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