Still trying to eat

I just braved going to a neighborhood restaurant and it went off well!  (by neighborhood, I mean literally a restaurant in somebody’s yard) I explained that I was Migook and the woman was not giving me that just-tell-me-what-the-hell-you-want-to-order crap and was actually paying attention and reading my body language as I showed her that I didn’t understand/couldn’t read the menu, and I was also able to show her that since I couldn’t choose, maybe she could choose for me.  And the ajumma got it!  So she brought me a tofu and mushroom soup with six side dishes and rice.  And then I ordered makkolli (this region is known for its pine nuts, so the makkolli served is often pine nut – and it’s probably my favorite of all the makkolli’s) and it made me want to write.    I’ve got a lot of half drafts since school began two weeks ago, but their subject matter is too varied and verbose, so I’m just gonna start fresh.

We’ll start with the mundane, since really that’s what reporting about living in another country should cover anyway.

Like the weather

Last weekend I had an ambitious plan to shop in Seoul for guitar-making supplies.  I got off to a late start because my circadian rhythms were all thrown off by summer break, and by the time I got to the bus station it was 33 degrees celsius (that’s 91.4 degrees fahrenheit) with a humidity of 66%.  The previous week it was hovering around 29 degrees celsius with a humidity of about 80%, punctuated with rain.  With the rain comes a relief from the heat, followed by an OPPRESSIVE increase in humidity.

The weekend commute to Seoul

I’d decided to take the bus because it would take about the same amount of time as the subway, but have no transfers, as the bus was almost direct as the crow flies.  Plus, most Koreans prefer the buses (supposedly because it’s cheaper and that you can get a seat).  Well, I found out that’s not necessarily true.  My express bus ticket cost more than my usual Mugunwha train ticket, and I still had to pay for the subway, so there really wasn’t a cost savings.  (the train continues to sell tickets even after all the seats have been sold out) I waited a half hour for the bus, and when it arrived it was full and even packing people in the aisles, it was still full and half a dozen of us got turned away.  So then we had to wait for what was probably another 45-60 minutes (in the blistering sun – even Koreans were sweating and complaining and running for shelter) for another bus, and it too was packed.  Fortunately, we weren’t turned away. So I had to stand for an hour in a moving bus, getting whacked repeatedly by a backpack at every swerve the driver made.  At least on the train I would have been able to sit on the floor somewhere or gotten jostled less…

Oncoming traffic coming to my region was a bumper to bumper traffic jam the entire way.  The ideas I’ve entertained about renting a car dematerialized when I saw this, as all of Seoul (and it’s LA like yet more lawless traffic) heads east on the summer weekends.  Korea is, unfortunately, very much western in that the majority of households have at least one car, and they use their cars to a lesser but still awful degree as Americans.  Parking here anywhere in Korea (even in the small towns) is terrible as a result. Because I can’t read, I wouldn’t have any idea which areas are legal parking or illegal parking, and instead of parking lots many of the streets themselves are the parking lots, with a little booth in which an ajosshi walks to parking cars and demands parking money.  The parking garages are many (but not nearly enough) and are a harrowing experience to drive through.  Most parking stalls are too narrow and passengers must get out before being fully parked as there isn’t enough room to open the doors.  I’d say Koreans are actually very good drivers, in that they must all be experts at parking and they all have to have quick reflexes to stay clear of crazy taxi drivers and buses.  But there also seem to be more accidents here, as the intersection rules seem a little too mutable and many people do U-turns in undesignated and dangerous places.  And then there are those who really aren’t great drivers, and take a year to park perfectly and have slow reflexes and really shouldn’t even attempt to blend in with the a moving world that’s not going to accommodate them.  Still and all, it’s not the total mayhem of Thailand or the deathwish of Jamaica.

Getting off the bus at the DongSeoul station, (There are something like four different Express bus companies, each serving different areas and having different terminals, some with little or no English language accessibility) I found out it wasn’t AT the line 2 subway station (shoulda known) but a few blocks away.  Signage was poor or non-existent for foreigners, so I just tossed the dice and followed the majority of people walking away.  Once there, the subway station was so packed there was barely room to hold the people WAITING to cram onto the next car.  There’s nothing like standing in a bus, hanging on to nothing for dear life for an hour, only to face a crowd like that.  You really have to gather everything you’ve got in you to suppress your adrenaline and not run screaming in the other direction.  And then the doors open and you have to take a deep breathe and dive in and let the current suck you in.  Don’t get me wrong – Korea’s mass transit is GREAT.  Maybe the best in the world.  But it’s still inadequate.  The population concentration in Seoul is too huge.  They keep adding lines, but it’s not enough fast enough.

