Redeemer International Community Church in Changwon

For the past few months, I have been attending a new church in Changwon called Redeemer International Community Church, or Redeemer for short. Redeemer was founded in Busan; I visited the church when I was in Busan with my parents a few months ago. It was during that time that preparations for a new campus or branch were underway. Just a few weeks after my visit, a small group of Christian expats in Changwon began to meet weekly in various cafes downtown to hold simple Sunday services. And after a few months of this, we finally found a permanent spot for our church, in a Korean church-owned cafe located in the busy downtown area!

I feel very blessed to have found this church. Pastor Dan is a really gifted speaker, and I've learned a lot from his witty yet hard-hitting sermons. The timing is bittersweet, though: because I was becoming increasingly bored/frustrated with my old church, I'm happy to have finally found a better source of spiritual nourishment. But the church launched in its new location at the beginning of July, and I'm going to leave Changwon at the end of July. 아쉽다! It's too bad!

Although my time is limited, I've stepped up to serve where I can: namely, as a part of the worship band. I really miss having music in my life, so I'm thankful that I had this small opportunity to help out. Also, Pastor Dan preached from Hosea 2 today, and one of his points was that we believers -- represented by Hosea's unfaithful wife Gomer -- have received beautiful and lavish gifts from God but too often squander them and, even worse, fail to recognize that they are blessings from God and not from the other lovers we chase. It's important for me to remember that with all that I've been given, I should be giving back even more.

I'm excited about the future of Redeemer Changwon. There's a huge potential for growth, and I think this church can offer the English-speaking community of my city something it really needs. May God bless the efforts of this congregation and allow them to bear fruit!

Pastor Dan delivering the message at the "first launch" service last week.
This photo was taken by a Korean church member, Mr. Ha.

Redeeemer Changwon info

The cafe we meet in is called Cafe Send (카페 센드). Services begin at 4pm and end around 5:30pm.

Korean Address: 경남 창원시 상남동 3 마디미동로 4층

English Address: Gyeongnam Changwon-si Sangnam-dong 3 Madimidong-ro 4F

Website: http://www.redeemerbusan.org

An Anniversary

The music teacher sits down next to me as I scan the newspaper for words I can identify. She smiles, and I put the newspaper down. Here we go again -- how uncomfortable will she make me this time?

♬

The music teacher likes to practice her English with me, and I usually welcome being her language partner. The problem is that the subjects of our conversations always, somehow, veer into awkward territory. She asks me every time why I don't have a girlfriend, for one. She likes to tell me about her various experiences with choirs and music conferences around the world -- and then wants to see videos of my own high school choir performances. She is comfortable telling me about times when she has been depressed, but I squirm in my seat because this is not the kind of small talk I'm used to. Once, over lunch, she told me that I was 예뻐요. I turned to my co-teacher.

"Doesn't that mean 'pretty'?"
"Well, yes," my co-teacher replied. "Is the word 'pretty' not used for males?"
"Generally, no," I said.
"In this case, actually, it can mean something more like 'cute'. The way a grandmother would call her grandson 'cute'."
I stared.
"In the United States, do men not like being called 'cute'?" she asked.
"Well, not if they're twenty-three years old," I answered curtly.
My co-teacher translated this back for the music teacher, and they laughed. I ignored them.

♬

Today, the music teacher wants to talk about Haeinsa; all the faculty know that I visited it the other day. I tell her that it was very pretty and very peaceful. "You know, I used to work at a high school near Haeinsa," she begins. This legitimately piques my interest. She tells me two stories about the small high school where she taught piano, music, and folk dance in the late eighties.

♬

This high school had around one hundred and fifty students, and several of them were orphans who were being raised by the monks of Haeinsa or students who otherwise did not live with their parents.

The student she remembers most was one of the class captains. He was a smart and hard-working student. A bookish kid who was always reading. He was being cared for by the monks of the temple, and although his background was a difficult one, it looked to all as if he had a bright future ahead of him.

