Korean Culture

I think my Korean experience has encompassed two of the most extreme forms of Korean culture. From a rural town on a naturally beautiful island or Jeju to the culturally rich densely packed urban metropolis of Seoul, there is no one Korean culture. Obviously Seoul has experienced far more western influence, and Jeju is much more traditional in terms of gender roles, age based hierarchy and so on. So for all the experiences I discuss you can assume they are more extreme in Jeju, but certainly occur, as I have personally witnessed, in Seoul as well.

 First and foremost Korea you have to respect your elders. This often means that even if someone if just a few years older than you you’re friendship can never be one of equals. One person will occupy the older brother/sister role, and the other the younger brother/sister role. They will even generally call each other by the Korean word for younger/older sibling.

The idea of ageism is so ingrained into Korean culture that there exists no one word for brother or sister as there does in English, where sibling is considered the most important part of the relationship and one can add a modifier to express the difference in age if they like. In Korean there exist four words, older brother, older sister, younger brother and younger sister. You have no choice but to denote which of you has circumnavigated the sun a greater number of times when discussing your relationship. Along with this, in a mixed age “friendship” the older person is generally responsible for covering the tab at a restaurant, and the younger one must always be careful to show the proper respect to his or her elder. 

Gender roles are also equally pronounced and adhered to. My host father works, my host mother cooks and cleans. This extends to the practice where by my mom cooks us dinner but doesn’t sit down to eat until were finished, at which time she will pick at the scraps her sons leave behind as if she is the weaker animal in a pack of dogs. And that’s how it is with most families, even in Seoul. I think things are starting to change in the younger generation, but most of them don’t have families of their own yet so it’s not really visible.

All these things are related to “manners”, a concept which is extremely important to Korean culture. I find this notion particularly interesting because different cultures have very different opinions about what good manners are. In the US we do not slurp our food or we do not push each other out of the way to get where we are going. We also don’t bring food to people we don’t know, or strike up conversations with foreigners to practice their language and tell them “America is number one country”.

People often tell me Koreans are rude, and I don’t blame them. But I do ask them to revise their opinions slightly, and see the cultural differences present in society as just that, not polite or rude, just different. It is true however that Koreans are more adherent to their cultural norms than Americans. This is probably because the US has such a variety of cultures that these rules had to become more flexible, as we are witnessing today in Seoul. When people tell me that Koreans are rude I tell them a few stories that show that it is a bit more nuanced than rude or polite, good or bad.

In Korea you will never be robbed. They say you’re more likely to see someone running after you holding your wallet than running away from you holding your wallet, and as far as I can tell, they’re right. It is also customary to eat food while you drink alcohol[1]. So I’m often sitting with other English teachers drinking, and some nice man will come up and hand us a plate of fruit or chicken, and either carry on his way or talk with us briefly. Koreans often invite us to sit with them and buy us food and drinks.

One time I was traveling along and spending the night at a national park when it began to rain. I was eating dinner at a restaurant, and within a few minutes I was approached by some kind Korean hikers. They asked where I was from and soon invited to eat with them. They paid for my meal and drinks, and then asked me where I planned to spend the night. When I told them I had no plan, maybe I would seek refuge in a nearby hostel or if I couldn’t find one head back to the city, they immediately assured me it was no problem; they had an extra tent and blanket, and were more than welcome to stay with them. I had an amazing night staying up drinking and conversing with my new friends, and in the morning they cooked me breakfast and asked me to spend the day with them. Unfortunately I was looking forward to a challenging hike that they were too hung over to accompany me on, but you get the idea.

How could anyone consider these generous seouls (sorry about that) rude? Well not all Korean manners are considered kind by westerners. Koreans are notorious pushers. As far as I know there exists no word in Korean for excuse me. It is all too common rough push in the back or the side while standing on the subway or walking through the street and their on their way. This is particularly common if their older than you. They also “eat deliciously” and spit voraciously. This means making as much noise as possible, especially when downing noodles or soups or when they walk up to the urinal next to you and huck a loogy that would make a 13 year old bully cringe with nausea. I have had many Koreans inform me that these things are actually considered bad manners, but as far as I can tell, from Seoul to Jeju, the vast majority of Koreans engage in these practices.