All in all, it took three hours for me to get to my destination.  So that pretty much blew away half of the list of places I would visit.

Sourcing materials

I went back to the cigar box place, bought a cigarette case (which was way over-priced but which I haven’t seen in Korea) to be able to bring some cigarettes with me without the tell-tale bulk in my purse showing.  I picked up another box, (which I feel bad about bothering the sales staff, as they have to climb for each one and I reject most of them) only to see afterward that the wood was cracked by a poorly made dovetail.

From there I headed to the Nokwon instrument market in Nokwon-dong, which is next to Insa-dong.  Let me just say it was daunting.  I must have seen 20 stringed instrument shops, 10 piano shops, a dozen amp & mike shops, etc., and I only covered part of it and couldn’t deal anymore and had to leave.  But I did manage to eye three guitar places with machine heads (tuners) for when I get to that point in the project.  Only none of them looked as cool as I wanted.  Then the strings and their brands is also very daunting and I need to educate myself further before I buy anything.  And with the long commute and its stress, maybe it’d be better for me to just order things I need from America, that is, if I can find anyone who will ship internationally.

After I left I got disoriented as to which way Insa-dong was, so I stopped at a fruit slushy stand and asked directions.  ACTUALLY, the fruit slushy vendor caught my eye first and asking directions was just an excuse to talk to him.  Or maybe I caught his eye.  I think it was mutual.  But then after I got my directions, I didn’t know what to do except follow them.  Plus, I had a list to try and complete…maybe I will go back and buy more slushies.  Somebody has to love poor fruit drink vendors, since I’m sure most Korean women won’t have anything to do with someone in such a low position.  I just want to add that everything about his demeanor and appearance was elegant and graceful…

Once in Insadong, I hit all the hanji paper stores, looking for an octagonal box shape.  None quite fit the bill, and then I found one at Hanji Story.  I was sent upstairs (the instructions were: go up stairs.  go straight.  turn.  The reality was turn right, go up the stairs, turn left, go straight, the store is on your right)  The second floor storefront was only box shapes and findings.  (which were really cool and I have to go back and get some.  Really ornate hinges, locks, and clasps made of brass, some of them looking hand made)  I wanted to look around more but the woman was in a hurry to shoo me out as it was past closing time.  So the box, and the leather-looking shoe-polish dyed hanji paper I’d bought at a smaller cheap and popular hanji place, and I am ready to make a box.  I don’t know what I’m doing, but I do have a clue, so I think I can assemble it and cover it without having to shell out huge bucks for a class.

Normally, I’d keep going and/or find a place to spend the night in Seoul, but the commute there and the blistering heat just made me want to go home and turn the air conditioner on and sleep, so that’s what I did.

******

and here is where I insert a draft about returning to school…

Back at school and glad to have a schedule to life again, though haven’t quite adjusted yet, as it’s 2 am and I just took a shower after waking up.  (this always happens after time off, when I just nap whenever I need to and my days get turned into three waking segments divided by naps of unknown duration that circle the clock irrespective of diurnal or nocturnal calling)

I did research all through the break and have a huge amount of media to sit through, and managed to (almost) put together about 6 really nice lesson plans, but have yet to take on or scrape the surface of the American road trip.  The intro power point took forever, and it’s basically a map depicting westward expansion and multi-culturalism.  The Indians get pushed around and the Spaniards disappear, and the French mix with the slaves, and the slaves move north and west, and new flags from new countries keep appearing until it’s a huge glorious mess.

I have a little driver in a car and he’s driving around from region to region, stopping by points of culture foreign students might never see on t.v.  I was going to start in my home town area of Detroit and got caught up in film footage of how it’s deteriorated.  It seems like an industrial Havana, where deserted buildings have been stripped of anything of value, including things that maintain structural integrity.  Makes me want to go back, almost.  When homes can be had for $50 bucks and there is nowhere to go but up.

