What am I supposed to do with this?

Teaching is good these days. I'm coaching my discussion class students in ways to ask the kinds of questions that lead to more interesting conversations, and it's been quite rewarding so far.

Sometimes I ask my students to e-mail their homework to me, but today I got an e-mail from a student listing all the obligations filling up his free time... "But I'm doing my homework for you so you won't be angry, even though I'm tired." Then he included the assignment, and closed with, "I'm so tired I can't see straight. I guess life isn't always a bed of roses"

Now, because of some aspects of my upbringing, I'm very very sensitive to even a hint of a guilt-trip being lain, and frankly, the only way to demotivate me to do something faster is whining... but was this guy trying to make me feel guilty for giving him homework?

Never had that before. At least not from my adult students.

Happy Chonji Day

I called it "Cheonji Day" instead of Teacher's Day because Teacher's Day is also known as one of the most common days for parents to give teachers cash gifts called "Cheonji" (촌지))... sometimes meant to be in exchange for "special" treatment of their kid (on the grade sheet) -- there have actually been laws passed putting a maximum on the amount of cash or value of gifts permitted to give teachers, because the old tradition of bribing the teacher had gotten so rampant. The practice continues today.

My favorite Teacher's Day moments in Korea came from my first year, when I taught grade school kids.

Being male, the usual cosmetics packages didn't suit, and there must have been a sock-selling truck somewhere on the bus route picking kids up to come, so over the course of the day, I received twelve pairs of the exact same socks. Totally interchangeable. I didn't buy socks once my first three years in Korea. Just when I was starting to run out and wear out, another teacher's day would come along. It was awesome.

My favorite teacher's day class was the class where one student gave me a bucket of rock candy, and another student gave me a bottle of Amway toothpaste. Perfect match.

My biggest teacher's day bung-up was the year I told the students that if they wanted to bring me Teacher's Day gifts, they could, but please remember that I'm allergic to milk, so chocolate presents make me sad, because I can't eat Korean chocolates (it's all super milky), and the mothers took my PSA to mean that I was expecting nice gifts from all of them, and complained about my overly expectant attitude. Since then, I've just taken the chocolates humbly, thanked people kindly, and passed the chocolates around to the other teachers in the staff room (who are all swimming in chocolate, too).

Thanks for the spelling correction, ROK Hound.

My Favourite Class

I will write about my favourite class at my school.

I will use very simple English, so my students can read it.

After my father's wedding, and traveling around Canada in July, I came back to Korea. That August, I had all new classes. One was PreEfl: the lowest level.

Pre EFL classes can be fun, if the students are nice. If the students are shy, or something, it can be a really, really hard class.


This class had some older students. Before coming to this school, I taught small children. Most of my students are about age 40 or younger, or they speak English very very well, from living abroad. I thought, "maybe this class will be really hard."

Instead, I met two ladies.

Their names are Betty







And Veronica.






They don't really look like that.

Betty and Veronica are famous characters from a comic book called "Archie". They are best friends. Betty and Veronica are also two ladies in my English class. They have the same names as the girls in the comic, by coincidence.

"Archie" comic books are very popular in North America. Archie is a high school boy, and he likes two girls.


Veronica is beautiful, and her father is rich, but she is also a princess, and she always changes her mind. Some days she likes Archie, but other days, she likes a boy named Reggie, because Reggie has a nice car.




Betty is the sweet, kind girl next door. She is honest and simple, and she loves Archie. She never changes her mind, and Archie loves her, too, but when Veronica calls, Archie forgets about good and faithful Betty.

Archie is a flake. (flake means a person I can't trust)


In my class, Betty is a sweet, generous lady who studies really hard. I know she studies hard because often, when I teach her a phrase or a word, she uses that phrase or word in our class a few days later. That shows that she studies hard at home, after class, too.

She is very impressive.

Betty studies English because her grandchildren live in America, and she wants to talk to them on the phone, and visit them there. I think that is the best reason I ever heard for studying English. I think about Betty's grandchildren, and it is very touching to see her working so hard to improve her English.

Here is a picture of Betty, on the right. Her classmate Christine is on the left. Christine was new last month. She asks good questions.

Veronica is a very sweet, Catholic lady. Her friend Misuk also comes to class (but she was absent the day we took pictures). Veronica is studying English to help her husband with his business. Her husband wants to work with more international clients and partners. Often Veronica helps her husband at the office.

Veronica is very kind, and she always sees a person's good parts. She always has a big smile, and she really appreciates her classmates, her family, and good things in life. Veronica leads a bible study in her apartment block, and she loves talking about the things she likes doing. She has a sister living in Chilliwack, near my old hometown, and she traveled to New York in November, and then she brought her laptop to class, so she could show her pictures to us.

For Lunar New Year, Veronica gave me some delicious rice cakes that she made with her own hands; they were yakshi, my favourite kind.