Along with this they have no concept of small talk. I will often walk out of my room in the morning or come home in the afternoon and my host mom will not say a single word to me until she calls me for dinner. For a while I would try to make conversation, using the little Korean I know to ask about her day or how she slept, but I was met with little encouragement. Eventually another teacher at my school informed me that it makes Koreans feel awkward to be asked a simple question like “how are you”. They would rather just walk by in silence unless there’s something meaningful to say. To a westerner this seems counterintuitive, by making small talk we progress to significant conversation. My family hardly even talks to each other except for when the parents (generally the mother) yell at the kids to do their homework or stop fighting, and the boys are often downright rude, staring at the TV or phone as their mom tells them to come eat their dinner.

I had an experience today that drove home these dichotomous behaviors. After saying farewell to my friend in Seoul, I sat waiting for a subway heading for the airport to return to Jeju after a month abroad. As I was reaching for my iPod, a man approached me. He was very kind and genuine, interested in practicing his English and learning about me. As we sat on the subway conversing quietly, a woman sitting across the aisle screamed out something in Korean at us. The man looked embarrassed and whispered to me, “she said to shut the mouth”. Having lived in Korea for 6 months I wasn’t the slightest bit offended, but highly amusing. We kept quite after that, even though the lady sitting adjacent to us smiled and told us she did not think we were speaking too loudly. As we came to my stop I waved merrily at the rude old lady and carried on my day.

Anyway I guess what we can draw from this is that some Koreans are really kind, and some are not, some like foreigners, and some don’t. Pretty much like anywhere else right? So maybe the only difference is that in Korea they are more obvious about it, they’ll bring you food or push you out of the way, where in the US well probably just glare or smile. Who says people in the east are more introverted? I kid of course, in many ways they are, but at the same time I think that’s way too general a statement to make about any culture. In some ways, like the ones I've just described, they are far more open, especially if they are older than you are. One thing's for sure, the older you are, the more you can get away with, but you’ll also probably be paying the bill at the end of the day. I guess when you put it like that it doesn't sound so different from the US J

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[1] I think this stems from the fact that Koreans drink a lot but their bodies aren’t particularly good at metabolizing alcohol, hence the Asian glow, so food helps with that. Studies also show that eating helps reduce a hangover and other bad things that go along with excessive drinking

What I’ve Learned Teaching English in Korea (3/15/15)

I think I’m finally starting to figure out this teaching thing. Part of me thinks it’s ludicrous that they throw us into a classroom in a foreign country with no training of any kind and expect us to be good teachers, but another part of me is a firm believer in praxis: the idea that we learn best by doing. Indeed I have learned quite a bit these past few months, and starting fresh with a whole new group of students has driven this point home to me rather forcefully. Six months ago I was lucky if I could hold half of the students’ attention for half the classes, now 90 percent of the students are staring raptly at me for 90 percent of the class.

I think there are three main contributing factors to my success this semester. The first one has absolutely nothing to do with me, but the fact that the school decided to cut down on my class size dramatically. Whereas last semester I was expected to deal with 30-40 kids per class, this year I have about half that. I cannot stress enough what a big difference this makes. There is absolutely no way to engage 40 rambunctious middle school boys whose English levels very from three words to conversationally fluent. Especially in a language class when this is the first time many of them have been exposed to a native English teacher who doesn't speak their native tongue and whose main goal is to get them speaking, not memorizing grammar rules for a test!

The second two changes have to do with me and what I have learned. Firstly, I am just more confident about standing in front of a group of people, speaking slowly and calmly, cracking jokes and engaging students with my prosody, body language and gestures. This is something that comes naturally with practice in public speaking, and although I am an outspoken individual, I certainly had plenty of qualms about public speaking, sometimes even becoming visibly nervous answering a question or giving a presentation at my university. After six months of doing it every day it has become second nature.

The final change also has to do with me, but is a much more case specific type of knowledge. I understand my students. That is to say I understand Korean middle school boys. Not that they are all identical, far from it, but they are a distinct culture group with sub-classes and prototypes that I have learned how to engage. Keep in mind that I don’t give grades, so it’s completely up to me to keep my students on task and entertained.

Here’s an example of how I’ve adapted my mindset and methods to better fit my audience. Last year I was reticent to use a reward and punishment system. I am a firm believer in drive being influenced mainly by autonomy, mastery and purpose as described by Dan Pink, and I certainly learned best not when I was promised a carrot or a stick, but when I was internally motivated by the material or my own goals. Furthermore, since my class consists mostly of fun student centered activities and games, and because my students clearly thought I was a cool and interesting individual (mainly because I played soccer with them at recess), I figured it should be easy for them to pay attention and get involved.