But I also know what desperation does to people and remember too that physical harm was a very real possibility there.  Thinking of the young urban renewal-minded couple I knew who lived there with two preschool age kids, and how Stella got gang raped during a B&E in her home and how she was never quite right after.  This was very close to 8 mile, on the black side, not Eminem’s white trash side, but the white flight black side with the once lovely homes totally decaying except for their brick.  Just the way you had to think differently/plan for any eventuality as you were leaving the house (my ex. husband’s boyhood home) and then pay for your goods through inch thick plexi-glass, my mother-in-law pointing out that the person at 2 o’clock was a gang member, and the person to my left across the street had just gotten out of prison and the person we are passing’ son got killed last year and this girl lives with her mom and grandma and six other siblings: two generations of welfare moms in one home.  This is something people can romanticize or discount, but staying with them I got a very real sense of how hopelessness feels for everyone unable to rise above their circumstance.  It’s just the worst injustice in the world to tell people living like that, that they don’t want anything bad enough to change things, when they try and nothing materializes.  You try and try less after enough times.

And then I got to Appalachia and was appalled to find out that nothing has changed since Bobby Kennedy’s war on poverty there.  Where hill folk too poor to afford a car to drive down unimproved roads many miles to work that doesn’t exist have to pull out their own teeth in lieu of seeing a dentist, where children might get one meal a day and Walmart seems like Disneyland and where all everyone wants to do is numb the pain with cheap drugs.  Gosh, that description really sounds like Jamaica…maybe instead of the Peace Corps I should sign up for Americorps.

I want to show the kids how awesome it is to have this melting pot and how valuable preserving culture is.  And I also want them to see average Americans and poor Americans, because the only fare they get here is about the high-powered, hedonistic and narcissistic upper class.

Coming back to school, though, my lofty ambitions have quickly been humbled.  I’ve since started a series on basics like colors, fabrics, and how to express needs and desires shopping in English.  So they don’t have to ever experience what I experience here.

******

and the world just keeps on adopting indescriminantly

I spent most of Sunday revisiting all the adoption boards, etc. I am a member of.  The pendulum seems to be swinging back.  An NPR anchor just released a book glorifying international adoption and that’s all the buzz both for its arguments that adult adoptees disagree with and for all the attention it’s getting, and we have to fight like dogs to get any airplay…

I have >almost< gotten to the point where I find myself thinking like the fray and wanting to just spew angry rants, but not quite.  Even Jane, who is a saint, can get snarky at times on her blog, and I try to avoid that, but man, sometimes I really do want to just be snarky.  I am a lot less politically sensitive, though, and like to distance myself from the adoptee organizations enough so I can just speak without reservation about how wrong I think Holt is, how much I hate Holt’s influence, and how certain things like dual citizenship, etc. piss me off.  Other adoptees talk about this stuff in passing on their blogs or rant in private conversations, but I’m happy to spew this out uncensored publicly.  But being older, I just can’t do snarky well even if I want to!  I guess that disqualifies me as a real blogger!  ha ha ha!

I DID read for the first time whole sections of adoptee humor.  I thought you might like this one:  (new to me but maybe old news)

I mean, who can argue with sponge bob?

Actually, I find the whole vilifying of the celebrities amusing.  Everyone claims they are not like them.  Yet how different are they, really?  People who feel entitled but don’t have the means can resent those that do have the means and distance themselves from similar criticism.  But those that have the means justify their actions for all the same philanthropic, magnanimous yet actually self-serving reasons.

All of the adopting world claim it’s for the kids, but really – who’s it really for?  And what about the kids’ moms?  The one guy who responded quite eloquently on my holtsurvivor blog talked about how he gives money to (adoption agency) programs that aid society and how he has video footage from his kid’s mom explaining her reasons for relinquishment and that he sends her updates and that the kids are free to see her if they want when they have reached the age of majority.

I closed comments to that (because it was interfering with life) but I did wish I had asked (and be given a REAL answer):

Do you think the mom would have made the decision to give up her children if she lived in a just society?  Are the kids orphaned because of social injustice and not the mom’s self preservation?

What does sending kids away for a “better life” say about global inequities?  How does taking their children improve their society?  How can you claim to be concerned about the child’s country?  WHY CAN’T ANYONE ADMIT THEY’RE EXPLOITING A COUNTRY?

Do you really think money and an occasional photo and update can comfort someone who’s lost their child?

If you know who the mom is, then why wait until the children are legal adults to allow them to have genuine knowledge of or a relationship with the person who gave them life?