Here is Veronica, on the left. On the right is Nahyeon.

Nahyeon is a businessman who has taken a break between jobs to study languages. He is studying both English AND Japanese right now, and he works very hard. He is really good at making sentences, once you encourage him to speak. He shares his opinions, and tries really really hard to put his ideas into words. I really respect his hard work.

He is also gracious. Every day, he thanks me for my teaching.

Sometimes, Betty brings me a cup of coffee in the morning, and occasionally, Nahyeon brings in donuts. Christine (sorry I didn't write about her more: I don't know her as well as the others) brought me a tea one day, Veronica brought some rice cakes, and suddenly we had a big snack party in our class: look at all the good things!
I really feel their appreciation for my teaching, and I have known this class for a long time. They are in Level 1 now, and every month I tell my boss, "Don't change this class. I really love this class." I think they say the same to him, because I have had this class for nine months now! They are my favourite class, and I really love them!

There are other students that are not in the pictures. I also really like John and Misuk (she was in the class from the beginning), Alice, and many other students have come and gone (Jamie, Sebastian, Esther, Rory, Laura) but this 9am class is one of my favourite, and I am sure glad I teach them!

Holy Cow my student almost died last weekend!

So I came into class on Tuesday, the 20th, the first morning after a three day weekend. Here in Korea, Lunar new year is the second biggest family holiday of the year, kind of Thanksgiving to Chusok's Christmas. (Chusok is the Korean harvest festival, and it's amazing: EVERYBODY goes to their ancestral home/town/grandparents' house, offers up special foods and dishes to the ancestors in the old way, dressed up in the traditional hanbok clothes. I've seen the ceremony at a friend's girlfriend's house, and it's quite impressive.) The city empties out -- it's almost eerie. Even the street food stands are closed up! Then, at the end of the weekend, everybody returns to Seoul, and the gridlock begins fifty kilometers outside of the greater Seoul area, all the way into town.

{Tangential story alert: Once I travelled on a holiday weekend, and the trip took four hours out by bus, and twelve hours back, because of seventy kilometers (no joke) of stop and go traffic. Even better, the tour organizer had rented three movies to watch on the trip: X-men (not bad) Black Hawk Down, and Saving Private Ryan. That's comic book action movies: 1, Gory gory war movies: 2. Being trapped on a bus, in stop and go traffic, hung over (as most of the group was), with "Oh GOD IT HURTS" "I can't stop the bleeding Ty!" "You're gonna be okay, Eddie. You're gonna be okay. What's your daughter's name? You'll see her again, Eddie, I promise." "I feel cold Ty. I feel cold" for two hours is just hard to manage. So after Black Hawk Down (the noisiest, most overwhelming war movie I've ever seen: long and just gross), the guy was about to put on Saving Private Ryan (the second noisiest, most overwhelming war movie I've seen) on, and the entire bus vetoed the choice. At the next rest stop, somebody went to the DVD stand and bought "When Harry Met Sally" or "You've God Mail" or some Sandra Bullock romantic comedy, and the travellers were placated. End of tangential story.}

Well, some people go into the mountains, to see their ancestral gravesite, as did my student Lucas. As I asked about the students' weekends, this story came out, piecemeal, as Lucas remembered different impressions of his adventure. The total innocence in his eyes matched my own sheer disbelief at how close this kid came to being hospitalized, at least.

He saw a snake, and decided he didn't like having that snake in that spot. So, being a kid, innocent as all Eden, he chose to move that snake along by prodding it with his foot. "Teacher and then the tail is up and," he held his hand up and moved it side-to-side to copy a tail's shaking. Shaking a raised tail is a common warning signal for poisonous snakes (not just rattlesnakes, as I learned by research). He poked it again, and "teacher, it biting me in the pants" and he pointed to the cuff of his pants, right behind his ankle. Because it was February, and cold, the snake was slow; had he poked it in June, it probably would have had the speed and wherewithal bite him properly, but as it was, the thing missed his ankle. By then his father had spotted Lucas, and saw what was happening. His dad ran over and punted the snake, kickin it far clear of his son, but I don't think he saw the whole scene, because Lucas never mentioned an extremely angry father in the jumbled account of his story.

I was so incredulous I immediately went to the next class to tell Caleb about what had just happened. The kid never even realized how close he was to serious danger.

(Side note: there are four species of poisonous snake in Korea, in the viper/asp category. None are as deadly as the cobra, the black mamba, or the dreaded snakes of Australia, but none are to be trifled with either. Lucas being a child, the poison would have been more dangerous because he has a smaller body mass than say, me. Of the snakes in Korea, the one with the coolest name is called (in Japan) the mamushi. Just say that together with me one time. Mamushi.)

I'm glad Lucas made it through honouring his ancestors, without joining them. He's a sweet kid. Except when he isn't.

Another typical day in Seoul, Korea.

