Do You Know Who I am?

Here’s some Bloginess coming at cha--- (was that funny? Sometimes when I’m too happy my writing can get kinda punchy)

Mom’s here first and foremost and it’s amazing. Forget the fact that she’s paying for the five star hotel for our vacation to Jeju Island this weekend. Forget the fact that she’s bringing me Zpacks (hardcore anti biotics) and presents and messages from loved ones back home. She’s just so damn familiar. When I saw her these thoughts came to my head (not necessarily in this order):

1.Brodie, my beloved neurotic dog, sprinting around our house every time we come back home. He may be living with me when I go to law school next year.

2.My backyard at my parents’ house—we have a lame little peach tree (the pathetic wispy, Lowes –bought kind that are planted in middle class suburban neighborhoods) that produces hard, inedible peaches. I like to go out there when I’m bored or restless from being inside and break them in half in my hand to look at the fleshy inside.

3.Having space to maneuver around people so as to avoid hitting them (not possible in Korea due to space restrictions and weird cultural norms that avoid acknowledging a strangers’ existence)

4.Being able to drive a car. (before Korea I was all for public transportation, saving the environment and money etc etc. I can envision my little uppity liberal mouth spouting all kinds of crap about the way of the future. Now I’d shave my head for access to a car and the freedom to come and go as I please without having to worry about subway schedules, puking Korean girls or drunk ajoshees (old Korean men) trying to yell at the entire subway car.)



(My mom and I during the first time she visited in November)

My principal asked me today if I knew who he was (In Korean translated through my co-teacher). After I told him Yes, I’ve been aware that he was the principal ever since we were introduced in his office right after he came to the school, I got to thinking: Does my principal think I’m retarded because I can’t speak Korean?

I mean, this is somewhat valid. The students get frustrated with me all the time because I can’t speak Korean. For example, a student might ask me for help with the rules of a game and I completely misinterpret what they’re asking me. I think it would go like this:

Student Perspective:

Student: (in English) Malia Teacher! Help!

Me:Okay.(approach the table and look open and helpful)

Student:(in Korean) My partner won’t say the English word during the game. Does that mean he doesn’t get his points?

Me: Umm okay. Let’s do rock paper scissors to see who goes first. (pantomime rock paper scissors)


Student: No teacher! Minsu won’t say the English word but he’s still
counting the points.It’s not fair.

Me: Why aren’t you doing rock, paper, scissors?

Teacher Perspective:

Student:(in English) Malia Teacher! Help!


Me:Okay.(approach the table and look open and helpful)

Student:Korean Korean Korean Korean Korean. (Point vaguely at their
desk) Korean Korean.

Me:look around for where my Korean co-teacher is. She’s busy. Wing
it.) Let’s do Rock, paper, scissors.

You can see where it’s going from there.

My friend Neil who works at an elementary school in a different district of Seoul swears straight out that he hears his students calling him stupid (which is bobo in Korean).

I think they also feel as if I’m a little stupid for staring at them blankly when they come up to me and earnestly try to engage me in conversation (I mean, as earnestly as a third grader can). In my opinion, kids and adults have a hard enough time communicating without the language barrier, and kids always tend to get exasperated that those of us living in the adult world can’t remember enough of what our own childhood felt like to relate. I remember consciously having a thought when I was somewhere around 10 or 11 that went something like “when I grow up I am not going to forget what this feels like and act as stupidly as mom and dad are acting right now.”

Outside my school atmosphere it’s worse. In Seoul, Koreans think I’m Korean and treat me like one of their own. This may sound good in the ‘oh you’re experiencing what the culture is really like’ kind of way, but its not. I get asked for directions to places all the time on the street and in the subway from people of all ages (but mostly old people). When I tell them “I don’t understand Korean” in Korean, they just repeat whatever they said louder, as if I may be slightly deaf. I finally have to just break into speaking really fast English so that they’ll get the point and walk away, leaving me with the definite impression that I was the one who messed up that ordinary little societal exchange.

I feel as if I’m constantly doing something that clashes with what I’m supposed to be doing, with the idea that people have of me (as a perceived fellow Korean). I think this is hard to understand through a western lens because we are not a collectivist people. In Korea, you are constantly observed and conscious of those around you, even if you’re ignoring them. And I can guarantee you that they’ll notice if you do something immoral or even just embarrassing and, depending on what demographic they fall into (male/female, old/young, rich/poor) they may say or do something in reaction to your perceived immoral act. Korean children must attend ethics and moral education starting in the first grade. They have classes that talk about what the right thing for them to do is in a certain situation.

Koreans can be drunk in public (even though its not something people strive for its definitely culturally accepted as part of life), but they don’t want to be seen drinking in public places that aren’t designated as a place to drink (like a bar or restaurant etc). This is true even though there’s no open container laws or public drunkenness laws. I can’t tell you how many Koreans I’ve seen passed out or throwing up on the subways, but I’ve NEVER seen one actually drinking alcohol on the subway. Last weekend, when us ‘crazy foreigners’ popped open some soju and passed it around between us on the subway on the way back from a baseball game, our Korean friend that was with us refused to join us even though she drank before that at the game and after that at a bar.