There is so much guilt and fear driving adoptive parents.  Guilt because they know someone’s situation was exploited.  Guilt because adoption isn’t REALLY natural.  Fear that the child will abandon them if they have access to their natural parents.  Really, the only reason adoptees abandon their adoptive parents is if they feel betrayed by them.  Preventing the adoptee from access to what’s accessible about their identity is existential betrayal.  In this way, adoptive parents create a self-fulfilling prophesy when they do these things.  And even if the adoptee doesn’t act out, that betrayal will always be between them.

******

damn, need more makkolli

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I find it amusing that as soon as I realize I need to distance myself from adoption to have a “normal” life, I suddenly start writing about adoption twice as much!

Part of this is because when there’s no pain, it’s obviously easier to write about it, and the other part of it is that behind the scenes, adoption has been invading my life to a greater annoying degree.

My last posts on adoptionsurvivor and  holtsurvivor has generated the most irritating yet typical adoptive parent responses — you know the kind — the ones who refuse to recognize their own entitlement or privilege and who insist on finding some justification socio-politically for it.  It drives me insane, their need to have their actions validated.  I don’t care if they acted in ignorance or made mistakes or were self-absorbed jerks in the past if they’re doing all right by their children now.  But instead of tossing the ball with their kids and reading them stories and doing fulfilling things for themselves like taking an art class or reading a novel, etc., instead of that they’re all over the internet trying to defend themselves.  If MY mom had spent so much time absorbed with adoption, I would have been nauseated being around her.  Seriously.  I’m glad she wasn’t obsessed with it.  I’m not glad she didn’t recognize my needs.  But I already felt enough like a social experiment and can’t imagine what the children of this new breed of hyper-vigilant parents must feel.  But I digress…

In addition to that, after posting my BBC interview on the teacher board, I got inundated with a) spleen-filled dissection from this one guy who likes to harass people and play devil’s advocate and b) very thorough inquiry from a lot of Caucasian people living here in Korea who are married to Koreans and fascinated by the topic.  Let’s just say it was A LOT of work, and I had to include references, links, etc.  They didn’t miss anything.  And it was exhausting.

Fortunately, as a result of that, my thinking has kind of crystalized a lot and I realized I’ve been framing these issues the wrong way, and the following is the result:

QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION AGENCIES

Why are the adoption agencies against improvements to social services for unwed mothers?  Shouldn’t an institution that purportedly cares about children be enthusiastic about preserving original families whenever possible?

Why does Holt International say they comply with the Hague Convention when they source babies from Holt Korea, and Korea does NOT comply with the Hague Convention or the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child?  Isn’t that deceptive?

Why does Holt continue to say children will die if they are not adopted from S. Korea?

How can Holt say there is no conflict of interest operating unwed mother’s homes when their primary operation is exporting infants?

Why does Holt have associations with over 22 hospital maternity wards?

Why does Holt call infants motherless and homeless when the children were not abandoned or found on the street?  When the reason they are orphans is because the majority of the children’s mothers were counseled into giving up their children.  And the mothers comply because with inadequate social services they have no real options left them.

Why does Holt spend government grants for Post adoption resources on adoption advertising campaigns?

Why do adoption industry CEO’s make six figure incomes?

Why does Holt continue to portray Korean children as products of a war-torn country?

How can Holt afford to support a touring rock band promoting adoption?

Why does Holt spend $600,000+ each year on adoption advertising when there are wait lists for adopting?

Why has Holt never had an exit strategy after their war relief efforts (their rationale behind starting international adoption in the first place) after the war ended?  It’s been 56 years intervening in Korean society…

QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT S. KOREA

Why does the government not have access to the identity papers of all Korean adoptees?

Why are those papers left in the hands of private agencies?

Why is there no third party oversight of adoption practices?

Why won’t S. Korea comply with international conventions concerned with ethics in adoption?

Why is the 13th ranking member nation of the OECD unable to provide adequate social services to its own people?

Why do Korean companies pay millions for cosmetic surgery for disfigured children in third world countries while disfigured Korean children sit in orphanages?

Why is disfigurement grounds for becoming an orphan in Korea?

QUESTIONS TO ASK KOREANS

How can there by any honor in preserving family honor by forcing your daughters to relinquish their flesh and blood?

What is more valuable, denying indiscretions and their outcomes?  or preventing the outcomes of indiscretions?

QUESTIONS TO ASK FOREIGN POTENTIAL  ADOPTIVE PARENTS (you)

Why do adoptive parents (AP’s) and potential adoptive parents (PAP’s)  ignore all of the questions above?

