The End

For our last day of school at Sogang University, we had a graduation ceremony and celebration. This day really showed how close our class had become over the course of eleven weeks, as well as the love we felt for our wonderful teacher. Not only had I learned a lot about the Korean language, but I also came away with close friends and the utmost gratitude for my teacher. I believe we had very special teachers for all our language classes and a very special class as well. We all decided to pitch in to get our teacher a "one piece" as they call it in Korea, which turned out to be a really cute dress. We also made a nice card with pictures of all of our heads. It was really cute. But what was even cuter was our teacher when she received all of our gifts. On top of the card, "one piece", and tiara, we also gave her a boyfriend, since she said she didn't have one. In order to do this, I hid in a cupboard wrapped in wrapping paper with a bow around my neck, and burst out from the cupboard unexpectedly. She hadn't even realized I was missing from class and was so surprised to see me. I pretended to be her boyfriend for five minutes. I feel very grateful and lucky to have had her as a teacher.

My last weekend in Korea was spent with close friends. I couldn't think of a better way to end my time in Korea. We first saw Ice Age 3 early on Saturday morning, and then went ice skating at Lotte World in the afternoon. I love ice skating, and it was a lot of fun, especially since it was the first time skating for my good friend. She never fell once, which was amazing! Although I told her it would have been good to fall; that's how you learn. I fell on purpose a couple times, which was good fun. After ice skating, we went back to my friends place where she cooked us a delicious dinner. We also played charades late into the night, until I got asked to act out "생일." It was then that I realized that my friends had been planning a surprise birthday for me all along, as they brought out a birthday cake and started singing "Happy Birthday" in Korean. My birthday wasn't even in two weeks, but they still remembered. I was so touched by their kind and thoughtful gesture. I had known these people for only two and a half months, some even less than that, but yet we had forged very close relationships with one another, ones that I think will last a really long time even beyond Korea. No one had ever really done this for me before, and I was touched by their thoughtfulness and selflessness. My friends that night showed me the importance of thinking about others before yourself, and just how far a little act of kindness and thoughtfulness can go. It meant so much to me that they would do that for me, and I will never forget their kindness. Probably the best way I could've ended my time here.

During my last two days in Korea, I must have gone to the batting cages at least four times. I wish I had started going to them earlier during my stay. They are so easy, accessible, and cheap to use; you get about twelve balls for only fifty cents! It was there that I met up with my Korean tutor for the last time. We hit some balls and talked story. From the beginning of the term, he volunteered his time to meet me once a week and help me with my Korean. He was more like a friend than a tutor, and I thought of him as an older brother. We'd usually just talk story when we met, which was not only a great way to practice my Korean, but also a good way to learn about Korea. I have a feeling we will meet again. I definitely owe him one.

And at my hasukjib...I decided to get green tea ice cream one more time for Nuna out of gratitude for all of the hard work she has done. I brought some ice cream back for all the students at the hasukjib, and we ate dinner and ice cream late into the night, longer than we usually do. Nuna made 감자탕 (gamja tang) for my last night and "toast" for my last breakfast (her toast was my favorite breakfast, and it's like no other toast I have ever tried before). I realized that life at the hasukjib is continually changing and only temporary; people come and go, students move in to bedrooms once the bedrooms of past students. That night there was a new Korean student who joined us for dinner; it was his first dinner at the hasukjib. And with me moving out the next day, the cycle of incoming and outgoing students continued. Life goes on.

