Idle Thoughts During A Snowstorm (March 2004)

So anyway, I have no idea why I'm indoors right now,
except that I'm recovering from a cold. The snow
outside is, paraphrased from a friend's Ukrainian
saying, "climbing down ladders," a rare and beautiful
thing no matter where you are. It's perfect snow. It
crunches underfoot, and it makes perfect snowballs,
sticks to your eyelashes, but doesn't soak through
your shoes. I've been walking around the streets of
my neighbourhood in my green, snow-magnet jacket,
looking like a snowman and grinning like a cat who
just grew opposable thumbs, but hasn't told anyone he
knows how to unlock the sliding door.

I was literally blanketed in snow, when I got to the
Subway (not the transportation, but the sandwich
restaurant, which is two blocks from my house, and
SUCH a joy to have so close; all last year, I ate at
Subway ONCE, and missed it more with each Whopper I
choked down). Before stepping inside, I brushed a
small avalanche of snow off my shoulders and jacket,
and then shook my head and let fly another small
flurry from my snow-gathering curls. After clearing
almost all the fluff off of myself, I looked up, and
the three employees in the Subway were all watching me
and laughing away. I was in such a good mood I didn't
even mind. When I left the restaurant, I crossed
paths with another foreigner named Colleen, from
Portland, who said "how long have you been here?"
I said, "Just over a week."
She said, "No wonder you're so friendly."

(often foreigners in Korea start off with this "golly
gee whiz" feel, and go up to any foreigner they meet,
and say silly things like "Hey! You speak English and
I have no friends! Can I buy you a coffee? A donut?
A car? What if I just follow you around for a while?"
-- and then as they get used to Korea, they get more
and more surly, until they'll pass a foreigner in the
street without even nodding at them -- as if they were
in Paris or something.)

Then I explained that actually I was just in a good
mood because of the beautiful snow, and we talked for
a while about Autumns in Ontario (where I grew up) and
New Hampshire (where she grew up), and made each other
homesick for a while, but otherwise hit it off rather
nicely. It always helps to have friends who live in
your neighbourhood.

It's been an interesting week. I caught a nasty cold
in my first week back (last time I came to Korea one
of the first things I did was get sick as well -- I
think it's part of my body adjusting to a new climate,
diet, etc.). Monday was a holiday here -- Korean
Independance Movement Day (leave it to a Canadian to
forget whether Independence is spelled with an "A" or
an "E"), the day when a Korean started the uprising
that eventually ended Japan's occupation of Korea. I
took it easy that day (I'd already had a lot of fun
that weekend, including taking a friend to that Indian
restaurant (Swagat) I visited with my old roommate
Dave, where he scoffed when I told them "I'll be
back"), but I was up six times on Monday night with a
throat as dry as anything I'd ever felt. It hurt to
swallow, and the next morning I had such a nasty sore
throat/headache combination that I called in sick on
my first day of work. I had wanted to get started on
the right foot, but instead I got started flat on my
back, sucking on a humidifier. Not only that, I asked
my boss to take me to a doctor's office that
afternoon, and since I had no cash, asked her to foot
the bill as well! Turns out I had an ulcer (an
ULCER!) on my right tonsil (and I'm sure my med-school
buddy - you know who you are - will tell me all about
that shortly), but I'm on a few antibiotics and
painkillers and I'm actually feeling quite well
compared to Tuesday evening.

So in the end, I missed my first two days, ate nothing
but rice cereal and orange juice for half the week,
and rented a couple of mostly decent movies when I
couldn't sleep anymore, but reading still made my
headache worse.

I haven't even tried, but somehow my students, before
I even came into the classrooms, had me tagged as a
"funny teacher". I've realized that if I want a class
of kids to take me seriously at all, I have to walk in
the room with a sour, mean face, to let them know that
while we're in class, I mean business. Also, since my
throat is the source of my sickness, my voice is 50%
at best, so I absolutely can't shout over students
when they're noisy. I trained them all to hush up
immediately when I clap my hands twice. Even the
kindergarten kids got that. I think I'm going to hang
onto that. Or maybe even find something quieter
still. I've learned the best way to handle a class of
kids is not with a sledge-hammer -- by being even
LOUDER than they are -- but with a scythe -- somthing
quiet and sharp that stops them right at the root of
the noise.

