Life goes on and on

La Bottega Del Arte is a small café in Kong-Dong, which is the central hangout for university students across from the back entrance to Chungnam University. Kong-Dong is a criss-cross of busy streets lined with more bars and coffee shops than anyone could visit in six months’ time. This popular hangout for students at all times of the night, is about a ten minute walk from our apartment, and we spend much of our weekends walking the streets here, drinking coffee in the late afternoon with a book in hand and allowing the hours to drift by until we order a beer and munch of chips, popcorn or rice snacks – whatever the particular location offers as a side dish.

La Bottega has become a regular stop on the weekend for us. Most of the cafés here are franchises and lose that individual personality and creativity that we love; that’s the main thing that sets La Bottega Del Arte apart from all the rest. Privately owned by a hippy couple, the style is eclectic with random pieces of art hanging from the walls, plants everywhere and shelves lined with little bits of this-and-that. Chi-Song, the wife, speaks a little bit of English and is typically the person running the café of the weekends. She has a miniature Doberman Pinscher named Kak-Chi who inhabits her own seat at the bar and barks ferociously at every customer who comes in the front door. Chi-Song has studied coffee for a decade now, specializing in hand drip. Beware everyone, by the time we come back Josh will have added coffee expert to his list of qualifications.

We were here three weeks ago when Josh asked Chi-Song if she knew of any good Korean authors translated into English. She confusingly looked around as people typically do when they are desperately searching for words in a non-native tongue. After asking us to hold on, she rushed away behind the bar for a few minutes. She returned to our table with the request that we come back the following day at seven o’clock in the evening to meet with her friend who is an English Literature professor at a university here in Daejeon.

We did come back and spent hours discussing Korean history with Young Son, a man who speaks stumbled English and takes long pauses between phrases collecting his ideas and deciding on what words he can use in his somewhat limited English vocabulary to convey his thoughts and concepts. He is always well dressed and looks fifteen years younger than he actually is.  Traveling all over the world, studying abroad in various countries, and being a college professor for some ten years or so: Young is a naturally interesting person to spend an evening with.

The following weekend we were pleased when Young called and invited us to join him for dinner along with Chi-Song and her husband. We went to a new Japanese restaurant near our apartment and even nearer to Chi-Song’s apartment that happened to be just down the street from ours. After dinner we all went back to La Bottega Del Arte for a lesson in hand dripped Costa Rican and Yemen coffee. The café was closed, so we spent hours in a cozy back corner sipping coffee alone with Young and learning about Confucianism and Christianity’s friendship here in South Korea.

We spoke with Young about our teaching jobs when he asked. After listening to us talk for a little while, he offered to introduce us to some of his friends at different universities when our teaching contract is up. This was an invitation that we didn’t take lightly and thanked him sincerely for. University positions are greatly coveted here, and one learns rather quickly why. Twenty in-class teaching hours maximum per week and right around five months paid vacation every year. Just in case that’s not sensational enough, the pay is much better and you’re teaching adults, which for me is delightful.

We’re slowly finding places that fit us and people who interest us. Our weeks are full of teaching and weekends of rest. We’re greatly looking forward to another weekend trip to Seoul in April to celebrate our two-year wedding anniversary. Spring has beautifully arrived and the cherry blossoms are starting their much-anticipated immersion into the world after months of dormancy. Small patches of green dot our bus ride to and from work, and they’re growing every day. Elderly women are hoeing and tilling their small plots of land that are located between high-rise buildings and mutually owned by several families that use them to plant and harvest vegetables in the spring through the fall.

I’m learning here how much I love my husband and to the extent that I depend upon him for emotional support and self-worth in life. He has no choice but to be my everything while we are here because I have nothing or no one else.  This experience is the most beautiful thing I could have every wished for in our marriage and I cherish it daily. In my mind, this job is not ideal, but it doesn’t really matter because I’m learning so much about myself and things that I need to improve upon to become a better teacher and if I gain even just that in my career this year, then it’s all worth it.

How to Communicate in Any Language while Speaking English

When it comes to communicating in a foreign country, culture and tongue – Mandi may whole heartedly disagree with me on my approach but regardless of what she says and how she feels about it, I am right on this one –there is much more to it than sending vibrations up through our body and manipulating these vibrations with our larynx, tongue, and vocal cords.
First off, let’s get it straight, gesticulating is key with any of the following extremely helpful tips, oh and always remember to smile-you don’t want to come across as being just another, “North American Scum”(thanks LCD sound system). Once you get the hand motions down you can tone down your decibel level and begin to break down the English language to such a degree that it is easy to digest. Omit all unnecessary intransitive verbs, irregular verbs, adjectives, proper verb conjugations, adverbs, and definitely leave out all of the articles; they just get in the way. Oh, and remember to consistently stick with the present tense. Tenses always seem to throw people off.