One day, the student went missing. They found him many days later at the end of a rope in the woods.

♬

"He was a student who had many thoughts," says the music teacher. "He thought too much. He was depressed."

I want to ask her why she is telling me this, but she continues with her second story.

♬

Her favorite student was the son of divorced parents. His mother had lived in the United States, and his father came from a rich family. For many reasons, the wife and the mother-in-law did not get along, but the one who was left worst off by the split was the child. He was sent to live with his aunt near Haeinsa, and he was not given a cent from his rich father. Everyone assumed that he had enough savings in a bank account somewhere to be able to buy all the required textbooks, but he didn't and he couldn't, and he was punished for not meeting their expectations.

One day, the son learned that his mother had returned to Korea and was coming to take him away. They were going to go to the United States for good. He left willingly.

♬

"I still keep in touch with my old student," the music teacher tells me. "He lives in Seattle. He is now a taekwondo master and just received a degree in theology. So he is a pastor and a master. And he still knows the folk dances that I taught him when he was in high school."

I subtly glance at the clock. It is almost 1:30pm, when the bell signalling the end of the lunch period normally rings. "I have a friend who is moving to Seattle. Maybe when he gets there, he can meet your old student," I say brightly.

"And when are you leaving?" she asks.

"At the end of July. First, I will travel to Seoul. Then, I will fly out of Korea in early August."

"I used to live in Seoul..." she muses. A third story begins.

♬

She used to live in Seoul, until she graduated from high school. Then, her family moved to Daegu, because her father was a colonel in the army. But then her father developed cancer. He drank too much. He was in great pain toward the end of his life. "I want to die, I want to die," he would shout in his bed. It was a sorrowful time.

The music teacher was in the middle of class one day when the principal interrupted and told her that her family was on the line. It was her mother, delivering the news: aboji had passed. At that moment, she had a vision of her father, no longer in pain but smiling and waving down toward her. "Goodbye, my daughter," he said.

♬

"At the very end, he became a Christian," the music teacher confides in me. "So he went to heaven. And then they gave full military honors at his funeral -- I've told you about my father's funeral before, haven't I? He was cremated. At that time, the yellow flowers were in full bloom, and they were beautiful, but I didn't care. I was too sad. My mother was too sad. But now, it's okay."

The clock reads 1:35pm, but the bell hasn't rung, and then I remember that the final exam schedule is different from usual. I don't know how much longer I will be here.

"Death," says the music teacher, her eyes bright, "is a great sadness." She looks into my eyes and pauses.

"Do you remember what happened at our school one year ago?"

♬

One year ago, one of our students committed suicide by leaving the study hall at night and jumping out of the fourth-story window next to the environmental science classroom.

♬

I look at the music teacher with the most emotionless stare I can manage, because what I really want so say is, "How dare you talk to me about this?"

I want to say, "Of course I remember. I was haunted by it for months."
I want to say, "The minute you started sharing about your student at your old school near Haeinsa I prayed to God that it wouldn't lead to this."
I want to say, "Can you feel how uncomfortable I am right now? Because I feel very uncomfortable right now."
I want to say, "I have no desire to continue this conversation."

Instead, I say, "Yes, I remember." I push my discomfort down into nothingness, and I nod solemnly.

Taking this cue, the music teacher continues. "The environmental science teacher was in pain for a very long time," she says. Physical pain resulting from emotional trauma. How could she teach in a space darkened by such tragedy?

"But recently, she has changed the hallway. Have you seen it?" I shake my head, still in disbelief at where our conversation has ended up, but my curiosity is piqued once more.

"What do you mean, changed?"

"Let's go. I'll show you."

As we walk up the stairs, I tell the music teacher that I rarely venture up to the fourth floor from the realm of the English department on the third. She mentions something about there being more natural light on the top floor, as the ceiling is made of glass. We pass the music classroom, then turn left into the science wing.