But I was wrong. After 15 years of discipline based on incentives and deterrents, students did not have the slightest idea how to respond to my relaxed college professor mentality, and so they misbehaved. Nothing drastic, they are really very good kids, but they would talk, they would refuse to do their work or participate in activities, they would sleep, and in the end I would be teaching to the five or ten best students while the rest of the class went to shit. I learned in my Fulbright orientation that this is pretty common, but that didn't do much to comfort me, I knew in a way it was my fault.

I also learned that they are reallllly good at filling in worksheets. Hand them a crossword puzzle, or put a paper in front of them with blank spots in it to fill in and they are back in familiar territory. So this year I used that to my advantage. Let me take you through my first lesson… (I've attached the worksheets at the of this entry)

“Welcome to English class…Here are my three rules, what is a rule? *규칙* Good! It’s written there on the board in English and Korean, please fill in the blank spot on your sheet. Ok, rule #1, no talking while I’m talking, what does “while” mean? There it is on the board; fill it in on your sheet. 1st offense, ten push-ups, let me show you how to do a proper push up. 2nd offense, 30 second plank, this one’s great for your core abdominal muscles, maybe by the end of class we will all have 6-packs. *hahaha* 3rd offense checklist, I write your name here and then tell your homeroom teacher and when school ends you have to stay for 5 hours and write about what a bad boy you are. *oh teacher no!!*, 4th offense you will be asked to leave, what is leave? There it is on the board” I open the door and wave, “byebye!” 
               The kids ate it up. They were all laughing or silently swooning over me within the first few minutes. “Ok rule #2, do your work. I know English is really hard, learning a new language is always difficult, but please try your best. If you have any question that’s great, I love questions, raise your hand anytime and ask me. I’m sure many other students were wondering the same thing. Even when class is over, come see me! I’m here every day, 830-430, watching soccer videos, come ask me about English class, another class, 어마 and 어바, your 여자 친구, whatever *hahaha*.

Also, please do not be afraid to make mistakes. What’s a “mistake”? Good fill it in please. I know in some classes mistakes are bad, but I think in a language class mistakes are very important. You can’t learn a new language without making many mistakes. I know we have many different levels in this class, some people are very high level, and some people are very low level, so we will all help each other and learn together. 괜찮아?”. At this point I pause for my co-teacher to translate and make sure they all understand this. I try not to use translation too often, but with stuff like this that I really want to be sure everyone fully comprehend its sometimes necessary.

“Ok, Rule #3, be respectful, what is respectful? Good. By now everyone should have filled out their sheet, good, good, good, ok my friend here hasn't written anything. Do you know all these words already? What is respectful? Oh, you don’t know? Please fill out your sheet. Ok who does know all these words? Quiz time, what is blah blah blah (I can always find someone who already knows all the words). So my friend here just answered my question correctly, so I will give him one Alaitz Dollar. One Alaitz dollar can save you from push-ups. So say my friend here is talking, and I say hey! Why are you talking?? Push-ups! He can give me his dollar, *mime taking the dollar* and he does not have to do push-ups *oh teacher very good*. OR he can save his money, until he has five dollars. Five dollars can get you a piece of candy.” *I pull out a bag of candy and wave it around for them to a chorus of oohs and*. It’s all about knowing your audience.

“Everybody understand the three rules? Ok good, today we are going to introduce ourselves, first I will introduce myself to you, then you will introduce yourself to me. So I tell them a little bit about my family and hobbies and then have them turn their sheet over and I explain how to fill it out and go over a couple of the most common grammar mistakes I see using the sentence “I like play computer game”.

Soon the kids are working quietly and I can go around providing individual assistance. When one student finishes I have him read his paragraph aloud to me, help him correct the mistakes and then sit him down with a student who is struggling, reminding him not to write for the other students, just to talk with him and help him understand and write for himself.
When there are five minutes left I give my helper students a dollar, and invite the brave souls to come up to the front and read what they wrote to the class in exchange for a dollar. I swear last semester I couldn't even get the students to read stuff they wrote aloud to me, assuming I could get them to write stuff, but now in every class multiple students of all levels are eager to come and practice their public speaking skills. Some lower lever students even stay after class practicing with the higher lever students so they can read to me free of charge, and I've been known to receive cheers and applause when is start and end class, and even sometimes even just walking down the hallways. It’s surreal.

