Daejeon Dis-orientation

I'm sitting in the small room of my apartment content that my lessons have been planned for the rest of the week. The air is crisp tonight, and the sky is much clearer than it was before a blizzard hit Korea last night. The whole country became covered in snow. Outside, I can hear the conversations from the convenience store downstairs. I know little about what they're saying but I've learnt all you need to do is bow and say 'kamseh hamnida' (Korean for thankyou), to create a big smile on their face.

Since I arrived in Daejeon I haven't really experienced culture shock. I've often felt awkward or confused with certain situations, but the whole 'shock' malarkey hasn't really hit me yet. The real difficulty around here of course is communication, as very little English is spoken. I was naive in thinking before I arrived that it would be different. We were informed in our training that children here are taught English from seven to eighteen years of age. That's a whole eleven years of learning the language. However, the majority of English vocabulary I hear produced around here is limited to 'thank you', 'America' and 'hello Mr Chris'.

This doesn't stop me from trying to have conversation with the locals however. I managed to learn from a taxi driver that Hanbat stadium is actually a baseball stadium, despite the fact it has statues of footballers outside. I used Korean vocabulary from my translator and vigorous gesticulations in order to achieve this. After paying the 10,000 won or so for the taxi journey, I seemed to had left the taxi driver in a fit of hysterics. I guess my Mankorean accent may have been a little too much for him.

It's been two weeks since my bus from the orientation arrived in this city. We were dropped off in the famous abandoned 'Science Expo Park,' and formed lines in the foyer of a large building. Our lines filtered through into a smaller lecture theatre, where a very important man (presumably the head honcho for Daejeon education), was giving a speech to a room half full of Korean teachers. Most of the speech was in Korean, but various parts of it were translated, none of which I remember. It wasn't long however until we were individually called over to the representative of our schools; the people who were assigned to look after us for the remaining year.

I was amongst the last names to be called out, and was amongst the few with two representatives. I walked up to them, shook there hands and sat on the seat between them. In between speeches, they introduced themselves as Mr Yun and Miss Han. Mr Yun was the elder of the two and had an aura of superiority about him. I could tell he had authoritative status in the school. Miss Han on the other hand turned out to be younger than myself and seemed quite shy. She is to be my co-teacher for the rest of the year. In the midst of my confusion and tiredness, and found both teachers rather hard to understand, but managed to retrieve my luggage from the large truck which had followed our bus from Seongnam-si. Unfortunately I lost my Polish hat during the chaos. I grieve for that hat as I was particularly fond of it.

I jumped in a large people-carrier with Mr Yun and Ms Han, without a chance to say goodbye to my western comrades. We drove through the city, and I made what conversation I could with my new Korean comrades. I came to quite like them, finding Mr Yun quite a funny character and Ms Yun very helpful. However, I was still having problems adjusting to the new accents and their limited (but better than most) English. After about quarter of an hour, I left them to converse in Korean and admired the view of the city as we drove alongside the wide river. I chuckled as we passed a female Korean hitch-hiker, for no other reason than she was dressed in traditional Hanbok clothes. 'Obviously Korea is a place which wishes to retain it's history,' I thought to myself. We entered an underground car-park and went up eighteen floors in a lift. When the lift doors opened, we were in the hallway of a grand hotel.

Unfortunately this wasn't to be my place of residence. The school was hosting a ceremony in a conference room, since it was about to be renamed and re-opened in a few days time. I wasn't to go into the conference hall and patiently waited outside with Mr Yun. Occasionally I was introduced to members of the school. Everyone seemed very happy to see me and I had a chance to meet the teachers which I would be sharing a classroom with. I learnt how to say 'pan-ga-wae-yo' or pleased to meet you in Korean. It got me far on the rapport building front, but not so far on the conversation front. We later went down to a buffet meal, where I was served some of the best food I'd had since I'd been in Korea. I made light conversation with Mr Yun at the dinner table and he called me his new friend. I was introduced to many people that night, Mr Kim, Ms Kim, another Mr Kim, and another one, Mr Yeong, Mr Cheong and lots of other names I couldn't remember. I left the hotel that night wondering if I'd just starred in a Korean version of Reservoir Dogs.

We drove next to my apartment, the part which I'd most been waiting for. I was extremely tired at this time and just wanted to collapse on a bed. My first realization about the apartment, was that it was set in quite a slummy area. I noticed a gravel pit and an old furniture dumping ground adjacent to the complex. However, the building itself is brand-new, and all I had to do was walk inside to see it in a different light. The apartment is big enough for one person and was well equipped. The only thing missing was curtains or blinds in the bedroom, the latter of which I am still awaiting to this day. I slept well that night, and was taken to equip the rest of my apartment from the large Tesco Home-Plus supermarket the next day. Mr Yun also took me to meet his wife at a kindergarten, and we were given two cartons of ginseng milkshake to thank us for meeting their acquaintance. Mr Yun and I then said goodbye, and I was told to meet in the school 8.30am on Tuesday.