I'd forgotten what a pleasure it is to teach. I
really do enjoy getting in the class. After a month
of being excited/terrified of this new school which
normally only hires people with education degrees,
which has really high quality/professionalism
standards, it was really a relief to just plain get
into the class with the students and do some
old-fashioned teaching. (That's old fashioned
teaching as in actual teaching with students, as
opposed to thinking about/reading about/worrying about
teaching; it's not old fashioned teaching as in I got
out the slates, straps and rulers and handed out some
good corporal lashings). Teaching really does make me
feel good. This school's students are SO bright
compared to my last school -- fluent, with great
attitudes! They'll have conversations with you
outside of class, speaking in complete sentences! If
not for the accents, I'd think I were teaching back in
Canada sometimes. This is really fun. And the stuff
they learn -- most of the classes are within a year of
studying the same material kids their age are studying
in Elementary schools in California! Except how many
Californian grade schoolers can tell you the
difference between a pronoun and an adjective (come on
Angela -- what's the difference? MY students know.
Do you (even though you're not from California)?)

I'm teaching Kindergarten, which is also really fun.
After my first class -- I hadn't met these kids fifty
minutes before -- two of the girls already wanted to
come up and give me hugs, just for being there and
making a noise like a chicken (or maybe THAT's why
they all think I'm a funny teacher. hmmm).

I think I'm really going to like this. A lot.

And golly, it's fun writing to a bunch of native
English speakers, to whom I can write as strangely and
colourfully as I wish, and who will almost all still
catch almost all of what I'm saying. (If you're
having any trouble, ask your mom. You know who you
are. Dan.)

heh heh heh.

It's been really nice being in Seoul this time around,
because I already know how to survive -- last year it
took me until March or even May to really feel like I
could get through a day without any big troubles, but
this time I arrived already knowing how to use the
busses, how to read a subway map, how to read the menu
at a restaurant, how to ask if it had dairy in it (it
never does), etc..

Anyway, this letter may match the tone of my first few
letters my last time around, except maybe now that
I've been around the block once (as well as through
the wringer), that tone is tempered with a little more
savvy. One of my friends wished my letters could
always be so chipper, and match those of another
friend who's now teaching in Taiwan, but I don't think
I'd be able to write anything other than how I'm
feeling in an e-mail like this, and I don't think I'd
want to anyway. Sorry (you know who YOU are, too.)

So maybe my next e-mail will be melancholy and
introspective, or thought-provoking and philosophical,
or bubbly and joyful, but I hope they're never flip or
trite, because I think I owe it to you, my loyal
friends and family in Canada/USA/Red Deer, to give you
slices of the real, no-punches-pulled me, in the real,
no-warts(or-wonders)-concealed Korea.

All my love

Rob "Now I'm going to go get more snow in my
eyelashes" Ouwehand

footnotes:
Dave: your e-mail was awesome, and I'll respond to it
personally soon.
Melissa: I keep telling everyone here how wonderful
Ayden and your family is.
Kristopher: This school definitely looks like a
keeper. I've only had one day of classes so far, but
I enjoyed it a lot, despite a headache and no voice.
Angela: I JUST got your e-mail now. E-mails take
longer to reach me because I'm asleep when you send
them, and you're asleep when I answer them, AND I
don't check as often now that I have to go to an
internet cafe to check. Korean kids DO only go to
school from 9-12 AM, but then they go to after-school
schools (Math, or Science, or English, or Piano, or
Taekwondo, or Soccer, or Swimming, or several of the
above) somtimes until 7:00 or even 9:00 at night! And
yes, they go to school on Saturday. But not to our
school. Most Koreans go to work on Saturday too. And
sorry, I don't have a saxophone you can borrow. But I
do have a purple walking puppet named Apostrophe Bill
you can use -- though I'll need him back when I come
home.