How can Korea ever hope to establish their own social programming when international adoption agencies remove the government’s responsibilities?

Why do most AP’s not bother to even come to investigate the conditions and culture of the country their orphan came from?

Would you want to be raised a Caucasian minority by an all Korean family in Korea?

Can you not see that for each of the 200,000 children that have been sent out of the country, at least that many Koreans live with the grief of losing a child?

Do you really believe that many children were intentionally forsaken???

Shouldn’t the need for adoption programs in any country eventually become obsolete?  With Korea being the first and oldest source country, and model for all international adoption programs to follow, what does its long established institutionalization say about the marriage of charity and adoption?

CONCLUSION

This adoptee is constantly accused of not being objective, which is ridiculous, because it is impossible for an adoptee to be objective about adoption.  Objectivists merely report.  Subjects understand on a deeper level, and history shows us that major shifts of consciousness have followed policy changes instigated by those who have been subjugated to injustice.

Despite whatever bad and good feelings/experiences this adoptee has had, this adoptee is still a rational / logical being, and logic tells this adoptee that the adoption solution is no solution at all.

Until adoption industry pressure on this society is curtailed, and until law is enacted to preserve families and the civil rights of adoptees, and until PAP money stops perverting politics and driving market forces, the Korean people will never get a real opportunity to evolve or grow into their civilized potential.

I need to strengthen the part about Questions to ask Korea, as that’s not thorough enough or clear enough, but I’m pretty happy with it.  I also realize that all my many blogs/compartmentalizations have many different gems for people exploring the topic of transracial international adoption, but that those things get eclipsed by my personal story and voice.

Now, the personal made public is/has been my gift to those who can, unfortunately, relate to it.  But it also is a target for those who want to dismiss any of my arguments, saying that I can’t be rational because I have “an axe to grind.”  Or I’m a worse case scenario.  Or I’ve probably got issues.  To which is say DUH!  Of COURSE I have an axe to grind!  I believe in justice!  And of course I’ve got issues!  I’m human!  I have emotions!  And maybe I AM a worse case scenario – but none of those are mutually exclusive from my emotions being like any other abandoned person / exiled person / assimilated person / discriminated person / made-to-be grateful person.  THOSE are all there too, and my being all of the above means I’ve had to sort through and organize a lot more thoroughly than most others do.  I might just be on to something.

So what I’m doing is making a new blog to just treat the generic topics.  I’m taking the best of/most generic from my blog posts and the new site will hold those as reference material, as well as posts like the one quoted above.  And it’s going to be called, Ask an Adoptee.  And other adoptees are welcome to guest answer if they want.  It is NOT a dialogue.  People can ask a question, the adoptee will answer, and they can comment amongst themselves, but I wash my hands of it once answered, and won’t suffer any abuse nor get into a debate because frankly, I don’t have the time.

Anyway, I just realized that even if I wanted to, (which I really do!) I can’t turn my back on all of this crap.  I just will have to find a way to balance things better.

On the way home tonight, in a taxi, a narrator speaks in Korean over a sappy music track and I KNEW it was going to be about adoption.  And then I hear a familiar voice.  Molly Holt speaking in her distinctive voice in near perfect Korean.  And then I hear them talking about Hole-tuh.  And I’m sitting there trapped in this car being forced to listen to what I know is a nauseating characterization of how much Holt cares about orphans…cue sappy music again.

Well, I turned to the taxi driver and said, ” Hole-tuh.  nanun ibyeong-a.  I HATE Hole-tuh.”  And we arrived at the station and I got out.

No rest for the weary.

One day I had about four teachers working on finding me a source for hardwoods.  It’s really surprising to me how unresourceful they are!  They can’t understand why I want to go to a real brick and mortar building in person, because it seems that all of Korea orders everything via the internet.  Even the head teacher who does woodworking buys his wood sight un-seen through the internet.  None of them can fathom that I want to view the grain or eye the wood for it’s straightness or choose an individual piece for its color variation or…He did point me out how to get to the Korean woodworking “cafes” but google translation barely penetrates that and I can’t read any of the content, and obviously nobody is wanting to invest any more time on it.  :(

Hopefully my co-teacher will find some time, and I gave her the links.  She has seen photos of the art installation, so I could tell she took my request as not a trivial one!