Perhaps the most gratifying thing however are the little things, like am no longer left with a classroom and trash can full of worksheets. Without being harangued all my students now take their work with them, so I can at least pretend it meant something to them and that they will review it at their leisure by choice, not just to prepare for some pointless exam. If only I didn't have to teach the same class 44 times (half the students means twice the classes) life would be pretty good.

As an educator and environmentalists the idea of imposing strict regulations to ensure discipline and printing out thousands of papers to guarantee participation seems totally banal and prodigal, but I guess it’s all for a good cause…And that’s the number one thing I've learned in Korea: cultural adaptation. Sometimes you've just gotta follow the norm to reach people, an onerous adjustment for a candid rebel like me with strong moral convictions who has never been one for fitting in to get by. But I guess that’s just one of many luxuries we have in the US, varied cultural heritages which bring with them many different customs (and many different foods), allowing for us to choose which ones agree with us on different occasions.

 Class Rules

1. NO _____________ WHILE I AM _____________

           

                        IF YOU ___________ THIS ___________...

                        1^ST OFFENSE = 10 ____________

                        2^ND _________= 30 SECOND ____________

                        3^RD OFFENSE = ______________

                        4^TH OFFENSE = YOU ______ BE ________ TO __________

2. DO YOUR __________

3. BE RESPECTFUL

Vocabulary:

Rule = ____________

Talk = ___________

While = ___________

Break = ___________

Offense = ____________

Leave = _____________

Work = ____________

Respectful = ___________

 (side 2)

Hello! Today we will introduce ourselves!!

            My name is Alaitz teacher. I am from the United States. My favorite hobby is playing soccer. My favorite food is hamburgers. I like cats. I don’t like cold weather. In my free time I like to play guitar and go hiking.

Now tell me about yourself!

What is your name? ____________________

Where are you from? ____________________

What is your favorite hobby? ____________________

What is your favorite food? ____________________

What is something you like? ____________________

What is something you don't like? ____________________

What do you like to do in your free time? __________________

Now please write your answers in a paragraph like I did above...

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

When you are finished please draw me a picture :)

Honest Reflections of my Time So Far as a Fulbright Grantee in South Korea (12/20/14)

I have been living and teaching in South Korea for almost 6 months now. I know that doesn’t sound like very long but since it marks the midway point of my stay here, it is quite significant for me. It all began with a 6 week prison spell at the marble palace in the rural town of Goesan. I feel like I learned almost nothing from the endless meetings and rote Korean classes. Once and a while we were able to escape to play soccer in the sunshine, and weekends I was even allowed a brief foray into the country side to explore the national parks of Songnisan and Woraksan. Unfortunately this will likely be the most I will see of the Korean countryside, as I have been placed on the volcanic island of Jeju.

Here I work at a boy’s middle school in the center of town. Seogwipo namjum, short for namja jum hakyo. For the first few weeks my greatest desire was to run away. I was lonely, bored and unfulfilled. I even checked the prices of plane tickets as I contemplated my escape. In some sense I am still have those feelings, but they have been numbed to a great extent. I see friends almost every day for a variety of activities: Korean lessons, soccer games, weekly poker nights, baking or adventuring. I have explored much of the beautiful island on my bike and motorcycle, and when on occasion the dull roar in my class room abates I realize my students really do like me, just not learning English.

A part of me has always known that this may just be the easiest job I ever have; I pray that it is not the most fulfilling. I generally teach for less than 4 hours a day, and my meals, room and board are provided. The other 4 hours a day that I’m required to spend at school are mine to fret away, reading, watching documentaries, playing games with the children, or more often than I’d like to admit, wasting time paging through Facebook. Of course my salary is pretty dismal, but considering I don’t really need to buy anything, I save quite a bit. The most expensive things I have bought are my 500 dollar motorcycle, my 500 dollar bike and a 500 dollar plane ticket for my 4 week vacation in Thailand. Apart from that most of my money goes to alcohol and the occasional meal out or baking supplies. Oh I also recently bought a 3 month gym membership 170 dollar since it’s too cold to play outside as much as I used to.