명I used to think that people come in and out of one's life at certain times for a reason, and that one should accept the moment at which people are meant to go out of one's life. But for the first time, I didn't want to leave the people I had spent the last two and a half months with. I felt an attachment to them and a strong bond and friendship. I never really thought about the idea of such people coming back into one's life once they have left. Perhaps, rather than ever going out of one's life at all, some people are meant to stay in our lives, rather than coming in and out...주

English Problems and Two Good Friends

Last week Friday I had my last English tutoring session with HY. Over the course of the seven weeks I had been tutoring HY and Jin-hee, both made a significant amount of progress and were very good students. I was very proud of them for their efforts. In this last session with HY, however, I was the one having difficulties with English! Obviously, since it is an English tutoring session, I always taught in English. However, after living for two and a half months in Korea, my English had not only become worse, but I also now preferred speaking in Korean. As I was helping HY during our last session, I found myself subconsciously speaking and teaching in Korean. There were things that had now become easier for me to say in Korean than in English. I found that it was harder to think of what I wanted to say in English than it was in Korean. And for these reasons, I didn't want to speak English anymore during our last English tutoring session! What was I to do! I reluctantly resorted back to English in order to make it a worthwhile English session for HY. But it just goes to show what two months living in a foreign country can do to your speech.

Although HY and Jin-hee were both my English students over the course of the summer, I thought of them more as friends. They were extremely gracious hosts and really took good care of me while I was in Korea. I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time with them outside of our tutor sessions as well. During my last week in Korea, HY took me to her old traditional Korean drum club at the university she used to go to. We met up with two of her friends from the club, who patiently taught me the traditional art of Korean drum playing. It was really cool to see HY and her friends reunited and playing together the same music they played back in college. They may have said that they were a little rusty after not playing the drums for many years, but from what I could tell it was as if they had never missed a beat.

The style of play that we did was called Samul nori, and was a lot more difficult than I had expected it to be. Coming from a Western musical background, I am used to very structured musical patterns. However, when performing Samul nori, the rhythms we played were organized very differently, and it was a lot harder for me to keep the beat (if there even was a beat that I could find). I tried all three of the different instruments the girls brought (buk/bass drum, janggu/an hourglass-shaped drum, and jing/gong), but played the buk most of the time, as it was the easiest to learn. My teachers were so patient with me, as it often took me a while to get the rhythms down and strike the drum with the correct form (after watching the video of us playing, I realized how much worse I actually was at this). I had seen this type of traditional music performed in other places, such as at Andong and Walker Hill, and I gained a greater appreciation for the art after seeing how difficult it actually is to play. Playing the drums was a very spiritual experience, and made me see music in a whole different light.

Jin-hee, my other Korean friend, took me to Hanok Village during my second to last weekend in Korea. This was a traditional Korean village preserved today in the middle of Seoul. There, we got to walk in and out of old Korean houses and play traditional games. There was a swing that a lot of little kids were doing that I wanted to try. So I got in line with everyone else and waited my turn. But when I got to the front, at first the attendant said that I couldn't go because only women were allowed to ride the swing back in the old days. But since I was a foreigner, he cut me some slack and I was able to ride it.

After visiting Hanok Village, Jin-hee and I made our way up Namsan mountain to the N'Seoul Tower. From this tower, there is an incredible view of Seoul, and we were lucky that it was a very clear day that day. After taking in the sights from the tower, we decided to climb down the mountain rather than taking the cable car. We definitely had worked up a sweat that day walking through Hanok Village and scaling Namsan, and so it was nice and refreshing (시원하다!) to finish our day eating bulgogi in a cool, air-conditioned restaurant.

Both HY and Jin-hee helped to make my stay in Korea a memorable one. Not only were they diligent students, but they were also incredible hosts and good friends. I learned a lot from them, and was grateful for the time I spent with them.

Hasukjib Cultures

During my last week at the hasukjib, I had another one-on-one talk with Nuna after dinner. Although I couldn't understand every word she said, I could grasp the conversation as a whole, which was probably an improvement from our conversations early on in my stay.