I mentioned my hardwood needs to the Architecture teacher, and he took me down to  some rooms I didn’t know existed:  the school’s huge woodshop.  The school is remodeling, and there was lumber laying around all over the place and he told me I could take anything I wanted.  It was like walking on a bridge to nowhere which just expands and expands in front of your eyes and suddenly you can see fantasy land appear…He couldn’t really understand why I needed hardwood and why I didn’t want the pine.  Half of the wood was some native Korean wood – kind of dark – almost the color of a dark beech or a light walnut, and harder than pine, but I still didn’t trust that it wouldn’t bow if strung tight over an extended period of time. These pieces were to frame openings and doors and much too big, so when I indicated how small I needed them to be, he then showed me all of the machines and told me any time I wanted some wood cut, that we could stay after school and he would cut them for me.

Speaking of trees, the trees that appear so fluffy when seen from a distance are the Ginko’s.  They have these long branches that don’t split off into more branches, and the leaves are really tight to the branch, and the trees are fleshed out by a profusion of long skinny arms, vs. dividing into many sub branches,  kind of like the monkey puzzle tree.  Now one is a deciduous, and one is a coniferous, but it’s curious to my ignorant eye how both of these living fossils seem so similar to each other:  one spiny / one fluffy…

The machines were all huge industrial cast iron things and seemed scarier than I remembered.  These table saws and band saws, etc.  were big enough to make the Flintstone-like massive furniture you see all over Korea.  When I told him how small my project was, and that I needed hand tools, he took me to a tool closet and pulled out almost everything he thought I would need.  (but not even close) and they were all also too big for such fine work.  Like a hand saw that was two feet long…etc. I thanked him profusely, of course.  Too bad I didn’t have some pine furniture-making project.  (I’ve already acquired waaaay too many possessions as it is during the course of 1.5 years)

I went on the F-class teacher board and asked if anyone knew where to buy hardware and salvaged goods, and tomorrow I go to check out that area.  My gyopo friend also told me about the Nogwan Arcade, which is a music instrument market, so that also is on my list, so I can hopefully find tuners, fret wire, and guitar strings. Sounds like a BB Translation service kind of day…

I also found some great super-shallow pie tins and flat steam trays at DAISO for $2-$3 each, which will make awesome resonators, but am still searching for a box big enough.

Who knew getting a stick of wood would be so hard.  Anyway, who cares, it’s an interesting challenge.

TGIF

The first week of the second semester down, and the third week of continuous ’round the clock lesson-planning, dozens of videos and a thousand images later and my index finger is about to fall of and my arm has pains shooting up it.   I make it harder than it has to be (like everything) but I just hate compromising…

I feel sorry for the person who replaces me, as I’ve set the bar pretty high.  Just yesterday, the co-teacher was asking why I can’t put a picture on the cover of the daily broadcast book I wrote, and I kind of snapped at her.  “It’s GOT a graphic on it!  It’s MINIMALIST…Besides, the last teacher only put ONE picture in the book, on the cover, and my book has pictures on every page, is done in publisher with text boxes and word art, uses different fonts, and.”  She stopped short and said (umm) maybe we don’t need a picture on the cover.      …    Damn straight.  So I stayed late and put a picture on the cover.  Downloaded a line-drawing of a hoodie:  front and back for the respective covers, and basically designed it so it looked like the book jacket was the hoodie.  Curses.  I am doing all the things I advised my friend not to do about undermining our value by giving away free work.  Actually, I don’t mind being conscientious or being proud of my work, but when it raises expectations, and my arm has repetitive stress pain, then I guess that’s when I get snippy.

BUT today, I was told I could purchase teaching aids and was granted permission to have an after school conversation class for pay.  So I’ll stay at school even later (already stay an hour and a half late to take advantage of the cheap and yummy school dinners) but what the hell, there’s nothing going on at my apartment except randomness centered around this stupid laptop and total lack of discipline and sleeping and waking up at God awful hours in the morning.  Plus I get to hang out with students who like me.  Yayy! Maybe I can get them to teach me some Korean…