Everything is green. The hallway and the classrooms have been painted a pastel shade of new pine shoots. Along the walls, workers are installing hexagonal shelves, like carbon rings or honeycombs, upon which small potted plants sit. And at the end of the hall, there is life. Pink flowers in planters are arranged in a neat row on the windowsill. Two plants with long hanging tendrils are suspended from the ceiling in front of the windows, although they don't completely obscure the long metal bars that were recently installed across them. Beneath the window are more honeycomb shelves, filled with books, students' artwork, and models of birds in flight.

The stairwell to the left of this space has been converted into a gallery for the students' environmental science projects: posters, paintings, books, and even a board game that one team of first-year students created. Half of the windows are now covered by display cases, but the stairwell is still full of light and color. One year ago, it was desolate.

"This was part of the environmental science teacher's healing process," the music teacher says to me as I silently take it all in. "She wanted to change it from a sad place to a place where students will want to come."

I don't know what to say, so I don't say anything at all.

I don't know what to feel.

"She told us at the last teachers' meeting that she wanted to send a message to our student. Although he's gone, maybe he can still hear it." The music teacher nods at the model birds. "And she wanted to say, 'You're flying now, aren't you? You're okay now, aren't you?'" A message of hope and light.

건호야, 지금 괜찮지?

♬

I never knew about this place. I never knew exactly which windowsill it was where he placed his slippers and his wallet before opening the window and flying away. And I have never had a reason to go to the fourth floor to find out. But now I know, because the environmental teacher decided to reclaim and to transform, and because the music teacher wanted to show me. It was never her intent to make me uncomfortable, but I am grateful that she did.

Now I know, and I will visit again before I fly out.

Gohyang

     He said, "I've been studying Japanese lately, been getting a real kick out of it, too."

     They were at a cafe that was situated above another cafe, looking over a busy intersection as umbrellas competed for space on corners not meant for the cars parked on them. Rain was in the air, not so much falling as existing, hovering, slowly being drawn toward surfaces like dust to a sheet of plastic wrap.

     As he spoke, she stirred the empty contents of her cup and watched him, noticing that his words left his mouth and fell straight down into his half-full glass instead of traveling up to meet his eyes. As he spoke, his gaze remained silent.

     He stopped and thought for a moment. "It's kinda ironic, I guess? I know what you're going to say: 'So when are you going to start studying Korean?'

     In fact, she was going to say that.

     "I've been here two years and I can still barely order chicken and beer." He chuckled. "But we're thinking of, you know, moving on."

     This was news. "Wait, hold on. You're going to leave Korea? And go to Japan?"

     She paused her stirring for dramatic effect, the director and only audience of a play staged between her chair and the middle of the table.

     A slight hesitation. "Not Japan, necessarily. But, you know, somewhere. Korea has never really felt like home."

     With the smallest suggestion of raised eyebrows, she quickly replied, "Well, of course it doesn't. No, your home is where your father was born."

     "What?" he asked, forehead wrinkling in confusion. "According to who?"

     "According to Korea," she answered, matter-of-factly. "That is, according to the traditional concept of hometown. Gohyang."

     "What, does that mean even if I live here for twenty years I still won't be--"

     "Right. 'You're not from around here.' You never will be, because your family isn't. But your real home, your gohyang -- what is it, South Carolina? Georgia? At least that will always be there."

     He paused to consider this, albeit briefly, and signaled this by glancing out the window, where green had just turned yellow, then yellow red. She looked into his eyes and, subconsciously, followed them outside. People had begun to cross.

    "In any case," he began, "we're obviously not going to go before our contracts are up, but we're, you know, keeping our options open."

     "And well you should!" she said loudly, causing his eyes to widen. "But look, permit me to give you some advice? As someone who has been here now more than half a decade?"

