickly correct herself and repeat what she had wanted to say in Korean. (Speaking of which, none of them had any difficulties with speaking Korean.)

The second was when a student asked me, "Teacher, how [long] you come here?" I quickly taught the class how to ask, "How long have you been in Korea?" and told them that I'd been here for two years. The students crowed and one-upped me: "I have been in Korea for four years!" said the seventeen-year old. "Two and a half years," said her friend. "Five," whispered the quiet fourteen-year old in the back.

I had been advised against asking too many personal questions to my North Korean defector students, which is why I had left out "Where are you from?" from my list of introductory questions. But the eldest student had no qualms about sharing where she had lived before coming to South Korea four years ago. "I'm from China!" she said proudly.

I wasn't expecting that.

In conclusion, it's a good thing I only planned one lesson (and ended up deviating far from it anyway), because it would have been a colossal waste of time to work out an entire curriculum that would be useless for half the class. I had one hour to familiarize myself with my students and now have one week to tailor lesson two to their varying levels. Although I was flying by the seat of my pants today, next week should be smoother and much more fun, and I'm looking forward to it.

(Or is that another expectation?)

North Korean Literature from Words Without Borders

Juche Tower in Pyongyang

Something pushed me to set aside my work for a minute and Google "Arduous March" this afternoon. I wanted to find out if "March" referred to the month or the movement. The first search result was Wikipedia's article on the North Korean famine of 1994-1998. As it turns out, that march lasted much longer than a month.

The second result was an excerpt from an autobiography written by one Ji Hyun-ah that described her family's experiences with "the shadow of hardship" and the lengths to which they had to go to feed themselves as hundreds of thousands of North Koreans starved to death.

The excerpt was from a literary magazine called Words Without Borders, and I had a look around its website. Before I knew it, my entire afternoon had been sucked into reading piece after piece of literature in translation from around the world. I couldn't believe that I hadn't known about Words Without Borders before now.

In particular, I wanted to read more works by North Korean defectors (keep in mind that the only literature to come out of North Korea is propaganda). To my surprise, an entire issue last year was devoted to this very group. In May 2013, seven defectors' prose and poetry were published, and I quickly read them all. Here are some standouts:

A Blackened Land by Kim Yeon-seul tells a story of anger heartbreak with hard drug use as its culprit and the despotic Kim regime as its architect. It is accusatory and starkly bitter, almost enough to taste. Last fall I criticized the media for its sensationalist coverage of North Korea's rampant drug use; reading this firsthand account has surely altered the lens through which I look at the issue. Also of note: Kim Yeon-seul is from Chongjin, the hometown of the six defectors profiled in Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy, which I am reading currently.

The Poet Who Asked for Forgiveness analyzes the poetry of Kim Chul, following its evolution as the government punished his failure to conform his art to party ideology with separation from his family and forced labor. The strict regulations over the substance of art reminds me of how Shostakovich composed magnificent symphonies during World War II but was creatively controlled by Stalin the whole time. But the communist prohibition of artistic freedom isn't just a smudge in the history of culture; it's still happening in North Korea, where every song on the radio and every movie in theaters grinds the gears of the juggernaut propaganda machine.

Another poem, "Pillow" by Jang Jin-sun, narrates a harrowing and heartbreaking scene in a Pyongyang marketplace. It reads very quickly, but it's easy to see the difference in theme in style -- even in translation -- between the work of a North Korean state poet and that of a North Korean state poet who has defected to South Korea, whose memories of life there are already ten years in the past.

I Want to Call Her Mother Again is tragic. It also offers a peek inside the hanawon where defectors go to adjust to life in South Korea. If you read only one thing to try to understand the experiences of North Korean refugees, this should be it.

Although North Korea was spotlit last year, literature from elsewhere on the peninsula has popped up more recently. The most recent "graphic lit" issue of Words Without Borders includes I Am a Communist, a translated excerpt from a graphic novel detailing a man's difficult life choices in the tumultuous years before the border between the Communist North and the not-so-Democratic South was sealed.

A few years earlier, there was a feature on a translated North Korean comic book (meaning that it was geared toward kids) titled "The Secret of Frequency A". In it, doe-eyed North Korean child geniuses help unravel a conspiracy theory that involves evil American and Japanese scientists killing all the animals in Africa with fatal acoustic signals.

And the final two pieces that I read which stayed with me powerfully were The Chef's Nail, a work of short fiction about a woman from Seoul who rode line 2 of the subway in circles all day -- powerful and mindbending -- and a short comic about mother tongues in Taiwan called Tongue-tied which resonated with me personally.