We discussed the work ethic of Korean students as well as the different cultures of hasukjibs around the area. I was sort of unaware that other hasukjibs function differently than the one I was staying at. I guess I thought that the atmosphere in hasukjibs were more or less the same. After talking with Nuna, however, I realized this was not necessarily the case. She mentioned how the students at a hasukjib located under Yonsei University don't talk to each other during meals. Moreover, they don't even greet each other when they come to eat (two things that we always do at our hasukjib). They simply eat fast so they can go quickly back to studying, or multitask (study while they eat). I now realized why we had learned the term "eat urgently" in class. After thinking about it, this type of situation seems reasonable, especially if the students are under a lot of pressure to do well in school. When I think about eating meals at Yale, there are many people at Commons who study and eat by themselves in order to stay on top of their work. It is nothing uncommon. However, if I had lived in that sort of environment my entire stay in Korea, I probably would have been disappointed. I'm very glad that the students greet each other and engage in conversation during meals at my hasukjib. This engagement with the Korean students has been a big part of my learning here in Korea. And I found you can often learn more from people than you can from books.

Nuna also mentioned how she already started teaching her daughter English. Her daughter cannot be more than two years old. I was amazed at how early they start English, but the demand for the English language here is so great that it's not surprising. This was when I found out that Nuna's daughter loves Dora the Explorer, and so I went out and got her some more Dora books for her to read, as well as some Denzel Washington movies for Nuna (she loves Denzel).

Oh, and that night, a big lighting bolt flashed right outside my window with the loudest crack I have ever heard in my life.

동해 (Eastern Sea)

During the second half of my school break, I was lucky enough to go to 동해, the Eastern Sea of Korea, with a bunch of friends. We left around 6:00 in the morning on a tour bus with a very energetic and patient tour guide. We seemed to be the only foreigners on the tour, and I was surprised to see the many Korean people taking advantage of this excursion. Living in Hawai'i, I see many tourists come and go, but never really play tourist myself. I think this interest and desire to learn about one's own home is important. It made me want to explore my own home even more.

After about a five hour bus drive (I was informed that Korean vacation season had just started that day, and so the reason for heavy traffic), we made our first stop at 삼화사 (Samhwasa), which was a combination of a sacred Buddhist site and a picnic area for families to play and swim. There was a long river running through the mountains, and people were riding large water tubes down it. The juxtaposition between the sacredness of the Buddhist temple and playfulness of the adjacent river was sort of an odd sight. Because we were on a tight schedule, we ended up having to run down the mountain so we wouldn't miss the bus. That was the farthest I've ran in a long time...

The second stop we made was at 추암해수욕장 (chuam haesuyeokjang), a very beautiful but crowded beach. Unlike beaches in Hawai'i, there was a long rope stretching across the ocean and the whole length of the beach, preventing swimmers from swimming to far out into the ocean. I had never seen this before, and although we didn't have enough time to get in the water, I probably wouldn't have done well under these ocean limitations. Namsop, one of my friends who came on this trip, was from New York. This was the first time he had seen an ocean in years. I sort of forgot that not everyone has seen the ocean or sees it everyday.

After visiting the beach, we entered 천곡천연동굴 (cheongok cheonyeon donggul), an old cave that has been preserved. We had to wear safety helmets, since it was very easy to hit your head on the low rock ceiling. What was cool about coming to this cave, as well as the other places we visited on this trip, was that we learned about and did dialogues centered around this cave in Korean language class at Sogang. Thus, to have the chance to actually go to some of these picturesque and cultural locations makes it all the better.

The last stop we made before heading home was 묵호등 대 (mukho deungdae), a light house with a spectacular view of the Eastern sea. After taking in the salty air one final time and falling down a hill, it was time to return home. By the time we got back to Seoul, it was already 11pm. It had been a long day, and my body was struggling to function. But when our tour guide told us she was doing the same tour again tomorrow from 6:00 in the morning, I realized that maybe I didn't have it so rough. All in all, it was a good trip. To be with good friends and see new and beautiful parts of Korea, what more could one ask for.