     She didn't wait for permission. "Forgive me if this comes across as condescending, but perhaps the reason you don't feel like Korea is home is that you haven't tried to make it your home. And no, I don't mean by making your parents move here and getting them fake birth certificates. No, just, maybe try to learn the language? Meet more people? Realize that there is a world outside of your apartment, your school, and your five favorite cafes downtown?"

     "I do do a lot of stuff," he countered. "And I really like my school, my kids. Maybe it's hard to explain how I feel. Things just haven't... clicked."

     "Korea isn't for everyone," she remarked calmly.

     He bristled, and immediately hoped she didn't notice. "Well, all the cafes are overpriced, anyways."

     "So where is your hometown, then?"

     "South Carolina was right." His eyes were a deep indigo blue. "And yours?"

     She thought for a moment with her mouth slightly ajar. "Well, it's complicated. Father's from Indiana, mother's from New York, but we've lived abroad for more years than we've been in the States. So uri gohyang... could be anywhere, really." She shrugged. "As long as it's not Eagleton."

     He gave a small smirk, finished the rest of his drink, and looked around. Every other pair in the cafe was a couple, communicating via a combination of texting and making doe-eyed faces. One girl had been taking photos of herself with her latte-sipping boyfriend in the background, pretending that his cuteness was candid. I will never understand this, he thought to himself. She cleared her throat.

     "You know how they say, 'Home is where the heart is'?" she said.

     "Not here, apparently," he replied. "I mean, who is the 'they'?"

     She had to think about this, but wasn't sure if she wanted to. So she met his gaze once more, saw that it had sharpened, and went with rhetoric instead.

     "Who indeed?"

Schadenfreude (and the World Cup)

I haven't written much about the World Cup -- nothing since the time my entire school gathered in the auditorium to watch Korea vs. Russia -- and this is because I'm not really following the games. Facebook and a few blogs I follow have kept me in the loop enough to satisfy my curiosity. This morning, though, when my news feed exploded with status updates and funny pictures related to the Brazil vs. Germany game, I thought it would be worth checking out in more detail.

That's how I found out that the gods of international soccer, Brazil, sustained a record-breaking, mind-blowing 7-1 loss to Germany in the semi-final match. This game was on their home turf, and there were tens of thousands of fans present, hundreds of thousands more watching on television, as the team failed spectacularly again and again and again.

Photos of Brazil's soccer team looking agonized and desolate, as well as photos of angry, crying, screaming fans have gone viral. In a moment of inspiration, I made a last-minute addition to my afternoon lesson and taught my third years about schadenfreude.

"It's a German word," I said, "so it's appropriate that we are learning it today."

I looked up the Korean definition; there's no translation, just an explanation. "남의 불행에 대해 갖는 쾌감": "pleasure derived from other people's misfortune."

HS was very pleased to learn this. He said that he experiences schadenfreude quite often. We then took a break to watch some "epic fail" videos.

The actual point of bringing up the World Cup game was to remind the students how to correctly talk about winning and losing. It's kind of complex in English (why "A lost to B" but not "B won to A"?), and then there's all the slang we use to refer to victory and defeat. "What happened at the World Cup today?" I asked my students. Their using-what-they'd-just-learned-replies:

"Germany kicked Brazil's butt."

"Germany schooled Brazil."

"Brazil blew it."

"Germany steamrollered Brazil."

"Germany owned Brazil."

"Brazil was a hot mess."

"Brazil got creamed."

"Germany won."

And because we all had a good laugh at this, well... schadenfreude!

This is me capitalizing on a trending topic and in-group humor to gain approval on social media. Also, I wanted to show the link to the Avenue Q song without actually linking to it, because it is rather inappropriate! I did not play it for my students. But we did listen to Sam Smith, Pentatonix, The Piano Guys, and Sam Tsui as part of a lesson on music!

