I never smile...

By Jason Morrow

Communication is a key that unlocks nothing at Songwon Elementary School. Day by day miscommunication builds and builds until all the teachers vote to have Young-mi (the Korean teacher that communicates with us) talk to us.

Each day the teachers give us journals from the students to grade and yesterday the pile of journals nearly stacked over our heads. It covered our entire side of the table. I suppose our faces showed displeasure because this left us zero time to plan for anything. 

Young-mi stopped me to talk in her classroom and said that the teachers were concerned that there were hurt feelings over it. I then explained that when you have to grade all of the student's journals it gets quite overbearing. 

She also informed me that they think we are angry because we do not always have a smile on our faces. 

"For example," she said, "In the morning when some teachers say good morning to you, you aren't smiling."

I really didn't know what to say. 

I wanted to say that I see you every day, Why would I need to give you a big "Howdy-Doody!" Every morning? Back in the States, "good mornings" are much more enthusiastic on Monday's and less so on Wednesday's and Thursday's.

Since I didn't know what to say I simply shrugged and smiled. 

She stressed that the teachers were there to help us, but even when we ask questions we don't get a straight answer or they give an answer to a completely different question. Talking to them turns into frustration for both sides. 

They haven't stopped to consider that they often have conferences without us or even about us while we are sitting there grading journals. We feel invisible at school and that's alright. But the Korean women need to understand that because I'm not flashing my teeth during every moment of my day, I'm not angry. 

As far as the job is concerned, it's great! It is not without its challenges, but we both really enjoy it. In all honesty, our teachers that do not understand us are the most frustrating part of the job. But we both know we aren't here for them. We are here to teach children our language and do our best at it. We don't always succeed but when we do and the students are really enjoying the class and learning, it's the best feeling in the world. 

If a student ever asks me why I don't like my job then I know there is something to worry about because I do like it. I like it a lot. The sensitivity of Korean women can be too much at times and this week it has been way too much. I'm not saying that they speak for all Korean women but they sure aren't always leaving the best impression. 

Today was frustrating. But TGIF, right?…

Emily here: This is what I told Jason to say but he thought it might be a bit rude:      Click Here

Taking the bus in Gwangju

Sorry if the video is a little long. This is just us showing you how to get around in Gwangju. It's not very easy, as you will see in the video...

$75 Cantaloupe

Emily here:

Today I saw a cantaloupe with the price tag of 75,000 won, that's roughly 75 smackeroos. Can you believe that?  Who even likes cantaloupe enough to spend $5 on one? Things here are definitely different than back home. That statement was kind of ridiculous, considering I am on the other side of the world, but there are so many things I took for granted in America that I didn't even realize other cultures didn't have.

I have gone to at least 4 different grocery stores in search of canned vegetables. Guess what... they just don't have them here. The only canned veggie you can find is corn. Do the Korean people realize they are missing out on some amazing soups with the absence of canned vegetables? Do they even realize how terrific hotdog hash is and how you simply can't create it to its highest potential taste without some canned tomatoes? Ok, so no canned how about frozen? NOPE! You can however buy 50 different brands of "pot-stickers".

Ok, so the only thing I can complain about is the lack of frozen and canned veggies. Other than that, we are loving it. The transportation system is fantastic. Riding the bus is always an adventure. We finally got some teaching supplements, so we don't have to completely pull lessons out of thin air.

The kids are great. I always feel so special when I am around the students. One of my jobs is to grade these diaries that the students keep. The students don't know the foreign teachers see the diaries because they are turned into their Korean teachers. Today Jason read a diary that said:

 "Tomoroww we will study english with our new native teachers. The women is the prettiest native teacher I ever seen. The men was also hansome too. I wish we study with the women because she has a pretty voice and a pretty face. She was short but I like her."

I made a photocopy because it was so adorable that some child actually wrote that. It is so sweet, except for the short part...which is pretty bad coming from an Asian person.

Look forward to a video before next week. Jason and I are going to show you how we get around using the bus system. It might be funny. Who knows. Thanks again for all your prayers and support. We love you all!

Our Korean Apartment

Teaching...a new way of life

I stand in line watching as the Koreans ahead of me graciously accept the food pile on their trays. The lunch lady reaches her red-stained rubber hands into the vat of breaded chicken patties, pulls one out and dunks it into a sauce. With rice, chicken, Kimchi and a soup I refused to touch, I survived another meal at Songwon Elementary School. To tell the truth, I haven't had a bad lunch yet, but I know it is sure to come.

Teaching is difficult. On our first day, Emily and I were forced to improv for every class. We had no idea what we were doing but somehow we got through the day and managed to teach some sort of lesson. That night we came home and planned out for the rest of the week. It has been enough to get us through, but we have realized that we must come up with a new strategy, or our kids are not going to learn English.

•No books
•No curriculum
•Only our abilities

It's pretty intense. It doesn't help that whenever we ask other teachers a question we get blank stares and answers to completely different questions. It's not their fault. It just somehow gets lost in translation.

The stresses of our school days have lessened as we have gone along through the week and we are leading an English speaking competition tomorrow called Golden Bell. We've asked our duties several times and all we can get is that we are reading the questions. We don't really know what the format of the competition is but I'm sure we will figure it out when the time comes. That's how we've made it through this week. We have both quickly learned that in just about every situation, you can't expect to know anything until it is thrown in your face. Things would be a lot more organized if Emily and I were not the only people in the school that spoke English. But I suppose that is why we are there.