Dad (and everyone else)
My address (so you can send me presents, or even just
funny/cheeky/scenic postcards) is:

and, sorry to sound like a beggar, Dad, but could you
include in the package with the documents and
papermate pens, if you can, two more items? -- 1. a 2
ft by 4 ft (or something thereabouts) Canadian Flag
for display, and 2. a water bottle belt-loop hook,
like the one Mom gave you a couple of Christmasses
ago? That's all, I swear! Feel free to deduct those
amounts from money I send home, too. Thanks a
million.

a few English errors my kids made:
"Two small words coming together into one word is a. .
. "
"Complain word!" (compound word)

the book said "I see two hedgehogs."
he read "I see two hot dogs."

and for some reason they wouldn't stop laughing every
time I said the word "Judge" -- it was being used in
the "judge not" context, but they kept pounding their
fists like gavels on the desk. I explained that it
was the same word -- a Judge judges people -- but it
still cracked them up.

and one more for the road, for anyone with the
endurance to read this far (you brilliant troopers):

I didn't know why Koreans kept mispronouncing the word
"Doctor" and laughing, 'till a former co-worker
explained. Ddokk is the Korean word for chicken, and
Toll is the Korean word for fur or feathers. So if
you mispronounce "doctor" in a particularly Korean
way, it sounds like "It took two chicken feathers to
fix my ribs!"

one more time, as always with love,
Rob

Arrival 2004

Hi everybody.

This letter is just to tell you that I arrived safely
in Korea yesterday night.  This area (Joongkye) is
great -- there are really big, beautiful mountains
right nearby.  Also, the air is cleaner than it was at
my last school.  The school is huge and very well
organized, and I like the co-workers so far.

So thank you for your prayers and care, and stay tuned
for more fun -- be it my normal brand of strange
updates for you North American contacts, or a phone
call and some hang-out time for my Korean friends.

Rob

Allergy Update (July 2003)

Because I've received some concerned e-mails. . .

I'm doing fine in regards to the allergy stuff. The
doctor gave me some pills to take for a few days, and
the lump in my throat went away nicely after about
twenty-four hours. My old roommate Dave (who goes
back to USA tomorrow to attend Medical School at . . .
I think Columbia in NYC), asked one of his doctor
friends about my allergy and she told him that an
allergy to the noodles I ate on Wednesday, and a shock
reaction like I had, is a common enough occurrence.
I'll also tell you what I hear from the allergy
specialist on Monday as soon as possible.

Regarding my ankle, the ligament that got pulled was
one associated with my fibula, not my tibia. The
fibula is the smaller of the two lower leg bones, and
it is NOT the weight-bearing bone; its purpose is more
for support and maybe balance. That means that now, a
week after my injury (almost exactly), I can walk with
barely a limp, and I only feel pain when I've climbed
too many stairs or bent my foot in a direction it
doesn't like. So within a week I am back on my feet
and (almost) as mobile as ever. I won't attack any
hiking trails yet, but my coworker (who recently ALSO
injured his ankle) agrees that I was really lucky as
ankle injuries go.

So things are going well; I have a vial of epinephrine
(adrenaline) and a syringe that the doctors gave me on
Wednesday so that if I have another allergic reaction
I can inject myself instead of first going to the
hospital. I feel a lot better having that on hand,
even though I'm now one of those people who has to
carry a vial of adrenaline with him in case things get
out of hand. But on Monday or Tuesday they'll give me
a list of things not to eat and you may never hear
about it again, so that's good.

The two new teachers at our school are remarkable.
They arrived on Tuesday night from Toronto Ontario and
Hull Quebec and on Friday night, because they have a
week off before classes start, they decided to buy
tickets to Bangkok leaving on Saturday! They also
headed out into Seoul on their own, armed with nothing
but the Korean phrase book they bought, and ran a
single errand on their own which is quite impressive
for the first week. They were sad not to finish all
seven errands they had meant to accomplish, but it
took me a week to buy shampoo when I got here (only to
find out at the pharmacy that the Korean word for
shampoo is . . . "shampoo"), so I think they'll do
just fine.

Anyway, I have to buy a going away present for my
roommate.

Thanks for your concern, and I'll write you again once
I've seen the allergy specialist.

God Bless
Rob Ouwehand

June 14th, 2003

There are two girls in the PC room near where I'm
sitting; they're playing with webcams and laughing
hysterically. It's really cute.


Hello everybody. Thank you for waiting so patiently
for another update.