P.S. I also learned a bit of Korean from discussing the game with other teachers at my school. To lose is 지다 (jida), but to lose humiliatingly, as Brazil did, is 깨지다 (ggaejida), which can also mean to break or shatter. 실패하다 (silpaehada) means to fail, but it was explained that this is a failure of something you prepared for, such as an exam. The other two verbs are for failing in a competition. And the Korean equivalent of "Brazil was crushed by Germany"? 브라질이 독일한테 떡 됬다. Brazil became rice cake against Germany. Why rice cake? Beacuse this is how it's made:

Let the Countdown Begin

Actually, I meant to start my countdown a while ago, but I never got around to it. Today, however, is special. From today, I have only thirty days left in Korea! In just one month, on August 7th, I will board a plane at Incheon Airport and fly home to California.

Here's an even smaller and scarier number: I have eight days left with my students, and on two of those days, they will be taking exams! I was surprised by quirks in the schedule (although after two years of this nonsense, you'd think I'd stop getting blindsided) that left me with just one more meeting with some of my favorite classes.

So today, I had to rush my goodbyes. I passed back tests, gave out class awards, and then played one last game with the second-years. This game was an elaborate puzzle that I put together from bits and pieces of things they've learned (or should have learned) over the past year, like Greek and Latin roots, high school cliques, and US geography. There were eight parts to the puzzle, and each part, when unscrambled and put together, spelled out the answer to the Big Question: Where is Andrew going?

The answer: "University of California at Berkeley."

My nerdy students had a lot of fun with the riddles, but I underestimated the difficulty of some parts, unfortunately. The classes thus took so long to figure out the puzzle that by the time I actually gave my announcement, breaking the news -- just a week before the end of the semester -- that I would not be returning in the fall, the bell was already ringing. So there actually wasn't much time at all for goodbyes.

I think it would have been more difficult to prolong it, anyway.

Fortunately, I've already had some students promise to visit me!

- - -

Unrelated: tonight, I went to 한글학당 (hangeul hakdang), the weekly Korean tutoring sessions offered for free at a local community center, for the first time in months. I felt bad because I have only two more opportunities to go, and I made a promise to the Korean teachers there that I'd be more diligent about going this year. Well, I totally broke that promise (약속을 지키지 못했다). Actually, it turns out they'd all assumed that I'd gone home to the US already. Nope! I just went to chat with the teachers and learn a thing or two. A lot of my time was unexpectedly taken up by a local reporter who was doing a news story on the Korean class. So, instead of studying Korean, I got to practice Korean by being interviewed for a newspaper! That's pretty exciting. If I get ahold of the article (기사/kisa) when it comes out, I will certainly share it here.

Also unrelated: there was a crazy thunder-and-lightning storm (뇌우/nwe-u) today! A lot of people assumed that it was Typhoon Racoon*, which has sliced through Okinawa and is about to travel up Korea's east coast, but it was actually just a typical monsoon season (장마/jangma) storm. The typhoon is supposed to arrive tomorrow, which will mean high winds and heavy rain, but there's no real danger, at least where I'm living.

*Neoguri (pronounced nuh-goo-ree), means "racoon" in Korean. I don't know why they named a typhoon thus.

- - -
Lastly, watch this. It is, in fact, thematically appropriate.

You're welcome.

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.

Children's Novels about Korea by Linda Sue Park

Last spring, when I was informed that my school's English department had hundreds of dollars' worth of extra funding to purchase classroom materials, I decided to spend my share of the money on books. I was hoping to use some of the books as educational tools in my classroom, or at least to lend them to students for extracurricular reading.

Now, I realize that that was a foolish hope, since few of my students are at a high enough level of English to read entire novels, even children's novels, and even if they all could or wanted to, they simply don't have time. They have to study all day and can't read for pleasure, unless it's short-form webcomics or books in Korean that they can get through quickly, between periods.