방학 (School Break)

This past week was our school break. I was fortunate enough to do some traveling around different parts of Korea during the break, and get a feel of the Korean essence beyond Seoul. These opportunities to travel have really allowed me to see many sides of Korea, which in turn made it harder to pinpoint and define exactly what the Korean "essence" is. Nevertheless, I came away with a deeper appreciation for the history of this place, and perhaps with an understanding that maybe it is not my place to try and define what Korean "essence" is, but rather to just embrace it.

On Tuesday I went on a two day trip to Gyeongju, the "world cultural heritage city rich in thousand-year-long history and tradition," which is located on the south-eastern side of the Korean peninsula. This area was originally part of the Silla state (57BC-995) during the Three Kindoms and Unified Silla periods, and thus is a rich source of these periods' histories and relics. I went with a tour group, which turned out to be very interesting. The other four people on the tour were students studying Korean at Han Yang University, and were all foreign students: one from Paraguay, one from Uruguay, one from Laos, and one from Guinea-Bissau. They were a very interesting bunch, and we ended up getting along really well.

It took about a good five hours to get to Gyeongju. We played hangman in the car to pass the time, and our Korean guide taught us how to play Korean hand games as well. Trying to teach Madilson, the student from Guinea-Bissau, how to play hangman was a trip. The long car ride proved to be well worth it. The first stop we made in Gyeongju was the Gyeongju National Museum. Many of the cultural artifacts from the Three Kingdoms period (57 BC-668) and reign of the Silla have been discovered in the surrounding areas and now preserved in this museum. One of my favorite things at the museum was the Divine Bell of King Seongdeok, one of Asia's largest and most resonant bells. It weighs nineteen tons and stands eleven feet high. If only I could've heard it ring...

Next we made our way to Anapji pond, which was a beautiful man-made pond and garden constructed by King Munmu in 674 to commemorate the unification of the Korean peninsula under Silla reign. Many of the relics now displayed in Gyeongju museum were actually discovered in this pond a few decades ago. Like the Silla royal family who spent their leisure time at this pond, I too savored the beauty and serenity of the place.

After walking around the pond, we went to see a collection of royal Silla tombs. There are over two hundred royal tombs scattered throughout Gyeongju alone, making Gyeongju somewhat like an outdoor museum. I was initially impressed by the massive size of the tombs, trying to imagine how they were built. While at first glance it seemed like there was no particular order in terms of how the tombs were arranged, our guide pointed out that the tombs were actually grouped together by family. I then noticed one tomb that actually looked like two tombs molded together. This was the joint tomb of the king and queen. How nice that they can be buried side by side! Right next to these tombs stood Cheomseongdae Observatory. Built during the reign of Silla Queen Seondeok, it is the oldest astronomical observatory in East Asia and has one stone slab for every day in the lunar year.

That night, I was lucky enough to stay in a comfortable hotel overlooking the placid Bomunho Lake. We woke up the next morning bright and early and made our way first to Seokguram Grotto, a sacred place for Buddhist worship and an enduring treasure of the Silla Kingdom. Right below Seokguram is Bulguksa Temple, which we visited afterwards. Enveloped in the mist and fog of the mountains, I could see how it would be easy to clear one's mind here. But would one have to scale the mountain every day for worship? As we were weaving our way up the mountain, we were overtaken by a monk driving an SUV. I guess that's one way to do it.

The last stop we made in Gyeongju was the Gyeongju Folkcraft Village. Here, craftsmen continue to preserve the old arts of making pottery and ceramics as was done during the Silla period. Celadon was the main material used, and we were lucky enough to see a craftsman skillfully fashion a pot using cattle skin and his bare hands. It was very fascinating seeing this ancient Silla art being preserved in this sort of remote location.

I was very fortunate to have this opportunity to go to Gyeongju, and to really see and feel Korea's past preserved so timelessly in this quiet city. Obviously there is more to Korea than what you just get in Seoul. And through this two-day excursion, I saw Korean essence through a different lens.