So this morning I woke up as usual, poked around on the internet, started up the coffee maker (at eight in the morning, it's worth it to have the starbucks stuff on hand), and took my shower. I boiled an egg. (Boiling eggs is fun for me right now, because I just finally got the hang of it -- I'd always either do them half-raw or rubbery dry-yolk overcooked. I'm so pleased with myself for figuring this boiled egg thing out, I've been popping them like candy!) On the way to work, I bought a cinnamon swirl at the bakery I mentioned before, where they changed their baking schedule so I could have a cinnamon swirl every morning, instead of just on mornings when I was late.

Got to school, and before I even made it into the classroom, James was saying "teacheeeeerr" in that way Korean kids have perfected, where suddenly "No" can become a fourteen syllable word that requires a two octave vocal range to properly pronounce. He's telling on another student, who pushed him, or stepped on his foot, or looked in his show-and-tell bag without his permission. . . or something.

I'm thinking about implementing a policy where the student who did wrong gets punished, but the student who tattled gets an equal punishment. That's how tired I am of kids coming to teachers with their little "he looked in my book" disputes. We have a teacher named Eunice who's unreal: every time, she hears each kid out and gives them a reasonable solution to their problem. Listening to "he said I don't want to play with you" "no I didn't!" makes me want to chew holes into the inside of my cheek after a while. Her patience is laudable.

Right after that, Willy cracked me up by taking the stuffing out of me, teasing me about something I'd told his family when they invited me to his house: I'm good at cooking a bunch of foods, but I've never managed to successfully cook rice: I always make it too sticky, too dry, burnt at the bottom, or something (now that I've mastered boiled eggs, rice is next). Willy had the whole class poking fun at me about not being able to cook rice. It was funny.

Then, during break time, I was chatting with Caleb in the hallway, when right at waist-level, a little girl in a blue hooded sweater flies by us with her fists up in the air, in the "I'm a flying superhero" pose. On second glance, she has her sweater's hood pulled right over her face. It's Lisa: she has a hooded sweater with a mask on the hood, and eyeholes, so that she can be a superhero anytime she wants. Here she is, in superhero and in secret identity mode.






The boy with Lisa in the first picture is Andy, a funny little boy with gangly arms and legs who doesn't move around so much as he flops. As soon as he's moving faster than walking speed, he always reminds me just a bit of a rag doll -- a Raggedy Andy, if you will. The girl in the second picture is named Sue, owner of my favourite student nickname ever: "Soodlee-Doo!" I used to say it out loud to her, but then other students called her Soodlee-Doo so much she told us to stop calling her that, so now I call her over, and whisper it in her ear, and she twinkles with glee every time.

Anyway, lunch looked unappetizing, so I walked (in a fantastic cold that was so sharp I opened my jacket just to have myself a good shiver: sometimes a good shiver's as invigorating as twenty push-ups) to the sandwich shop near the school, where they know exactly what I want as soon as I walk in, because I always order the same thing. "Kuh-lop senduhweechee, cheejeuh bae-go, ahmaeleekah-no shirop manhee" means "club sandwich no cheese, cafe americano, lots of sugar" the lady smiled: she's seen me coming in there ordering over-sweet americanos since my first year in Korea, 2003, when they first opened, and her husband didn't know how to count out correct change yet -- if the sandwich and coffee was 4900 won, and you gave him 10000 won, he'd give you 6100 won back, or 3100, or 4900. He's much better now.

After the sandwich and coffee (takeout), back to school. More teaching, other stuff, then, after I left school, I popped by my house, picked something up, and headed out to Lotte Mart. You see, I like to hold a keyboard in my lap, but having an entire laptop in my lap is cumbersome and worrisome: what if I spell my coffee, or a sparrow flies into the apartment window and startles me, and I dump the computer on the floor? Yesterday, I bought a keyboard, plugged it in, only to discover that the J key was garbage: it didn't register when struck, unless you really cracked it, and it had a weird feel, different than the other keys. Unbearable, when you're trying to type fast -- like jogging with a stone in your shoe. By phone text message, I asked one of my Korean friends how to say "This keyboard had a broken key when I bought it. Please replace it." She sent the reply, and then I brought the keyboard away.

On the way to Lotte Mart, the taxi driver tried to rip me off, but I caught him before he could go past my destination. This made me feel half-annoyed that this kind of thing still happens, that the driver still sees white skin and thinks I'm some chump tourist whom he can filch by playing dumb, and half-pleased that I'm savvy enough to catch him heading the wrong way and ask him, in Korean, "why aren't you turning right?"

Then, I exchanged the keyboard easily, by showing the text message, the receipt, and the wonky "J" key to the fellow, but was stopped on my way to the escalator by another store clerk who didn't speak English, and didn't understand that I'd already exchanged the keyboard: they thought I still wanted to change the new one, and laughed at my broken Korean and body language. Finally, by going to the clerk who'd already made the exchange (who resolved the issue in three words), they got it, and let me go. I walked out of the store, noticed halfway home that they hadn't taken off the unit's anti-theft security tag, but also noticed that no alarms had gone off on my way home, anyway.