But now, it's late Saturday night, I'm listening to an
excellent new CD, I had a great weekend, I've heard
some good news from a few of my friends
(congratulations, Melissa, Jon and Anna, and all the
people who graduated/are graduating this spring).



Friday the thirteenth was a good day for me. I must
backtrack. In March I was promoted from teacher to
foreign teacher supervisor at school; part of my job
is to help communication between foreign teachers and
the Korean bosses, and the other part is to help with
interviewing prospective employees. We had four
positions to fill between now and September, so I had
lots of recruiting/interviewing to do. On Friday, I
told my boss that the people I phone interviewed on
Thursday should be hired, and on Friday a fellow from
England accepted our offer and filled our last open
position.



So this weekend I have quite a load off my shoulders
concerning staff for the upcoming months.


I was tired, so I decided to go out with my roommate
and visit a jimjaebang (sauna).


In the subway, before the train came in, I noticed one
of the cutest little girls I've seen since I arrived
here. She had on a finger-paint purple outfit and
hair ribbons (pig-tails, of course) and she had these
huge, friendly eyes. We made eye contact and waved,
and a few funny faces later, when the train arrived,
she and I were playing hide and seek around one of the
pillars on the subway platform. On the subway, I was
standing halfway across the car and she ran up to me
and gave me an almond and a stick-on tattoo. I doubt
I've ever had a child warm up to me as fast as this
sweetheart who didn't even speak my language. Before
she got off the train she came up to me and said
"Ajashi annyong" which means "sir, goodbye", and waved
at me through the window as the subway pulled away
from the platform.


In Canada, if I were that friendly to a strange child,
her parents would probably watch me like a hawk (and a
suspicious hawk at that) until I left their kid alone.
I love this country. Being a foreigner has its
perks.


In the jimjaebang, there was this booth with a water
jet spraying water down into a pool in such a way that
you can stand or sit under the powerful stream. The
force was so strong that as soon as I stood under it
the entire world disappeared and all that remained was
the air I breathed, the bone-shaking sound of a
waterfall, and this amazing, splattering pressure on
my shoulders and head. I turned my face toward the
stream and it was so forceful that when it fell
directly on my nose, I could feel spray flying around
in my closed mouth. After the sauna/shower/water
jet/hot tub/mud bath room, you put on a pair of shorts
and a shirt and go upstairs to the hot and cold rooms.
The hot rooms are up to 90 degrees celsius. They are
too hot for the bacteria that makes sweat stink to
survive, so the air smells salty. The room is so hot
you have to put a towel down because it hurts too much
to directly touch the floor. Then you go to a cold
room and let your sweat-cleansed pores fill with cold
air.


Wonderful. Also, massage chairs. Mmmmmmmm.


I was in one of the lounges, writing in my journal,
when eight Korean university students made a
game-playing circle. They asked me where I was from,
and invited me to join them, and even asked me to
teach THEM a game! We talked and played until four in
the morning, and it turns out most of them are
studying English in some form or another. At four or
five AM, some of them went off to rest, and I sat and
talked with one of the girls until seven in the
morning, when people started waking up. I gave her my
e-mail address and I hope she writes: I'd love to hang
out with these people again. They seem like the kind
of crowd I'd hang out with if I were a Korean
university student.


Between them and a group of Seoulites I met during a
weekend trip to Pusan (far southern tip of Korea), and
one of my students, whose mom invites me out to
different museums and art galleries and palaces on
weekends, I'm managing to develop a decent social life
involving of Koreans, rather than just foreigners who,
as soon as you start really liking them, decide to go
home. These folks are really sweet, and there are a
few that I think I can even talk to (albeit in simple
language) about complex ideas like cultural gaps and
Eastern vs. Western mindframes.


So I'm making friends. I also have a church I like
now, and I am involved in their drama team. I haven't
been on stage yet, but I'm going to the small group
meetings.