So, all those wonderful books I bought are being read by nobody except me. 아쉽다! That is, ashipda, or "too bad"... because two that I finished recently would be of great interest to my students, I think. They are both written by Linda Sue Park, a Korean-American author whose work mostly focuses on Korean history and culture.

The first book of hers that I read is called When My Name Was Keoko. It is about a young girl whose family endures the harsh treatment of Koreans by the Japanese because of the occupation during World War II. Actually, the family's story is told from two perspectives, by the girl, Sun-hee (whose Korean name is changed to the Japanese "Keoko" per official mandates at the time), and her brother, Tae-yul, who enlists for the army because he wants to fly planes.

I really enjoyed the novel because it was a personal look at a period in history I know very little about. Of course, I've heard so much about how the occupation was a time of cruel treatment toward the Korean people and irreparable damage to Korean culture -- in fact, centuries of on-and-off oppression have left many Koreans with a bitter vendetta against Japan. But when the facts are told through the eyes of two young children, they become manifested in a way that a history book cannot capture. The book was gripping, dramatic, and inspiring, and I'm sure my students would like it, too.

The second book is called A Single Shard. This book won the Newbery Medal for children's literature in 2002. I had no idea! It appears to have been the book that really made Park's career.

This novel follows the adventures of an oprhan boy named Tree-Ear (I'm guessing that's 목이/木耳?) who dreams of becoming a master potter and learns at the feet of an irritable man who specializes in famous Korean celadon. This is also historical fiction, as it is set in 12th century Korea, which looked nothing at all like Korea today. I mean, this was during the Goryeo dynasty. The capital of Korea was Songdo/Kaesong (in modern-day North Korea), not Seoul. There were no roads, let alone cars, and the society depicted is really just many small mud-hut villages separated by seemingly impassable mountain ranges. How Korea has changed!

I feel pretty neutral about this book; it wasn't bad, but not nearly as interesting as Keoko, because it moves at a slower pace and is further removed from me historically. Still, it was elegant in its simplicity and unique as a carefully-crafted window into an overlooked period and culture.

However, there was one tiny anacrhonism in it that really bugged me: Korea's national dish, kimchi, didn't have red pepper flakes in it until the late 16th century (thanks, incidentally, to the first wave of Japanese invasions...). But when Tree-Ear discovers kimchi in his meal, it has those characteristic red flakes. I don't know why it bothered me so much that there should be such a trivial error, but I guess I'm just... attached to kimchi, after eating it almost once a day for two years!

- - -
So, I got these books, and many others that could be classified as Asian-American lit, just so that my students could read them and see a bit more representation than they're used to form American media. Unfortunately, they'll only gather dust on the library shelves if I don't actively incorporate it into my class somehow.

Actually, when I was talking to some English teachers today, they mentioned that they knew about When My Name is Keoko, so I guess in the past decade, Park's novels have been introduced to English education circles in Korea. I'm very happy about that!

On another note, some of the other books I bought are Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin, which really is for children, so I found it too simple for my liking, and a few graphic novels, such as Gene Luen Yang's Level Up and American Born Chinese, as well as Derk Kirk Kim's Same Difference. These I certainly also bought for my own benefit -- i.e., I wanted to read them myself -- but I also thought that because they are graphic novels, my students would find them easier to read. Well, one of my third-years tried American Born Chinese, but the slang in it was beyond him. Oh well, at least he enjoyed the pictures.

What are your favorite English-language books that feature minority and/or foreign cultures?

The Flag Cake and the Fourth

I MADE AN AMERICAN FLAG CAKE HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY

I baked a chocolate cake last night and woke up a bit earlier than usual this morning to decorate it with vanilla frosting, strawberry jam, frozen blueberries, and white chocolate chips. The result was the delicious Pan of Patriotism pictured above. Well, I don't actually know if it was delicious or not, since I didn't taste any of it. 왜?!