This is my life in Korea. The rule of twos still applies from time to time (in my first year I formulated the principle that every new thing you attempt here takes two tries to get it right, and any task you might want to do takes twice as long as it would in a country where everybody speaks English). Sometimes it's maddening, sometimes it's hilarious, sometimes it's just brilliant. In the end, it's not that much different, I suppose, than life just about anywhere.

Amy teases me about telling pointless stories, stories that don't go anywhere. But I don't think they are pointless. When she worked at the bakery, Mom used to come home every day, and tell some story or another about a grumpy, or a funny customer, or an order she nearly got wrong, but then luckily she re-counted the hot cross buns just before she put them in the box, or other such minute details.

The point of Mom's stories was not so much to teach me something new, or even (usually) to make me laugh. The point of them, I think, was more cumulative than specific -- it wasn't so much any one story she told me, as the fact she told stories about those little things. That said to me that the little things, the pointless uninteresting things, are worth noticing. They are the texture and rhythm of our daily lives, and they keep each day different from the next. If we notice them, suddenly our lives aren't a metronome-dull repetition of wake up, eat, work, eat, work, go home, free time, bed time -- our lives can instead be all cluttered with sounds and smells and personalities we never noticed before. In his book, Letters To A Young Poet, my favourite poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, wrote, "If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it, blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place." So maybe that's why I tell stories like these: not so much because I think you'll find them riveting; more because I want to be the kind of human being who notices them. In Seymour: An Introduction, J.D. Salinger (another of my favourite writers) says, "Seymour once said that all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next. Is he never wrong?" So forgive my rambling if it bores you. I'm just looking for those patches of holy ground.

Love:
Rob

Silly conversation in class.

Had a lot of bloody noses in school today. Yuk. My student Danny's like a geyser-- get him excited and suddenly blood's flying everywhere.

Our former teacher Ashley came to visit at lunch time. She taught at SLP for quite a while, so the kids remember and miss her; a handful of the kids in my class now were in her homeroom back in the day. Ashley came to my class just after lunch finished to say hello to me and the students, so I encouraged the kids who knew here well to get out of their chairs (I've finally trained them well enough that they USUALLY wait for my say-so before they're up and about) and give Ashley a hug. Or a kiss. Or a tickle. You know, just to keep things interesting.

Once everybody returned to their seats, Kevin started teasing James (who used to be one of Ashley's favourites) that he wanted to give Ashley a kiss, so I kept pretending I heard Kevin saying he wanted ot give Ashley a kiss. Once most of the students were giggling, I asked Kevin if he wanted to marry Ashley. He, sensing the humour in the moment, agreed. "Yes, teacher."

I offered to phone Ashley on my cellphone and make the proposal. Kevin agreed, so I got out my phone, pretended to push some buttons, and then made a big show of asking Ashley if she wanted to marry Kevin.

"Oh. Kevin, before she agrees to marry you," I said, she has some questions.
"OK teacher."
"Do you have a car?"
"Yes."
"Do you have money?"
"Yes."
"Does your daddy have money?"
"Yes." (I'm relaying these yes's into the phone.)
"Will your mommy be nice to Ashley if she marries you?" (I've heard some really remarkable stories from women who married firstborn sons in Korea, and the epically harsh treatment some mothers in law give to their sons' wives -- Western mothers-in-law really have some catching up to do, if the stories are true. And it's much harder in Korea to convince your husband to move to a different city, because of the cultural, familial obligation of the firstborn to the parents -- sometimes, when Koreans find out that I'm a firstborn son, they're surprised that I'm here in Korea rather than living with my father and taking care of him, especially because 1. I'm not married, and 2. My mom died.)

"Yes," Kevin assured me his mommy will be nice to his new wife.
I passed that last "Yes," into the phone, and said, "OK, Kevin. Ashley says she'll marry you!"

The class had a good laugh together. I've had to spend a lot of time breaking up arguments and things in that class, so it's a really nice release to have a few good laughs with them, too.

One of my students told me I'm funnyman, so I answered, "I'm not funnyman. I'm BATMAN!"
(and I have the t-shirt to prove it).

In a related story, to file under "Rob is a nerd", this photo was taken when the photographers came to my school. We took another one that looks normal, but this is the one that got the best reaction when all the teachers looked through the proofs.

August 26th 2004

OK.

It being fully two months since I've sent one of these
out, and those two months being quite eventful and
mostly excellent . . . it's time for some rob-style
catching up. (X-style is a totally acceptable
Konglish term -- if I want my hair cut like Justin
Timberlake, I just say "Josteen Teembohraikeuh style"
at the barber's and they'll figure it out.

In the meantime. . .

