A gentleman’s daughter was living in Haksan, and one day, she went to Seokcheon well for water.  She drank the water from a bucket upon which the sunlight is brightly reflected, and she gave unexpected birth to a baby.  She felt ashamed that an unmarried woman had given birth to a child so that she wrapped the baby up and threw him away at the Hakbaui.  A few days later, the lady went back to Hakbaui and found a white crane came there to cover the boy with its wings, and in the early morning the crane put a red-colored fruit into the baby’s mouth and disappeared.  She realized the infant was no ordinary child and raised him.  The baby became a Buddist priest and attained the highest position of Guksa (National Priest).  After returning to Haksan, he constructed Gulsansa Temple.

Hakbaui is known as the place where Boemil (810-889) a main god in the Gangnueng Danoje Festival, was thrown away when he was born without a father.  The tale of birth for Boemil Guksa (National Priest) involving Seokcheon and Hakbaui is portrayed in Jodangjib of “Samgukyusas (The Story of the Three Kingdoms)’ and in the local history of Gangneung written by “Imyeongji’.

Just past Wonju, the topography starts to get more and more rugged:  it makes the “mountains” around Seoul look like little hills.  But passing by them, I felt like I was in the Appalachians again.  It’s because they are so furrowed, so there are sooo many more ridges and hollows to them.  Much more so than in the Pacific Northwest.  I really really like it:  it makes each little hollow seem so much more intimate, as if there are many secret places.  Plus like in the Appalachians, there are many more deciduous trees than in the Pacific Northwest, and I like that as well – Maybe I wouldn’t like it so much in the winter, but here in the spring, the canopy is just this thick, thick, blanket of green.

Unlike the Appalachians, however, the foliage seems much much thicker.  The deciduous trees here aren’t as delicate and less sunlight comes through them.  And the pines are quite beefy as well.  The variety I saw the most of were these pictured above – with thick, slightly crooked reddish trunks, and the needles appear quite large and in lush clumps.  It has a more ancient feel to it.  And quite lovely is the fact that I saw not one clear-cut logging area anywhere.

One anecdote we heard was that Danoje was very important for appeasing the Gods (which reside in the mountains).  One of the few natural disasters the Gangneum area has had, a small typhoon which wiped out many buildings and livelihoods, happened the same year the highway was erected through the mountains.  So afterward, the city decided that preserving the festival was something they could not risk stopping, and I guess scholars think the rituals during this festival have been going on for a thousand years.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to the beach, but it is only 20 minutes away and supposed to be quite nice.

IMG_0711, originally uploaded by Almost-Human.

Too bad this was not on our itinerary – all that way and i missed this puppet show! wah!!!

Getting to the Danoje festival in Gangneung was a harrowing experience.  My co-teacher decided it would be faster if I went to a local bus station instead of the Express Bus Terminal.  So she looked it up and gave me instructions on how to get there.

ENCOUNTER #1

Only the bus station turned out to be a parking lot with about four stalls and the ticket office was a kiosk and snack shop.  The ticket kiosk had only a small aperture for pushing money through with some drilled holes to speak through.  I stepped into the snack area and sure enough, the ticket vender was accessible over the snack counter.  So I tried to ask him how to get to Gangneung, but he just seemed rude and shoo’d me away.  So then I tried to show him what was written on the paper I had so he could read it, thinking he didn’t understand my pronunciation.  But this time he started yelling at me.  Other people were also in the snack shop by now, and I tried to show the man where I needed to go, but he got really really pissed off and was screaming at me and pushing me out of the shop and I swear he raised his hand to hit me, but I leaped out of the way and then I just started to cry and found myself doing this frustration jumping up and down and the people outside didn’t have any clue WHAT was going on.  So I called the translation line for foreigners and had a bitch of a time explaining what was going on, and finally I shoved the phone into a passerby’s hands and asked them to please talk Korean with a translator.

The man spoke with her, handed me the phone, and she explained I was at the wrong bus stop and that he would lead me to another bus stop.  So I followed the man a few block and he just pointed at another kiosk and went on his way.  So I had to, once again, ask about getting to Gangneung, and once again I WAS AT THE WRONG BUS STOP.  So I had to repeat the whole calling the translator again.  And a second time a stranger was stopped by me and thankfully was willing (although not happy about it) to walk me to yet another bus stop.  Yet, once again I WAS AT THE WRONG BUS STOP.  The third time I called the translator, I asked her to please just tell me where a real bus terminal was, and she asked my location.  “How am I supposed to know that?  I’ve just been walked around many blocks three different times!”  “Well, I can’t help you if you can’t tell me where you are!”  “But I’m a foreigner – and there’s no street signs.”  “is there a wedding parlor near you?”  “No – I don’t know what a wedding parlor looks like – I’m a foreigner.”  (irritated now) “I KNOW you’re a foreigner. But I can’t help you if you can’t tell me where you’re at.”  “Look,”  I say, “I can probably find my way back to the subway station eventually.  Can you just tell me where the nearest REAL bus station is?”  Frustrated, she has me hand the phone to yet another stranger.  And finally, a half a block away, he leads me to another bus stop with a ticket kiosk.  And he stays with me long enough to make sure I’ve purchased a ticket.  I offer to buy him some coffee, but he just says. “bye.” and takes off.