I’m not a great teacher, and I don’t really want to me. Not a middle school foreign English teacher at least. Maybe it’s because the kids don’t want to learn, maybe it’s me. My lessons mainly consist of sports, music, games, and movies, since this keeps them from completely checking out. I doubt the students take much away from my class. Sometimes I put some work into a lesson, think of some stuff I think it’s important for them to know. Even when they are engaged and enjoy the lesson, they just throw away their worksheets on the way out of class. I believe that this is what standardized learning does to children; saps their imagination and desire to increase their knowledge, leaving them like robots who only study to pass the test. In a sense this is what it did for me, and if anything it’s far more pronounced in Korea. I don’t give grades and the majority of the students have already decided they don’t like English, I have convinced most them to like me (mostly just by playing soccer and joking around with them), but not the language.

My older host brother (12) wakes up before me and goes to bed after me, usually memorizing endlessly throughout the day. Korea’s ridiculously high standardized test scores come at a price, and it is the well being of their youth. When at home my host parents rarely attempt to communicate with me. I am told that small talk is not a thing in Korea, and that it’s perfectly natural for me to walk by my host mother every morning and not exchange a word or even a glance. Still it contributes to my feelings of loneliness; sometimes I think I would be happier in an apartment.

In the evenings my host brothers fight, and the younger one (9) whines worse than anything I have ever heard, fake crying just until he gets noticed. Then the host mot yells (also in an unbelievably whiny voice). Everything Koreans say is whiny, even when they’re angry. My host is a homemaker, but she also sometimes babysits for mentally handicapped children; one in particular who lives in our apartment complex. He can’t speak but still wines, though a lot less than the rest of my family. He usually shuffles about on his knees, though I've seen him pull himself up and walk on his feet, it seems he usually just can’t be bothered. I wonder who understands less of the goings on in the house, me or him. Sometimes we smile at each other as the mom is berating the kids for this or that, like were sharing a private joke of confusion.

My proudest moment as an English teacher in my first semester came on the soccer pitch. On the last Friday of every month after lunch the kids have a club day, which means they get to pursue sports, film, music or other activities. The athletic kids all choose soccer, and somehow it is has been decreed that the game always consists of second graders vs third graders (or 8^th graders vs 9^th graders if were going by American ages). The third graders always win. I don’t think there has been a game in the history of Seogwipo boy’s middle school in which the second graders have won. It’s not their fault, one year makes a bit difference at age, and the third graders are clearly faster, stronger and more skilled.

So why the hell would they make all of the less physically able players get squashed by the more physically able players once a month? I’m not sure, something to do with Korean ageism and putting the youngins in their place I guess. Anyway they asked me to play with the second graders to try and make it slightly fairer, and to put the foreigner in his place too. And they did the first few games, they beat us handily, scoring whenever they felt like it, and then replacing their best and fastest players with other third graders once the victory was ensured.

I realized the biggest problem was their speed. In all the other categories the second graders were almost as good, but the third graders could just boot the ball and then their two or three fastest players could run around the second graders and score pretty much whenever they felt like it. To be honest some of those 15 year olds are better than me, in a few years they’ll probably be a lot better than me, but as of right now none of them are faster than me. So the last game of the year I decide to just sit back on defense and not let them get any of them get those long balls that they normally use to decimate the poor second graders.

It worked surprisingly well. Every time they tried to kick it over our heads I beat them to the ball and passed it up to our forwards. It wasn't long before we put a few in the back of the net. As time was winding down we were up 4-3 to the surprise of everyone, including myself, and a group of third graders had gathered around their goal anxiously waiting to be vindicated in the belief the third graders would always beat second graders.

That’s when the coach made his last attempt at salvaging the game for the third graders, calling out that it was currently tied (even though it wasn't) and that next goal wins. A cheap move, but by now our team had realized we had nothing to be afraid of, and sure enough after a few minutes we scored the winning goal. Or we would have if one of the third graders standing behind the net hadn't run out and blocked the shot that had already passed the goal keeper and was destined to end the age based hierarchy of Seogwipo middle school.

But he was too late, everybody knew what had happened; the game was over and the second graders reigned victorious. My poor boys were too confused to celebrate, they didn't know whether to congratulate each other or apologize to the other team for beating them fair and square. So without further ado everyone packed up and went home. Now the third graders are gone and the second graders from last year are the new third graders. Our first sports day is this Friday, I wonder what will happen J. Now you may say, what in the world does this have to do with teaching English, to which I would respond, look how much better behaved my third graders are now!!