It's a strange country though. Some people are so
sweet, and then others flash you dirty looks because
you're white; some kids make friends like a
thunderclap, and others point at you and laugh. Today
I was in the Hongdai area -- near an arts university
-- and I started juggling. A crowd gathered, laughing
when I dropped a ball, and clapping when I finished,
and then, five hundred steps from where I managed to
draw an appreciative, friendly crowd, I saw a stage
where a protest was beginning. Two people on stage
were singing a protest song where the crowd shouts
"F***ing USA" at the end of every line, and I drew
hateful glares from people who thought I was American
(because many Koreans assume all white people are
American). I'm sure every city contains such sharp
contrasts -- I think of the intersection in downtown
Vancouver where on one side there is a rich business
area, and on the other side is East Hastings, home to
aids-infected junkies, hobos and prostitutes. But
maybe being an outsider makes those kinds of things
much more noticeable.


Thanks to those of you who faithfully write me
letters; I really love getting them, and, as I said
before, if I am slow to answer, send me a reminder and
I'll get to it. I had a few weeks where I was
actually homesick, but I'm still glad I'm here, and,
as I wrote in my journal on the second day I was here,
"it's OK to miss people -- it'd be weird if I DIDN'T
-- but it's NOT OK to let missing them wreck my time
here."


This last month was especially hard for homesickness,
because (for those of you who do not already know), my
father was diagnosed with the early stages of prostate
cancer. It's not severe or life-threatening, but it's
still cancer, and I'm still in Korea, and that's
frustrating, because I can't be there for Dad and Mom.



Also, one of my best friends had a baby who I'm not
going to meet until next January, and I really wish I
could meet him sooner. But, as I said to my brother,
this is life, and this is how we grow up: one little
thing at a time. A friend gets engaged, someone gets
sick, I'm presented with a choice of who to hang out
with, etc.. Stuff happens, and some of it I can't
control. But it changes me, and I'm a different
person now, because of things I choose, and because of
things that aren't mine to choose. Every person who
receives this letter is also a different person than
the one I remember from my time with them, but that's
all right, because this is planet Earth, and on this
crazy planet, full of crazy humans, there aren't many
things that are the same yesterday, today, and
forever.


Anyway, that's what's been filling my days, and what's
been on my mind lately.


I hope, long as it might be, that this was worth the
read, and worth the wait.


Thanks for caring enough about me that you took the
time to read the whole thing.


Rob

Update May 2003

Hi everybody. This is personal news, but I'm writing
a bulk (ish) e-mail (note the streamlined "to" list)
because I don't think I could handle writing each of
you a personal letter about this, but I want each of
you, specifically, to know so you can pray about it,
and know about it.

This morning I got a phone call from my Mom and Dad;
Dad had prostate surgery a little while ago to remove
a bunch of stones (I hope this isn't an overshare . .
. ) and today (I guess it's probably yesterday by now)
they saw the doctor for an update, etc..

The doctor told him that of the stones they removed, a
certain amount of them had cancerous cells in them.
They caught it in an early stage, and it hasn't
spread, which is excellent: prostate cancer is one of
the least threatening cancers after skin cancer, if it
is caught in time and dealt with appropriately. They
caught this one really early, so the prognosis is
really good (as cancer prognoses go), but even though
my nurse aunt says that this kind of prostate cancer
comes out fine 99% of the time, it's still the "C"
word, and it's still my dad, and that's a little
distressing: it's the first time cancer has struck
anyone in my family closer than cousins I've never
met. And whatever the success rate of treating this
kind of cancer or the other, it'll still be unpleasant
having his prostate removed: he'll be on his back
and/or limited in movement for 6-8 weeks after his
hospital stay, and, you know, he's my DAD, and I'm in
stinkin' Korea where all I can do is call regularly
and e-mail.

So pray for my Dad a lot: it's only been in the last
few years that I've really grown to know and admire
him, and see how much of him is in me, and pray that I
would be the best son I can from where I am, and that
my Dad's condition would neither wreck my stay in
Korea, nor that my stay in Korea would make me a poor
support during my Dad's hard time.

Still love it in Korea, etc. etc., but. . . I dunno,
this is the first time I've REALLY been frustrated
that I'm here instead of there, and I can't just drop
everything and spend the weekend at Mom and Dad's or
something.

Thanks for caring, and being the kinds of people I
care about enough, and who have cared enough about me,
that I want you to be the first to know news like
this. I'm blessed and lucky to have such a long list
of addresses in my "To" box for news like this: I
thank God every chance I get for having supports like
you.

Love you all
Rob