“Tomato, English, Korean what?” I projected my voice loudly while looking at a produce man who was assembling a heap of weird looking vegetables. He responded to me with an awkward look on his face.

“TTTTOOOMMAAATTTOO,” I said while waving the waxy, overly ripened red tomato in the air. Once again he responded to me with an awkward look that was then followed by a lengthy lecture in Korean about only god and the produce man knows what.

“TOMATO, English, Korean what?” I said again.

He looked at me and said, “Tomatooo.”

I responded with, “Anio, anio!” (Korean for NO, NO)

Pointing at the tomato  this time I said, “English tomato. Korean what?” I finished this try off by shrugging my shoulders and showing the palm of my one empty hand.

Produce man didn’t respond at all as if to say, “You idiot, I just told you,” and then he slowly let out a sigh that sounded a bit of defeat- if defeat has a sound that is- and in a very clear manner he enunciated the word, “Tomatooo”.

I must have looked like I felt, frustrated, because he said it again and this time even more clearly than the first time, “Tomatooo”.

We went back and forth a few more times until we came to a realization that we both must have been retarded and had probably been beaten as kids one too many times on the head. Simultaneously we must have reached the same conclusion because at the same time we shrugged our shoulders and he went back to packing weird Asian vegetables and I walked away utterly bewildered and totally confused in search of something I could recognize.

Communicating is all about the attitude, the tone, the vocal projection and well let’s be honest the desperation with which you beg for directions. Another aspect of communication we tend to forget is “luck”, the luck that the person you are desperately trying to pry life saving information from is a fan of Baywatch reruns or the current global favorite, CSI.
From a linguistic standpoint, while attempting to communicate with Korean speakers, I tend to revert to some sort of motherese complete with big smiles, making vroom-vroom sounds for the bus, exaggerated intonations and even slowing of the tempo.

On the other hand, a neurolinguist who would listen in on my desperate plea for directions might diagnose me on the spot with some severe language disorder and possibly request that I see a speech therapist.
The day after the tomato incident I asked the director of my school what the Korean word was for that red, tasty, vine fruit known to us English speakers as tomato.

She smiled and explained that this one would be easy for me. And then she said it:
TOMATO

-Josh Morris

Thoughts on a cold Monday

I’m tired in the sense of, “I can’t keep up this schedule for another 12 months,” kind of way. Nine classes a day with no planning period. Prep for classes on your own time before and after teaching hours. Koreans are incredibly hard workers, and it’s something I really admire about the people in this country, but being a part of the system is tiring. I’m sure many Korean would think our jobs are cake compared to theirs especially when considering our salary, which for WON is a very good one; it’s when you start transferring over to the dollar that things gets a bit shabby.

I want to do an excellent job every day, and I’m not. I don’t have enough time to do a superb job. I want to complain because I get frustrated, but then I think about how absolutely blessed we are to have stable jobs that make enough (even with the poor exchange rate) to cover our bills back in the States and still save a tad. Saving money was a novelty back home, something we thought about and said, “Yea, that would be nice to actually be able to save money one day,” and now we are and I just can’t complain even though there are some legitimate complaints to be made and heard.

Our director always talks about “the grass is greener on the other side” syndrome he says runs rampant here among English teachers. It’s true, but there’s a reason why. Korean directors think that all foreign teachers are ungrateful, lazy, party addicts, and foreign teachers make widely general statements that every director is trying to take advantage of us and find any way possible to withhold money from our pay checks. Of course everyone in this scenario is little right and a little wrong. So many people come here to make money and teaching is the means by which they do it. Many foreign teachers will openly and honestly admit that they know nothing about teaching and consider themselves pretty bad at it. Of course this always frustrates me and then I start to understand why directors have a bias. This whole explanation could go on and on, and there’s really no point. This is the first work environment I’ve been in, however, that once you’ve met someone the question, “So, how much money do you make?” comes right after, “What’s your name?”  and “Canadian or American?” which is commonly responded with an unenthusiastic ,” Oh yea, ok,” like the person is trying to say they’re sorry that I’m an American, but they understand it’s not my fault or anything.

I’m an ESL/EFL teacher. I’m not here solely to make money – I actually love teaching, and I don’t have my head buried in the sand when it comes to it. That’s what I feel like saying aloud multiple times a week and sometimes several times a day. I need adequate time to prepare for classes in order for them to be successful and worth the one thousand dollars a month that parents are paying for them. I need to feel like I’m teaching and not running machinery, please. I’m not one of the foreigners who is going to come into work hung-over. I’ll always be on time (thanks to Josh) and will work afterward because I need my classroom to be excellent for my own pride and professionalism, understand that please. I will work hard, but not until I’m worked silly.

It’s amazing being here. I am honored to be in this country teaching children. On the weekend, I especially love what I’m doing, but today is Monday, so give me a break after reading this.

-Mandi