My general rule of thumb for surviving in Korea
without going off your rocker is to keep in mind the
rule of twos: every new endeavour takes two attempts
to get it, and every simple, mundane task takes twice
as long as it would in Canada, because of language
issues, etc.. However, something strange has
happened. Matthew, the new co-worker I told you about
in the last e-mail (who's no longer a new co-worker,
but an established co-worker), and I have some weird
knack about us (Mattie would call it good karma or
somesuch), whereby the rule of twos doesn't apply to
us. Somehow we do things together effortlessly.
(Knock on wood.)

During the last week of July, I had my summer
vacation. We decided to set out and climb a mountain
-- Jiri mountain, which many Koreans will tell you is
the most beautiful mountain on mainland Korea. We
managed to find bus tickets, rooms, places to sleep,
food, transit to odd, random bus terminals, find a
movie theatre or a nightclub in a strange city, all
with very little trouble.

Matthew has been hiking since he was six. I've been
hiking since I was twenty four. We managed, through
studying a map, to find the route up the mountain that
took less time, but, according to everyone we
consulted, was the hardest trail on the whole
mountain. I was carrying my backpack, and the routine
was this: Matthew hikes for twenty minutes, sits down
and waits ten minutes for me to catch up; I catch up,
he sits five minutes with me while I catch my breath,
bluster and whine, and then takes off again. Then, as
if to add insult to injury, about three quarters up
the mountain, when I was ready to collapse (this climb
was HARD, and I'm not exactly a tiger or an athlete),
he grabbed my bag, and carried it the rest of the way
to our destination, along with his own. It was quite
an experience -- somehow I discovered not just a
second or third wind, but a sixteenth wind somewhere
in me that I didn't know existed. The view was
amazing, and in two days we hiked a mountain that
takes most people four days. After the muscle
soreness subsided, I felt like a king, and that first
sauna after the mountain was one of the greatest
things I've ever felt.

Somehow everything went perfectly on summer vacation
-- from climbing the mountain to finding our way
around Kwangju, the city in southern Korea where we
played tourist, to the people we met. On the Saturday
before Jiri mountain, Matthew and I were in a
traditional Korean market; Matthew was going to show
me his favourite tea/incense shop, where they sell
incense made from a 600 year old recipe that's
apparently so good for you that it does everything
except raise your children. While in that shop,
Matthew mentioned to the really sweet, cute sales lady
that he burns the incense during his Yoga workouts.
She said "Oh! I study Yoga!" Matthew mentioned that
he also teaches Yoga, and she asked for his number; he
said, "We should get together some time," and she
said, "OK, but is it alright if I bring my twin
sister?" At this point Matthew and I exchanged a
glance that said, almost verbatim, "does life even GET
any better than this, or should we just both die now?"
and Matthew kept his composure enough to say "Yes."

The next Saturday (after Jiri mountain), we had dinner
with the twins, and it was one of the most enjoyable
dates I've ever been on.

And that whole story is to tell you that the reason my
e-mailing has trailed off is because I'm spending
about an hour every night now talking to a certain
twin on the phone. (As is Matthew with her sister.)
It's currently in that really fun "getting to know
each other, can't spend enough time with each other"
stage, but so far the outlook seems good. Her name has been changed to Exgirlfriendoseyo, and her English name (that I chose for
her) is Angelina Summer, or Lina. Feel free to
inquire about her if you ever want to read an e-mail
of me gushing frantically, even tiresomely, about how
wonderful it is to be alive. (Just ask Melissa --
she's had one already.)

And don't get too excited yet either -- we've known
each other for just over a month so far, so things are
still very early and tentative, but it's been a lot of
fun getting to know her, and I frankly never expected
I'd be in any kind of close relationship with a Korean
girl -- I'd always figured the cultural differences
were just too great to bother. But I bother now.

One of my favourite students just left the school; she
was a kindergarten student, one of the ones I saw
every day, and she was the funniest little sweetheart;
she had hugs for me every day, and a quick, ready
laugh. On the other hand, one of the boys who left in
June is back from Toronto, and he's as sweet as ever.

But he's not the one I want to tell you about either.
It's happened again -- last year, it was a little girl
named Serina, whose smile always came out when I came
to class, and who wrote me cards and letters telling
me she loved me. This year, it's Jina. She's stolen
my heart outright. She just moved to Korea recently
-- before Korea, she lived in Rochester, Minnesota,
where, naturally, she'd learned perfect English. She
has this funny middle American accent in the middle of
a bunch of Korean accents, she happens to have a
perfectly internalized sense for English grammar.
Really, there's nothing I can teach her except how to
do a monkey dance or tell a story about a
shape-changing, flying hippo with a straight face.

Here's the thing, though: she doesn't speak Korean.
She's moved to a country where the kids her age
haven't gone to school long enough to speak English,
and she can't speak their language. Today we were
talking about trying new things, and I asked her if
she'd been scared when she moved to Korea (two months
ago). She said she was, and I asked her if she liked
Korea better now than before. "Yeah."