ENCOUNTER #2

I’m at the Danoje festival market.  Whatever itinerary there was listed has fallen apart, and we foreigners are left to wander by ourselves for several hours.  We don’t really know the schedule of events or have a map of the grounds, so any wandering we do is probably at the expense of missing something cool elsewhere.  But there’s no choice BUT to walk.  So that’s what I do.  At one point I see a big crowd around some men hand stretching Chinese noodles and I start to film it.  Only they start yelling for some reason.  The man is yelling, “adjumoni.  camera.”  But I think he is talking to someone else.  One, no one has ever called me adjumoni before, which is the polite way to say adjumma, which is the same as madame or m’am in English – but it’s typically only used to refer to the older women, and most everyone here has told me I look ten years younger than my age.  Two, I am using a video camera and not a camera, so I think this confirms that he is talking about someone else.  But then he looks straight at me and starts really screaming at me in Korean. The whole crowd is looking at me like I’m the biggest asshole in the entire planet and what the hell is wrong with me, am I deaf or something?  God I love being an ethnic Korean foreigner in Korea…

Here’s the footage of the noodle guy before I realized he was talking to me…shortly after this he chews me out…

ENCOUNTER #3

It is 9 pm and we are to meet our groups at 10 pm.  I haven’t eaten and am starving, so I walk down a side street where there are a half dozen outdoor restaurants and try and order some food.  Because my bag is stuffed with a change of clothing and my Korean textbooks, I don’t have my restaurant guide with me.  So I finally decide on a restaurant where it looks the most possible for a single person to eat:  no barbeque grill.  photos of dishes that look like small enough to be single serving.  I sit down and after an eternity I am finally noticed and I point to one of the photos.  Then comes an entire litany of something negative in Korean.  And then she points to a price and then comes another deluge of negative Korean something.  So then I point to another couple sitting next to me and the pancakes they are eating.  “Same please.”  I say.  She speaks with the couple and asks them for help talking with me, and they don’t know any English.  Then she goes back to saying the same thing she said the first time.  By this time, I am sooo hungry and sooo frustrated.  I just stand up and express the universal look of dejection that can’t be mollified and I walk away.

ENCOUNTER #4

Walking away from the restaurant, almost in tears again, I see my friend Willie’s friend Silus with another Korean.  I beg them if I can join them, and they say sure.  I tell them how starving I am, and they order a seafood pancake for me.  I wolf down the pancake and the three of us share a soju.  Turns out Jin is a gyopo and in the same group as I am, so I finally have a buddy to hang out with.  It is interesting to learn what his experience is like being a gyopo and teaching English.  Just like my name must be Leanne here, he is not allowed to speak Korean at school, even though he is conversant (not fluent, but definitely conversant) He doesn’t encounter as many horrific situations as I do because he knows enough Korean to avoid them or talk his way out of them.

ENCOUNTER #5

In the evening, at the Hanouk, most of the teachers sit outside to talk for a while and share their tales of teaching.  One of them is especially interested in me because his brother is an adoptee, and he came here sort of following his brother learning about the culture.  Now his brother has gone, but he has stayed and is marrying a Korean girl soon.  The teachers wind down and turn in fairly early.

Outside, Jin and the translator and I talk.  Jin wants to get some more soju and she hooks us up with a man heading to a convenience store.  She and I get to know each other while he is off getting soju. She is married to a foreigner who teaches in Indiana.  She is home to care for her ailing mother, and so she volunteers to translate to keep her boredom at bay and because she likes to share her culture with foreigners.  She’s a real sweetheart and we talk a lot about her experience with culture shock coming to America and her impressions of America.

Afterwards, Jin and another gyopo named Jim (hope I’m not confusing his name with someone else) and I sit up talking about the recent missile testing by North Korea, about shamanism, about nature, about where we draw the line between charletans and underlying belief systems, about religion in general, about what it means to be here in Korea.  Jim is a fascinating guy – the kind of delicate sensitive uber intellectual that always manages to make every conversation a deep thought provoking one.  Jin is super accessible and the near perfect opposite complement to Jim.  We get yelled at once because the doors of the hanoaks are literally only paper thin.  But, like the students in my class, our momentary compliance quickly goes back to its natural state.  We talk until 3 a.m.

Once upon a time, I used to be most impressed with the environment around me, but lately I’ve become more like my friend Joe, where the backdrop isn’t half as important as the connections you make.  I don’t make many of these, so talking until 3 a.m. under the moonlight (and searchlight regularly illuminated sky, due to the nearby military bases) with total strangers on the stoop of a perfectly preserved Chosun dynasty hanoak is pretty special indeed.

In typical fashion, I didn’t get anyone’s contact information.  Maybe that makes it even more perfect.

Last Friday, my teacher’s class took me out for a teacher appreciation dinner.