 I lay down on my bed to nap knowing that when I awoke a brand new adventure awaited me.

P.S. photos of my local area and apartment can be found at:

Daejeon - House & Hood

They took my blood, urine and breath away...

It's been a while since I last managed to write here.

Of course I've been intending to, and have so much that I've been meaning to tell you about. However, life has been hectic and time has been short.

Since I last wrote here, I've got through the orientation, which included the medical which I was blogging about last. That was a strange ordeal. Hundreds of westerners were lined up like cattle, and herded through a variety of medical tests. They tried to gather as much information about our bodies as they possibly could. Our height and weight was measured; our hearing and blood pressure was tested; our blood and urine was sampled; and our chests were irradiated with x-rays. A few days later we were given forms which told us we were HIV negative and free of syphilis. It's good to know these things! I also discovered my blood to be of the superior O- type. I'm not sure if they have vampires here in Korea, but I'm glad of the high garlic content of the food...

However the day after the medical, they buttered us up a little by taking us to a traditional Korean folk village, in Yongin, just outside of Seoul. Perhaps it was EPIK's way of saying sorry for sticking needles in us the day before, but it was duly appreciated. The village itself was beautiful, with thatched roof huts dotted around, giving a very rustic feeling. Although thee snow on the ground thawed throughout the day, icicles could still be seen hanging from the roof of a hut sitting alongside a frozen watermill. We saw performances of acrobatic drum dancers, who cartwheeled along the dusty floor, followed by a long streamer which hung from his hat. There was a tightrope walker who also kept falling on the rope, and using his groin to trampoline himself back to standing position. Both displays were amazing, and I've never seen anything like it in the west. Lunch was fantastic also, a Korean style hot-pot with lots of kimchi and side dishes. 

Following the folk village, we headed off to a town called Inchon to visit an arts and ceramic museum. We explored the area seeing lots of cute and wacky sculptures and learnt a little about the firing process. Following that, we went into a room to paint something for ourselves. Laid on the tables around us were watered down palettes of green, black, blue and red paint and our task was to take a cup or plate and paint it with the artistic flare which would rival Van Gogh or Bansky (depending on ones style). There were many impressive designs by the teachers-to-be around me. However I was happy with my cup design, containing token bear on the front and Thomas the Tank Engine and a mini Ringo Star on the back. Unfortunately the paint faded a little when the cup was put in the kiln, and a lot of the lines and colouring have faded. However the original design can be seen below.

The day ended with another delicious meal (above) of soup, rice, fish, lots of meats and the regular selection of kimchi. My nightmares of Korean nurses screaming at me, due to removing the swab from a needle wound too early drawing blood were replaced that night. Replaced by sweet dreams. Dreams Korean huts, snow, gorgeous food and... kimchi. Lots of kimchi...

It was a good thing I rested well that night, as the next four days were to be intense. We were bombarded with information and a hell of a lot of it. Information about lesson plans, good activities to use in the classrooms, Korean culture, Korean history, how to handle culture shock and more. On top of that, we had Korean lectures in the evening and by the end of it, all we wanted to do was either sleep or go out and drink copious amounts of soju. On this occasion, with one exception I opted for the former option. I must be getting old. 

However one night four of us decided to go up and see the Korean temple, outside Seong-nam just past the outdoor gym which I mentioned the other day. Lacking time during the day, we opted to hike up at night. Although I took my head-torch up with me, I didn't really need it as the path was well lit and compacted for easy walking. However the path up was steep and we were glad of the mountain spring we found half way up. I filled up my bottle from the spring and the water there tasted sweet and fresh, some of the best water I've ever tasted. The path up to the temple was curiously lined on both side by Chinese balloons, giving an authentic aura as we approached the temple gates. 

We were stopped in our tracks by barking dogs and we had to approach the temple cautiously. Once we realized that the dog noise was actually coming from inside the temple, we were tempted to knock on the door and ask for a cup of tea. However we decided that the poor monks who lived there probably wouldn't appreciate that, and descended back down the hill promising ourselves that we would one day return. We spent the rest of the night with a few beers and a couple of sojus and I learnt an interesting thing. The polite way to call a waiter over here is to shout at them to 'come here' or 'yogio'. The difference in cultural manners over here is constantly eluding me.

Another night we had a good reason to celebrate. We'd discovered that day the schools and level we'd be teaching at. I found out that I'd be teaching high school boys (6th form UK equivalent) in an Eastern region of Daejeon called Daegu. I am now in my apartment there, writing this blog. However it is getting late and I don't have time to tell you yet of how I came to be here. I shall leave that story for another day.

Until next time...

P.S. pictures of the folk village and ceramic museum can be found at:

EPIK Field Trip