Then I made the mistake: "Have you made some friends
now, so that you feel better?"

"No. Not really." She said it with a brave face --
not quite slopping over with a child's optimism, but
at least something better than bald stoicism -- and I
shifted the conversation quickly, before she could
start getting more homesick than I'd probably already
thoughtlessly made her.

After class, the kids were lining up to go outside and
catch their busses, and she was at the back of the
line (where she usually goes), and I picked her up and
gave her a hug. I said, "Jina, I hope you find lots
of friends in Korea."

Then she said "Me too," into my shoulder with a
forlorn voice that no child her age should ever need
to use -- unless it's about something silly like
"Hyongeun got pistachio nut ice cream and I wanted it
too, but I'd already asked for mango-strawberry." --
and with those two words she carried my heart away and
hid it somewhere in the dimple on her left cheek.

I told her I'd be her friend, and she said she wanted
to come to my house, and hugged me a hug with a little
too much loneliness and need in it.

Fortunately, her Korean teacher then shouted, "Jina,
let's go!" before I could burst into tears right then
and there, but all that's to say I've fallen in love
-- or at least fallen in compassion -- with another of
my kids, and I hope she'll be OK, and I wish there was
something I could do to help her adjust, but I can't
quite clone myself into a six year old who can play
with her, and I don't know if a twenty-four-year-old
goofball buddy is really what she needs to feel like
she can make it here in Korea. Seeing Jina go through
that rips the band-aid off my own homesick sores, but
I can handle myself; I'm holding out. I know where to
go to find Anglophones my age. I just hope she'll be
happy here.

In other news, I had a phone call from my mom and dad
in which mom said something along these lines, in her
most allusive voice:

"So, Rob, have you talked to Dan . . . lately?"
"Not really. I got an e-mail a few weeks ago."
"Hmm. You. . . might want to . . . call him. He may
have some (significantly said,) NEWS for you."

of course, by now there was no doubt he had news, nor
what its nature was, given the status of his courtship
with his girlfriend Caryn, so by the time I talked to
Dan the next Saturday, I'd guessed that. . . he's
ENGAGED (sorry to those of you for whom this is a
repeat.) He asked me to be his best man last
Saturday, and I said "of course." The date's July 2.

So I've decided I'm going to try and extend my
contract with this school until the end of May, so
that I can spend June in Red Deer with my main man,
and then probably spend part of the summer travelling
before buckling down on the rest of my life, or at
least the next step.

In health news, please continue to pray for my
grandfather, and pray also for my mother; if you
e-mail me, I'll tell you more details, but enough of
you who receive this update already know about them
that I'm not going to get into detail on it. But pray
-- if you're into that kind of thing.

Student quotes: "You are the funnily funnily funnily
Rob teacher." (from Daniel).

"I really liked going to the mountain. I have lots of
good mammaries."

"I want a dog. I'll buy a puddle."

"Why do you tell crazy stories like that, teacher?"
"I'm just playing with you."
"We're not toys, teacher."

"Three stickers if you can name the four Beatles."
"John."
"Good. There were three more. Any guesses?"
"Matthew, Mark, Luke?"

Penmanship error: My house is cozy became "My house is
oozy"

Remembered the spelling, forgot the meaning: "My
summer vacation is going to be superficial!"

A girl on the subway looks at the portrait of WB Yeats
on the cover of my Yeats poetry collection and says
"Harry Potter!"

A three year old marched up to my table at dinner the
other night (his parents had put him up to it). I
expected him to do something weird or hilarious like
take some food or start crying, or jump up and down
and run back and bury his face in his mom's neck.
Instead, calmly and properly as an ambassador, he
stuck out his right hand and waited for me to shake
it. In my wonderment, I could barely finish my meal.

Anyway, there are some of the bones, and some of the
trimmings, of my time. It's been sticky hot and work
has started to get tiring (especially the afternoon
business), but it just cooled down this week finally,
and I'm doing OK.

I need to wrap this up now, before the letter reaches
critical mass and implodes, so go in peace and
happiness, and bless you all.

Love always:
Rob Ouwehand

Mountain, Sauna, Matt, Church, Funny Students

OK. Fully aware that the last e-mail was a downer (so
much so that I've received about a third of the normal
number of responses to my updates, and most of those
much later, and from different people, than usually
respond to them, I'll try to balance it with a little
bit of wonder and joy.

And, storyteller that I am, I'll do it episodically.

On the night of the last full moon, one of my
coworkers invited me to climb Buram mountain (the
mountain five minutes from my house,) after work.
Just in time for the mosquitoes to get moving, we
headed for the forested mountain, and climbed, using
trails and occasionally pulling ropes, to make our way
upwards for about half an hour as the sun went down.

