This blog should have been written months ago, but maybe I’ve needed some time to process…
Traveling in South East Asia was amazing. Words do not capture the beauty I have seen in Thailand and Cambodia. I never imagined myself going to either of these countries, or even Korea for that matter, but I am very glad I got to experience them with Seth. I am forever changed.
One year in Korea and it feels like a dream. That’s the only way to describe my time there. I have been home for several months now and when I speak of Korea, it feels like some wild amusement park ride. That “thing” I did last year. It doesn’t feel like real life to me for some reason.
Here in the States there are responsibilities and commitments. I have to pay soo much money to have a phone, computer access and gas for my car. The few responsibilities I had in Korea were minor and without serious consequences. That was a major change from my life prior to moving to Korea. I learned how to relax and chill out, finally.
I am happy to be able to shop for clothes and shoes again. That part is nice. I also enjoy having a full kitchen again with the ability to cook just about anything I want to eat. Most of all, I’m happy that I get to see my nephew and the rest of my family. It’s difficult to be away from the people I love.
People ask me if I would recommend moving to Korea and teaching for a year… I say, Go for it! The money is great and you might get lucky to meet some fantastic people in the process. Just keep an open mind and be willing to try new things. Before Korea I had never eaten fish with the head and tail still attached, I had never eaten soo much cabbage in my life (and if I ever eat cabbage again, it’ll be too soon), and I had never seen soo many men wearing pink sparkle ties.
The world is a giant place and I think it’s wonderful to experience as much as possible.
I will be teaching Science at my Alma Mater! Life goes on and I’m excited about my next adventure. I’m also working on a food blog. Since I won’t be traveling the globe eating exotic cuisine, I decided to write about my own culinary masterpieces.
Thanks for following along on my journey. It’s been a wild and wonderful ride.
<– even balloons … LOL
Seth here -> first post -> a bunch of nothing
Mar 25
Posted by smbaker in Korean culture, Random Ramblings, Teaching
Hey guys. I reckon its time I start making some contributions for this little blog. Tiffany has turned into a pretty prolific blogger, persevering through the wordpress learning curve and crappy ‘borrowed’ wifi connections. I got her going then kind of threw my hands up and said ‘I’ll do it later when the interwebs work as they should.’ Now that we have a pretty rockin connection, I suppose now I have no excuse other than sheer laziness.
Well, here I am. First post. What to say? I could talk about the difficulties of learning the language and how social status affects word forms (baffling), the drinking culture (prodigious), the yellow dust (maddening), the food (awesome), or about the North Korean situation (terrifyingly laughable). Instead I’d like to talk about baseball, specifically the World Baseball Classic.
Conceived by MLB and first held in 2006 (with Japan as the winner), the WBC is sort of like the Olympics in that international teams compete for what amounts to international bragging rights. The difference is that it isn’t the Olympics.
Two weeks ago, I’d never even heard of the WBC, but walking around I couldn’t help but notice every other television was tuned to either a game-in-progress or highlights of the last game. I thought to myself, ‘Isn’t it too early for baseball? And do the Koreans really like American baseball that much?’ Once I looked closer and didn’t see such American baseball luminaries as Coco Crisp and Chris Sabo, I figured out something else was going out. To learn more, I asked the best source of Korea information: my upper middle school class.
Me: “So, what can you guys tell me about these baseball games.”
“Teacher, teacher, It’s the world baseeeball classic! Korea will beat America, sorry, and Korea will defeat Japan” and “Korea is the best basesball team in the world” and “Do you want Korea or Japan to win” and “Do you hate Japan, too?”
Well, I said, I hope Korea wins, but maybe I’m just rooting for the home team. (Teacher, what is rooting?) Whoever wins deserves to win. And no, I don’t hate Japan but I can understand why you might.
When Korea lost the last game of the series (and it was a close one), here is what I heard from the students.
“They tried their best.”
Isn’t that all we can do?
As a side note, the U.S. team lost to Korea.
I had intended to go into how the WBC rivalry between Japan and Korea is a reflection of their troubled history as neighbors in the region as well as their healthy economic rivalry (why am I thinking of Hyundai and GM?) For those who aren’t familiar with this history, maybe I’ll get into it at some point in the future. Let’s just say that many Koreans have a fair amount of animosity towards the Japanese. I learned this my first day. Here’s what happened.
I needed copies. The copy machine broke. When you push a button a mangled piece of paper would come out. The director pulled it out into the hall and started opening trays, pushing buttons and pulling levers, whatever you do to fix copy machines. Soon two more Korean teachers joined in and you’ve got three guys working on this big Canon copy machine, each doing one thing or another while I’m watching the clock and thinking ‘should I be teaching right now? Maybe its okay, the director is here.’ Finally one of them throws up his hands, turns to me and says ‘of course its broken, its Japanese.’
Welcome to Korea.
Tags: baseball, japan-korea relations, Korean culture, postcolonial commentary, technical difficulties