I'm thrilled to have stumbled upon something new, interesting, and of such high quality, but I'm vacillating over whether or not to subscribe to the magazine, because my Reader is already swamped with hundreds of articles, blog posts, and random junk that I'll never get around to... Nevertheless, I exhort you to check out Words Without Borders, especially if you're into literature in translation or literature of marginalized peoples, and especially especially check out the North Korea issue if you want a large and immediate dose of... tsuris? Litost? Pathos? Conviction.

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.

TED Talk: My Escape from North Korea

The video I'm sharing here is a TED Talk given by Hyeonseo Lee, a North Korean defector. She escaped her destitute, totalitarian country when she was a teenager, lived in China for ten years, and finally made it to South Korea, where she struggled to keep up with fast-paced life in Seoul while making ends meet. Even more amazing is how she returned to North Korea secretly to help her family escape years later. Her story is one of perseverance and extreme courage. You should listen to her TED Talk.

It is because of people like Hyeonseo that I want to volunteer with North Korean defectors to teach them English. She herself admitted that it was difficult to gain a foothold in Korean society without any knowledge of English. (My opinion is that the prejudice toward English-speakers is mostly limited to Seoul and the largest cities. Plenty of Koreans I've met can't string an English sentence together but get along fine. But who knows for sure?) I often joke about how I'm having a great time vacationing in South Korea on the government's tab; and it's true to some extent: the Fulbright grant helps me live comfortably and also travel. But I have to remind myself daily that it's also a privilege for me to be able to share my knowledge of a globally-important language to those who need it the most. I could be so much more than just another foreigner English teacher. I just want to do my part to help.

Volunteering with North Korean Defectors (Gwangju pt. 2)

On Saturday afternoon of my weekend in Gwangju, I accompanied Katelyn and Jason to the "HaNa Center" where free English tutoring sessions, among other events and services, are provided for North Korean defectors.

While leaving the communist nation is a severe crime for its oppressed citizens, many still risk their lives to cross the dangerous borders, and some (over 2,000 a year, now totaling over 20,000) eventually find their way to South Korea, where they begin the lifelong task of assimilation. Because so many of these people have left their families behind and are almost completely unable to maintain communication with them, it certainly isn't easy.

Along with seeking gainful employment or trying to fit in at school, defectors also take on learning English, still considered the key to a more prosperous life. This is where the HaNa centers come in. ("Hana" (하나) is the Korean word for "one", and it represents the desire for the eventual reunification of the two Koreas.) Some Fulbright ETAs volunteer weekly or bi-weekly at HaNa centers to teach and tutor defectors who range from children learning the alphabet to adults preparing for job interviews.

I am not allowed to say much more about these centers, where they are, or who is involved, etc. (and I didn't even take any photos at the center itself), but my short experience there was memorable.

The three of us were the first to arrive, and my first priority was to sit by the space heater and dry my socks and shoes. One student came, an older woman, and the other two ETAs went over her learning materials with her for a bit, until she started asking more complex questions in Korean, and I was summoned to translate (granted, my Korean is only marginally better than theirs, so I don't know how helpful I really was. Honestly, how do you explain what the meaning of "the" is, even in English, let alone in broken Korean?).

I proceeded to spend the next hour and a half going over verb tenses, some random everyday vocabulary, and some trickier aspects of English pronunciation with her. It was a bit repetitive, but she was a really energetic personality and the time flew by. As it did, four more students arrived, all of them school-aged, plus one toddler who spent an hour being chased around the classroom by another ETA who came later. So, all in all, there were four ETAs and six students, which amounted to what Jason and Katelyn called the largest turnout they'd had in a while. It's a good thing I was there to help out!

But... I guess what struck me most about volunteering at the HaNa center was that it was so ordinary. Really, it's no different from the volunteer-based Korean class I attend weekly, only there I'm the student and not the teacher. There wasn't anything particularly special or different that I noticed about the Koreans there. I didn't have any expectations going in, but I came out having enjoyed my afternoon, and if proximity weren't such a huge issue, it's something I would definitely do regularly. My student seemed disappointed when I told her I was only visiting for the weekend and wouldn't be back next week.

Here is a short news piece from the Gwangju News on the HaNa center in Gwangju, with quotes from Fulbright ETAs.

And here is an interesting short news segment from BBC on North Korean defectors who will be able to vote, for the first time, in South Korea's upcoming election. Looks like they tend to swing conservative!