We went out into the city the other night to explore and find neat things! It started out as fun, but we got lost and couldn't figure out our bus ride home. We were out for more than three hours searching. We had an address written down in Korean but for some reason even the taxi drivers had no idea where we lived. But we eventually made it.

We just recently cleaned our apartment from moving in (something we were hoping to have time to do way before now) and are now just trying to set up contacts with other foreigners in the city. We did meet one guy named Rob, but haven't seen him since the bus stop. I'm sure we will come across more as the days go by. I've realized that Emily and I are about as bad as our Korean students when it comes to seeing an American. (or Canadian:-)

<--------- This was before we got lost. See the     happy faces? They didn't last.





For the longest time we were looking for some food to eat. We came across a wide variety of foods. There was everything from squid to octopus and plenty of smelly fish ready to be cut open and cooked right off the streets.

We very happily came across a hotdog stand even getting that was a difficult task. After several minutes of explaining what we wanted on it (what, Korean's don't have ketchup?) we were served a corn dog. It seems that they took it literally. Among other toppings, the guy opened up a can of sweet corn and spread the kernels all over the coney. After a couple of bites, and far from the hotdog stand we discreetly placed our meal in the trash. It tasted like old meat. Really old.

But it was probably a better alternative to this.













But just to let you know, we are having a great time here and we are looking forward to the many adventures ahead.
Thank you all for your prayers and support!

What?

Emily here:
I believe the next Korean word I'm going to learn how to say is "what?". We have been in South Korea for less than 24 hours and already I have furrowed my brow and spoken this word many times. Let's rewind...

Jason and I boarded the plane to South Korea at 1 a.m., only a few hours went by and  we were greeted with a large Korean supper (What?). It was only 3 or 4 a.m., but we were encouraged to eat to get our bodies used to Korean time. One hour after extremely spicy vegetables, rice, kimchi, cold noodles and cantaloup the lights were turned out for sleeping. Hooray! Jason and I were able to sleep about 5 hours total. With people constantly using the bathroom, located only a few feet from us, and the stewardesses walking back and forth offering water, orange juice, and estee' lauder products it was hard to sleep.

 The time was blurred, but my nook said it was 2 a.m. (Korean time) and that's when a stewardess woke us up for a hearty Korean breakfast. It was some sort of cheese wrapped in a greasy dumpling served with ham. The ham was good. We chose the dumplings because the other choice was spicy korean vegetables with rice and kimchi (What?)....for breakfast. We landed a few hours later.

We tried to call our parents via pay phone but our calling cards had to be activated before leaving the U.S. ...oops. We did, however, manage to figure out that Korean pay phones keep the change after you are done with your call (What?).   Having "enjoyed" our first two Korean meals Jason and I decided the first place to eat on Korean soil was good ole' McDonald's. Jason and I ate our second breakfast and headed off to the bus ticket counter. Finding the bus (or airport limousine as they call it...what?) was very easy.

After a four hour ride we were greeted by a smiling face who ran up and introduced herself as one of the Korean English teachers at our school. One of the first things she said was "Sorry but you don't get a rest you have to work tomorrow"(What?).  Mine and Jason's stomachs dropped from the news that we would not have time to acclimate to our surroundings. She took us to our apartment where we were greeted by 2 other Korean English teachers. Our apartment is nice. There are a lot of interesting aspects like there is no shower, just a portable shower head (what?). This means you are showering two feet away from the sink and the toilet, everything gets soaked. You'll see that in our upcoming video tour of the apartment.

After seeing our apartment, we were taken to the school where we will be teaching. When you enter you are to remove your shoes and put on slippers (what?). I understand the removing of the shoes as a sign of respect, but why remove shoes to put on shoes with softer soles?

After the tour of the school we were taken out to eat even though we were very clear about our lack of hunger and complete exhaustion. Thankfully it was a vegetarian place. It was buffet style, sort of. All the food was put out on platters and not kept warm in chafing dishes (what?). Everything we ate was good.

FINALLY, we were left at the apartment to fend for ourselves. We took a trip to the grocery, only a few blocks from our apartment, which was followed by a thirty minute nap that turned into sleeping for the night. So here we are awake at 3 a.m.

Maybe we will defeat jet-lag tomorrow.  Today, we teach.

Our arriving pictures are nothing to ooh and aah over, but we were tired.

Getting ready to go...

Jason here:

Emily and I have just finished all of our paperwork to get to Korea. Now, we wait for the consulate to send us our E2 visas and passports to we can actually move. The trip to Chicago was unneeded for the small interview we had. Everything we did could have been done over a short phone conversation and a postage stamp.

But we had fun...

We went with our friend Chase and had a fun night out on the town. One of the sad things is that we learned the school wants us to fly out to Gwangju this coming Friday. Don't get me wrong, we are both very excited to be going to work but we wish we could have just a little bit longer with our families. But the hard part is over for the preparation stage. Now we just have to figure out everything like how money works and where we live. It's going to be interesting to say the least.

Here is our itinerary:

Friday we drive to Nashville and fly out at 7:55 p.m. to Chicago. We then have a layover until 1:00 a.m. and then we fly strait from Chicago to Incheon National Airport. We should arrive there at about 6 a.m. From there we get a 4-hour bus ride to Gwangju and we will meet someone from the school. I really hope they let us rest a couple of days before making us go to the school, but we are both feeling that this may not be the case.

Friends and family: we are doing our best to hang out with you as much as we can before Friday!!!

These are a couple of my favorite pics from Chicago.