왜냐면, This American flag cake was for the teachers at my school, in celebration of American Independence Day. They all told me the cake and the chocolate chip cookies I made were 진짜 맛있어요, so that's good enough for me! I also brought two huge watermelons in a suitcase, because they are in season right now, and because, as I tried to explain in Korean, "In America, on Independence Day, people get together with friends and family and barbecue outside and eat watermelon... and there are fireworks..." It's quite different from the somewhat solemn Korean Independence Day (August 15th), and actually in comparison it seems rather frivolous.

But the point is that my job is to share American culture in a positive way, and in Korea, food is one's best bet for building relationships. All of my school's faculty are amazed that I made the cake and cookies from scratch. Literally, they have a hard time believing that a cake can come from anywhere other than the corner bakery (ovens are rare in Korean households). But tasting is believing in this case. I'm happy to have helped everyone start their day right: with sugar and a healthy dose of red, white, and blue.

A great morning continued with a great day. I was productive during my desk-warming hours, preparing for some workshops I'll run at the 2014 Fulbright Orientation (which begins, incidentally, tomorrow!) later this month and taking care of some errands. My "Before I Leave" to-do list seems to get longer every day, and I'm a bit worried. But I'll take things one step at a time.

My students finished their final exams today, so everyone I met in the hallways and at lunch was quite happy. Also, more alumni came back to visit! Well, they didn't come to visit me this time, as this particular group of boys was... well, they were my sleepers, so I didn't have the opportunity to get very close to them. Still nice to see them, though.

And in the evening, all the faculty celebrated the end of finals and the approaching end of the semester with dinner at a wonderful barbecue restaurant by the Junam Reservoir called 호수에 그림 하난 ("One Picture at the Lake"?). We ate outdoors and watched the sun set over the mountains and the lake. Everything was lit golden, and large cranes flew by on occasion. It really was lovely. Even though I didn't get my fireworks or pool party, I am still grateful that I got to spend this Fourth of July in good company and in a beautiful place.

Junam Reservoir at sunset. The water is covered with hundreds of thousands of lotus plants.

Even indoor soccer at taekgyeon tonight couldn't ruin my good mood. Actually, soccer was saved by the middle school taekgyeon students, who stuck around to join us for our game. These kids are so full of energy, it's hard not to enjoy anything when they bring their game on at full volume. The best part was that the kids on the sidelines would yell out a constant live commentary, a skill they'd picked up from World Cup announcers. They also referred to me as 박지성 since I was scoring the most goals (not terribly difficult to do when you're a head taller than all your opponents). The only time I'll ever be compared to a professional athlete is when I'm playing indoor soccer with the taekgyeon kids...

Well, a very happy Fourth of July to all of you Americans! Celebrate your good luck and your liberty, crack some jokes, and then remember to support ongoing efforts to secure freedom around the world.

A Day Off with Friends

초코칩쿠키즈!

I love to bake, and when friends come to visit Changwon, I all but drag them to my apartment so we can make cookies or pies or something delicious and cavity-inducing. Today's all about the chocolate chip cookies, but I'm also waiting for a chocolate cake to cool as I type. Tomorrow morning, it will become an American flag cake to celebrate the Fourth of July! :)

Hana and Yoobin visited me today! There's a convoluted story behind our relationship, which I am going to describe whether you're interested or not, so listen up: Hana and Yoobin met in the States while Yoobin was studying abroad in Pennsylvania, where Hana is from. Hana and I then kind-of met in college because we went to the same church. I knew her as one of the women on the worship team, though I didn't really consider us friends... But then, during our Senior spring, I heard that she was going to go to Korea on a Fulbright, and realized that we were going to be in the same program! Unfortunately, we were separated by our placements, because Hana was sent to Naju, and I went to Changwon. But, surprise surprise, it turns out Yoobin is from Changwon! So Hana got us connected, and Yoobin and I hung out for all of one day, before he left for China to study abroad for a year. Then Hana finished her grant year and returned to the US, and I was all alone...