One of the lessons this week (resuscitated from last year) went over really well and the co-teacher said, “this is really fun!”  I could tell she really saw the value of the lesson, too.  (I like to make the kids do multi-disciplinary things like draw and describe their drawings, so it’s their own story and their own voice)  And then after class, the proactive co-teacher goes and gives ice cream to all the students who participated.  (goddamnit, wtf…)  First, she wanted me to pick the two best and I told her that everyone who tries is the best, so I don’t like having to create losers… The other co-teacher grudgingly did her part and instead of prodding the kids to participate, she just hung back and kind of pleaded with them.  Almost a half hour of this went on and I was just getting more and more disgusted with her.  It’s just weird to hear someone (this is by inference) saying, “Oh, please…come on…look at the poor foreign teacher…”  I was, admittedly, getting pretty dejected and thinking what is the goddamned point of me being here and what is my job and what a waste of taxpayer money and…when two more mature students came up to the board about seven minutes before class ended.  They kind of had this oh-please-just-quit-whining-for-the-love-of-god-it’s not THAT big a deal to work so hard to ignore you, so if I do it maybe you’ll shut up attitude.  So there you have it.  English education in the public schools is entirely dependent on the level of support you get from your co-teacher.  But, to be fair, the proactive/stronger teacher is also a kill joy and her students really don’t have as much creativity, energy or fun as the passive teacher’s students do.  But the weak teacher also has twice as many problems with insubordination…but as irritating as it is, it’s so wonderful I’M not left alone to manage the class in a language I can’t speak.  It’s much better to occasionally be the poor foreign teacher than to be the control freak foreign teacher…

There is this horrible tight rope the public school English education walks.  It’s all about personal economics.  They’ve taught the kids that the only gains in life are obtainable through metrics.  And since there’s nothing that can be measured for speaking English, there is nothing to be gained by speaking English.  And so, the public schools have kind of painted themselves into a corner.  Those Korean English teachers who recognize that English is also about communication know that the system screwed up horribly and it’s almost irreparable for the current high school students.  (but the teachers themselves are also products of this education, so can’t really comprehend alternatives)  So their expectations are usually very low.  If the kids aren’t pissed off at Speaking class, that’s something in and of itself.  So if some of the kids sleep through this class, at least the kids aren’t pissed off at English.  And in a way, I can appreciate this.  Imagine if you’d spent four or five years being forced to take a subject you’ll never use and having grammar drilled into you and being forced to memories words you’ll never use that are only for an exam that your entire future hinges upon.  If the kids aren’t pissed off by this time, it’s really remarkable.

So what always happens after a few days of this is I start just rolling with it and let the classroom dynamics play itself out and forget all about having any control or pre-conceived ideas of how it should work, and then things sort of fall into place with a logic of their own.  For a time there, the co-teachers would kind of look surprised when I would be easy-going about something, and then that surprise would be exchanged for something akin to gratitude.  And then they see me putting so much effort into the lessons, and I think they are very happy with my work.  So I feel like there’s a certain amount of teamwork going on now so I’m less and less the visiting foreigner to them.  (thought it seems to stop at professional relationship)

In the classroom, I’m also finding there are always one or two in every class that are outgoing, and kind of western in their thinking, who manage to turn everything to their social advantage, so pandering to their egos and their enjoyment makes it look interesting to the rest of the kids.  There is really a pack mentality kind of thing here.  Maybe this is true in all schools everywhere, but I am not so old I don’t remember what being in a classroom was like, and it seemed more complex than that where I grew up…

The nice thing about my job here in the country and this particular school is precisely that the kids aren’t pissed off at all.  In addition, the school is too small for there to be huge egos and power politics amongst the teachers.  And there are about a half dozen geeky kids who are like a throw back to Leave it to Beaver days of politeness and respect, which is really genuine and very nice as well.  Except for one or two lingering boy crushes, my celebrity status as the new foreigner has kind of worn off, but each day is met with lots of equally friendly and enthusiastic grammatically wrong scripted greetings in the hallways, which I have zero idea how to respond to, but manage to communicate something friendly to them nonetheless, though I’m sure in someone else’s hands there would be high-fiving, etc. going on.  But I am what I am…

Aside from the one or two times at a lesson’s first introduction where prior to my bubble being burst when I actually have really lofty expectations of “this is so cool” which doesn’t materialize and it’s momentary disappointment, I really do like this job.  They watch and listen and don’t hate it.  So as lame as it sounds, that’s a good thing and progressive.

I owe Mihwa an email.  She says it is good I am busy, so I will forget the loneliness.  So true.

I no longer need to talk about growing up a transracial adoptee (I wish) because John Raible, who is my new hero, says all there is to say in this video:

Remarkable, brilliant, profound.

BRAVO!

(standing ovation with tears)

See what my son’s been up to!

I’m just beaming…