The moon was orange, and the patterns of streets and
apartment buildings in the valley between the
mountains was stunning -- there was just so much city.
For the southern Ontarians, imagine stopping at a
lookout point driving down Mount Hope on Hamilton, but
instead of looking down on Hamilton, looking down on a
city five times the size of Toronto (and visibility
was good enough that we could see a good quarter of
it). Lights all the way to the horizon. The photos
turned out beautifully, and they're on Jon's digital
camera.

We have two new co-workers: Matthew, who's really
energetic, positive, and fun, as well as being a
writer himself. He's a good, smart guy, and so far
we've really enjoyed each other's company. I've kind
of taken it upon myself to try and show him and the
other, brand-new teacher (Amanda, who looks a little
like Uma Thurman, and whose boyfriend is arriving in
two more weeks), around this area. Matthew already
knows a lot about Korea and Seoul, but Amanda's brand
new, and from a small town, so this afternoon I'm
going to give her a taste of the subway system.
Matthew is also a huge fan of the saunas here --
Korean bath houses are incredible, and they're one of
the best de-stressing experiences I've found -- and it
looks like I've found my first sauna partner since old
roommate Dave left. This makes me very happy. He's
also an avid traveller, which means I might have some
company to actually accomplish some travelling around
Asia this year: travelling alone just doesn't appeal
to me (said the guy who headed out for Korea
unaccompanied). I'm thrilled to have him around.

One of my Kindergarten classes, when I take
attendance, started playing the "say no when Rob asks
if I'm here" game, so I answered them with "well then
where ARE you?" They've been regularly insisting that
either A: one of their classmates has eaten them (to
which I shake my finger at the accused classmate and
say, in a funny angry voice, "No more eating Kevin,
Owen", or B: they're at my house in Canada. I tell
them to say hello and give a hug to my Mom and Dad.
One day, I asked them, "Well it's supper time in
Canada right now. What are you having for supper with
my mother and father?" So Mom, head for the grocery
store, because you'll need to have ingredients ready
for pancakes, cake, cookies, pizza, donuts, rice and
soup next time I take attendance and my kids all turn
up in your house.

There is a coffee shop in one of the busier districts
on Seoul called "Canada Coffee Shop"; it's funny,
because in Korea, there's a coffee shop with Canada's
name and flag, employing Koreans, selling Italian
drinks that were popularized by an American coffee
shop franchise (Starbucks). Then it occurred to me
that really, nothing's MORE Canadian than such a
combination -- Canada, the country where you'll find
an Italian restaurant owned by Chinese Canadians in
the Punjab district of Vancouver, where ability in
Chinese, Japanese, Punjabi, English, Korean, and
Italian are all useful to better serve the clientele,
and where when I ask a new friend what her ethnic
background she says "Heinz 57: a secret combination of
herbs and spices." My Korean kids have trouble with
understanding the short history of Canada and the way
people here are from so many places -- you can be
Irish Hungarian Iranian Haida French and Taiwanese --
over here, I had one student whose family genealogy
stretched back twenty-eight generations -- and that
we're PROUD that such mixing can occur in our
increasingly (though not yet perfectly) diverse and
accepting society.

More in the lines of heritage and history:

I finally read the book my maternal grandfather wrote
about his family history, chronicling his family's
beginnings in Holland, the trial of the Second World
War, their immigration to Canada and the family's new
life there. When I was about sixteen, he sent me this
book he'd written after talking to all his father's
friends and relatives. At the time it was a bunch of
Dutch places and names without faces, and I got about
one chapter in before giving up. This time, after
conversations with my grandfather about our family and
heritage last January, and after being far enough away
from my roots to understand and treasure how deep they
are, reading it was a moving experience. The book
read, to me, as a tribute to my great grandfather, and
I imagined my Opa using research for his book as a
chance to get to know his own father in a new way, now
that he's gone, and realized that by writing down his
own discoveries as he tried to get to know his father,
he also gave me the chance to get to know HIM in the
same way. So thank you for that, Opa. Thanks for
writing down your journey, so that I could share it
with you, and get to know my own roots because you
recorded yours.

More recently, I was struck near the bone again by an
experience I had in my local, in-my-area church. It's
a small church, and it meets in a large classroom in a
Christian English school. The leader of the church is
a guy named Steve, and he has some contacts with the
underground church in China, and some missionaries
there. In China, church meetings are illegal, and
missionaries there have to be extremely careful,
becuase they're carefully watched. Instead of the
loud, exuberant, free singing found in a North
American or Korean church, a Chinese or North Korean
underground church can't risk being overheard, so they
will have one guitar playing lightly (if that), and
one person singing aloud (in a quiet voice) while all
the other worshippers mouth the words or hum quietly
along. The song leader in our church asked us to sing
a song in the style of the underground church. The
style of singing the song, whose words went, "He is
our peace, He has broken down every wall. . . Cast all
your cares on him, for he cares for you, He is our
peace. . . " was both a praise song, and a prayer for
those who can't worship freely -- who still live
behind walls. For about three days I couldn't get
that picture out of my head. I've been reminded.