... But Hana came back to Korea last April, and then Yoobin returned from China, which he claimed was too smelly for his liking, and today, the three of us finally had a reunion! It mostly consisted of eating patbingsu, eating yukgaejang, and (baking and) eating cookies. Oh, and we also taught Yoobin how to play Bananagrams.

Bananagrams at Sulbing! Two of my favorite things. And two of my favorite people! ;) Also, I am going to not-so-subtly point out that I had the letters to play "polyandry" in this round.

Haeinsa Cafe / Wordplay

A bit of cute wordplay at the Haein Cafe: 해맑게 인사하는 사람들...

A multi-orthographic linguistic puzzle! What does "海맑게 印寺하는 사람들" mean?

If you look carefully, you can see that this phrase uses two scripts: hanja, or Chinese characters, and hangul, the Korean writing system invented in the mid-fifteenth century. In ancient times, Korean was written entirely in hanja, but after Hangul was promulgated, it began to replace hanja. Today, few hanja are used, and then only in specific contexts; you might come across a few characters in newspaper headlines and official documents, but it's slowly falling out of common use.

Now let's examine these hanja. First, you have 海, which means "sea". It is pronounced 해 (hae). Then, you have 印 and 寺, which mean "stamp" or "mudra, a symbolic Buddhist gesture" and "temple", respectively. They are pronounced 인 (in) and 사 (sa).

Anyone familiar with Korean Buddhism will recognize these three hanja as the name of one of Korea's famous temples, 海印寺 (해인사/Haeinsa). What do they mean in the context of this phrase, however?

In fact, there's a bit of wordplay involved. As the Chinese characters are read with the Korean pronunciation, they are not intended to retain their written meaning. Instead of meaning "sea", 海 (hae) is simply part of the word 해맑게 (haemalkge), which means "brightly, purely". This 해 (hae) actually means "sun" in native Korean.

As for 印寺 (insa), the two words are essentially a homophone of 人事, or 인사 (insa). 인사하는 (insahaneun) means "greeting, bowing politely". And 사람들 (salamdeul) means "people", so...

Altogether, the phrase means something like, "People who greet brightly and purely." Maybe it makes more sense like this: "People who say hello with a warm smile (and a bow, because Korea)."

So as it turns out, the phrase has nothing to do with the sea or temples, but the clever part is that this was found printed on the menu for the cafe at Haeinsa. Thus, the cafe used the name of the temple as homophones to welcome its patrons. I love the ingenuity!

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Stray observations:
1. The menu is printed on beautiful hanji (한지/韓紙), a thick, coarse paper that has dried leaves and flowers embedded in it.

2. The spelling of "cafe" in Korean (까페/ggape), is a little unusual. Usually, it's 카페 (kape), with an aspirated [k] from the American English pronunciation. Instead of that, ㄲ represents a tense, unaspirated [g]. Perhaps this came from an attempt to transliterate the French pronunciation instead of the English one.

3. More hanja (한자/漢字) in the top right corner: 茶來軒, or 다래헌 (daraeheon). I've never encountered this word before, but it means a traditional teahouse. Literally, "a house or high pavilion where you can order tea." NB: don't think Korean words written with hanja are just borrowed from Chinese. 茶來軒 means nothing in Mandarin, as far as I'm aware. Also, the more common words for "teahouse" are 찻집 (chatjip) and 다방 (dabang/茶房).

4. Unrelated to linguistics: why does Haeinsa have its own cafe, anyway? Is it so that after you worship and commune with nature, you can get an iced caramel macchiato to keep you tethered to modern society? I enjoyed my seven-dollar (?!) iced 유자차 (citron tea), but the very existence of the cafe seemed incongruous to me, like the Starbucks located inside the Louvre or the stuffed animals sold in the 9/11 museum gift shop. I guess cafes are now just as integral to Korean culture as thousand-year-old temples, so this is an unsurprising mix of new and old.