The one male teacher didn’t show up, so it was a girl’s night out.  Which was interesting, because I got to explore a little of what it means to be a woman in Korea.  I can’t say it sounds like the greatest thing in the world, but hopefully it is improving.  The married tend to feel burdened by their lives, (I’ve even been told by married women, upon hearing I am divorced, “you’re lucky to have divorced so young.”) and the unmarried feel pressure to get married:  again, it sounds very similar to the lives of women in the United States during the 50’s.

The school nurse, whose English level is very high, told me of all the English teachers she’s had, and she’s had many, she likes my approach best, because I force them to express their thoughts and opinions and not just repeat dialogs.  I found out there have been three English teachers before me at this high school, and they all had a difficult time there.  Except the last one who was a guy.  He went to every church service, allowed Mr. Lee to skip every class, and used a lot of handouts.  He was there three years.

When I got back from Gangneung today, Y said that all the teachers were talking about me while I was gone.   She said that I have taught them all something.  That most Koreans would change their positions given what I was up against.  But I didn’t change and held my position.  That I fought for what was right no matter what.  She said they think I am courageous and beautiful and strong.

Both Y and I were nursing ailing stomachs and bowels and she asked what we do when we have those kind of problems.  So I told her we eat bland food like toast or rice or a banana.  She went and bought me a box of some kind of bread.  “Not delicious.  But healthy.”  and then drove me home with them.  I love Y.

And then my tutor is the greatest.  Somehow, my one hour lessons seem to stretch on to two or more hours every time.  Because we get to talking about other things.  It’s really great to be able to speak with someone who is fully Korean but fluent in English.  I can ask her questions about culture and get a thorough explanation of their subtleties, and I can complain about problems I encounter with culture shock, and she totally gets it because she’s traveled a lot and doesn’t give me that buck-up and shut-up smile that the other Koreans give me.  She’s also so aware of western culture that she recognizes when some of the things we encounter are unreasonable expectations from Koreans.  Most of her friends are also adoptees, and she’s totally aware of all we’ve been through and then continue to go through once we move here.  She’s the first Korean I’ve met who’s offered to just hang out – her suggestion – and she’s always offering to help above and beyond the lessons.  I need to get her a belated teacher’s day present, since I didn’t know about it when I should have gotten her something.

More on my trip to the Danoje festival after I get home and can upload videos and photos.

However, my being gone for two days (hmm…is THAT why they let me go?) was used to stage a coups.  Seems the female co-teacher has a lesson plan all written out, and after my last boy’s class, Mr. Lee informs me he will be teaching tomorrow.  “something more interesting to the students.”

grrrrr… fine.  You just teach the students how to speak English, Mr. Lee   Just give me the airfare back home, since you don’t need a native English teacher.

ADDED:

You know, the more I think about this the madder I get.  No warning.  No consultation.  Just – I’m taking over.  You’re boring.

Forgot to add that Mr. Lee actually provided some classroom management today, and I wish I had never seen it.  He took his stick and whacked a kid on the skull with it.  Very hard.  I felt really bad for the kid, especially since it seemed like an arbitrary choice.

The old fart can barely speak English at all.  I think this is just retribution to try and undercut my credibility since I complained about his almost total lack of attendance.  His English level is extremely low and the students skills are double his.  So I don’t doubt that he can’t understand me, but his assertion that the students can’t understand me is projecting.  The reason I believe this is because my other small classes the students have zero problem understanding me, and they are at various skill levels as well.  The problem is that it is 100% immersion in a class size of 40+.

The other co-teacher has at least shown me her lesson plan (obviously taken entirely from the internet) and asked for feedback.  It is totally packed, she’s preparing a power point presentation, and has 4 handouts to go with it.  Five segments long, one of the segments she expects the kids to fill in the correct form of the verb “to be” and “to have” without any explanation.  Anyway, tons of reading and writing.  She has a point that if the kids are totally busy then they’ll talk less.  But I also feel both the co-teachers are wrong that my talking about culture or the subtleties of speaking English is a dead end.  Just like middle school in America, the lessons that are taught don’t necessarily seem to have any value at all.  But, they lay the groundwork for future lessons.  Also, I don’t feel I should be slowing my speaking down to the speed of audio tapes – I feel I’m supposed to be providing an immersive environment of native speaking at natural pace so the kids can get exposure to what it really sounds like.  The kids have to learn that education is not all about entertainment all of the time.  I feel they are supposed to be getting prepared for college.  Unless, of course, college in Korea also consists of entertaining the students…

Well, that’s fine.  I will just sit back and let Mr. Lee teach.  And I’ll let Ms. Baek pack the lesson plans with handouts.  The kids will probably respond just like the Korean teachers expect – looking studious.  But some of the students are bright and are interested in my approach, and I think they will miss the challenge of an all immersive environment with cultural clues.

I am at a loss as to what to think about Korea and its educational system.  Is this my continued good luck here to get co-teachers who pine for the status quo?  From what I learned from the GePIK orientation, the school district (and Principal) says they want immersion and our cultural understanding, yet in practice they seem mostly impressed with empty entertainment.

I actually fell in love with Gangneung this week, so maybe next year I should move on…if I had broken my contract I might be working there right now with college students, as there was a job opening through my tutor’s friend.  If it’s open next year, I won’t hestitate this time…