I think prospects here in Korea are looking up: this
new potential travel/hangout friend in Matthew is a
really encouraging sign: I've been lonely and homesick
for the last month or so. Both the new co-workers are
pretty good friendship prospects, and if Amanda's
boyfriend (coming in July) is as cool as she is, we'll
be in for some good times. I'm reading good stuff --
Dune by Frank Herbert, and the Iliad by Homer have
both carried me away recently -- and writing has been
progressing (slowly . . . but progressing) as well.
As always, my students are brilliant and wonderful
even when nothing else is -- Cindy (the most verbose
student I have -- funny, but really chatty, and who
regularly, ironically, scolds Willy for talking too
much) was asking me about the homework I gave her: "Do
we really have to do this part?"

"Everything from page 56-59"

"What about on page 57?"

"Cindy, what part of "Everything" don't you
understand?"

"Everything."

I howled -- I don't think she realized on how many
levels her comment worked, but it was perfect. She's
the one who used "It's a travesty" instead of "It's a
tragedy".

In another class (another favourite class), we were
reading about Benjamin Banneker, a black intellectual
who challenged Thomas Jefferson in a letter about
their allowing of black slaves in America. During a
review class, I asked my students, "What famous
document did Thomas Jefferson help write?"

(the constitution)

"I don't know."

"It starts with a C."

"I don't know."

"The conn n n nn "

"glish."

Konglish is the Korean slang word for English words
that sneak into the Korean language -- words like
guitar, barbeque, piano, hamburger, and words that
didn't quite make the jump intact, like "handphone"
and "air con" for "air conditioner".

Showing Amanda (who's never been overseas before)
around the area, and around Seoul, has been a good
reason to revisit a lot of places I hadn't been to in
a long time. New people in one's life often causes
one to revisit old, familiar places, both in
conversation and in location. That's one of the best
things about having visitors to BC: an excuse to see
canyons and mountains and theatres that one doesn't
otherwise visit.

Today I went to one of Korea's traditional markets --
it's mostly touristy now, but still loaded with old
Korean goods like jewelry boxes, carry bags, and other
wonderful artifacts of Koreanity. I'd forgotten how
quaint and lovely the area is with its cobblestone
road and bamboo building exteriors and a funny blend
of modern destination and ancient Korean market.


In follow-up to what I said last time about my nephew,
I'll just share a verse in the Bible I found that
reflects my view about the whole thing.

John 9:1-3:

1As he [Jesus] went along, he saw a man blind from
birth. 2His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned,
this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
3"Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said
Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God
might be displayed in his life.

-- My prayer now is that "the work of God might be
displayed in [Matthias'] life". In the case of the
man born blind, that meant Christ would (shortly
thereafter) heal him; in my nephew's life, that might
be the work of God in his life; it might be something
that I can't see or imagine now, but that will totally
surprise and amaze everyone when it happens. I'm
finding peace about the situation; I mostly just want
to see him again.

I was walking through a shopping center in Seoul and
accidentally stumbled upon some kind of program -- a
group of 11-15 year old boys were playing in a drum
arrangement with large and small drums and cymbals.
For a long time, they played, varying the beat and
somehow managing to continually increase the intensity
of their rhythms. Heads bobbed in unison; it seemed
like even the sweat crawling down their faces ought to
be synchronized, and I realized that each of these
boys had, for a little while, ceased existing: they
were only the rhythm, nothing except the same as their
teammates, and I, too, disappeared for a while (I
can't tell exactly how long: clocks seem to stop
working properly when you're carried away like that).
What an invigorating experience! Somehow getting away
from myself for a little while makes me feel so much
more comfortable once I'm back in my own skin, but not
many things can do that. Old friends can, and chances
to really show a person love or compassion can.
Sometimes worship can (that's where the word ecstasy
originally comes from -- the heightened state of
excitement old Greeks observed during certain
religious rituals), or art -- creating or engaging
with it. Regardless of where it occurs (I imagine
intense exercise or competition would do the same),
it's quite an experience, and certainly makes
returning to onesself a lot easier, sort of the way
travelling can make your hometown feel that much more
comfortable. I once read a note a Japanese ESL
student had written to a penpal, and she had signed
off with the phrase "Have a vivid day" -- I loved
that: not just a nice day, or a happy day, but a vivid
day. May your experiences today be intense and
interesting, and may your mind be aware enough to
notice things as they happen to you, and may you
relish them. Sometimes I'm walking down the street
and suddenly, inexplicably, it's as if somebody
flipped a "senses on" switch in me somewhere, and I
can see every leaf on every tree, taste the sunlight,
and feel the air sliding between my fingers. I wish I
knew how to bring such an experience on whenever I
wanted, but until then,

Have a vivid day.

All my love.

Rob