I’ve already talked about the giving up your seat thing. That is definitely a moral struggle young people have to deal with everyday and believe me, the old people are not afraid to make you feel guilty.

Andrew and Lisbeth often talk about their get-out-of-jail-free White Card (WC). They use it all the time even when they don’t want to. They have no choice, their face and skin are a walking talking WC. Because of this, they are forgiven for drinking on the subway, for not giving up their seat to an old person, for talking too loud in places wher eyou’re not supposed to talk loudly, etc because just by looking at them you can tell they’re foreign and don’t know any better.

But I also think their WC separates them from the Korean population somewhat. The people who approach them do so because they want to practice their English, or are fascinated by a foreign culture. People don’t sit by Andrew on the subway for some reason (still haven’t figured that out yet). The other weekend we went to a place by the river to watch the cherry blossoms bloom (which btw hadn’t yet because the temperatures were still regularly below freezing in mid April). We were walking into a restaurant and Andrew was in the lead. As soon as he entered a little boy, who was running around the restaurant apparently on a free-for-all romp, stopped short when he saw Andrew and began to cry. Hilarious WC action working against him.

Anyway, my principal made me re-evaluate my status as a foreigner dressed in Korean clothing today for perhaps the hundredth time. Just thought I’d share.

I’ll leave you with some thoughts on Korean baseball:

1.You don’t get out if they hit you with the ball. I think its because pitchers don’t actually mean to hit you here, its just an accident so there’s no punishment.

2.I don’t think there are any pinch runners. At least, there appeared to be none because the big guys that could hit the ball weren’t rounding the bases very fast and they never subbed anyone in for them.

3.Many of the fans find the cheerleaders and cheers the crowd is doing more entertaining than the actual sport. Everyone buys those inflatable noise bats and beat them to dubbed American music like ‘dancing queen’ by abba and various greenday songs.

The Plague

The reason I haven’t been updating my blog is because I have had the plague. Well, really I’ve had a couple of recurring sinus infections and an upper respiratory infection, the latter of which put me out for a solid five days (of course I was still societally pressured into work for four of those days…barely managing to find the strength to hand out papers to the kiddies.) All of my strength and energy was temporarily diverted from everything (blog, studying Korean, working on my pathetic lame excuse for a short story, working out, cleaning the bathroom) and channeled toward being able to function outside of bed.

Needless to say, during this time the Korean Health Care System and I became much better acquainted. And this entry has sprung into existence in order to tell you about its Pros and Cons.

But first some history.

Around the fourth grade I got a cold. Up until this point, it was my mother’s philosophy that unless you were running a temperature of over 100 degrees or having a bone stick out of your body, you’d be just fine weathering it out at home with some cough syrup and/or sprite depending on your ailment.

It’s not surprising. My mother shares this philosophy with most Americans who, although they may have money and health insurance now, grew up poor and without the means to pay for doctors’ visits or prescription meds. They were the ones who busted their chins open and had them stitched back up with tiny butterfly band aids. They were the ones who broke their nose because they were bent, table-height, to watch the pool game and the pool ball jumped off the table and smashed them in the face. They were the ones who got a tooth pick stuck—not once, but twice—in their mouth and had to get their mother to reach into their throat and pull it out. All of which happened to my mother.



(My mother at Christmas)

But perhaps the early childhood story that illustrates my point the most is this one:

My mother and her older brother grew up running around outside and playing after school more or less on their own. Not because their parents were particularly neglectful, but because people were more trusting back then. And if you had to work late or on the weekend, or you had to clean the house, the kids were occupying themselves until you called them in for dinner. At least, that’s how it was for my mom. One weekend, my mom and her brother were home alone and mom got stung by a bee. She began to have an allergic reaction, swelling up and all that. She had never been allergic to bees before and neither of them knew what was going on, so Uncle Garry called my grandma at work. “Mom, I think Mary’s sick. She’s swelling up.”

To which Grandma replied, “Put her in the bathtub.” Case in point---her first reaction was not “take her to the hospital to see what’s wrong.”

Uncle Garry put her in the bathtub and mom continued to swell. It eventually got so bad that Uncle Garry called her back. “Mom, Mary says she feels like she’s gonna die.” Grandma finally relented and told Uncle Garry to get the neighbor to take her to the hospital whereupon the doctors saw her and immediately stuck her with an epi pen.


(Grandma and Uncle Garry around Christmastime)

All this to say that my mother does not go to see the doctor about ‘any old thing’ (like we say in the south). And, as a result, neither do I. So when I got a cold in the 4th grade, we prepared to ride it out. I took tissues to school, soccer practice, cheerleading practice. I blew my nose every chance I got. I tried to keep the snot from falling out of my nose every time I did a back handspring. That kind of thing.

The cold lasted through most of my fourth grade year. And when I came down with a fever one night that topped 100 degrees we went to the doctor. The family doctor, the one you have to schedule an appointment for and whose supposed to know your history and all that jazz. We get in, the doctor takes some x-rays of my head and declares that I have one of the worst sinus infections he’s ever seen. He prescribed me some heavy anti biotics and sent me on my way. Within a week or so I was feeling much better.

My mom, whose experience with allergies consisted of the aforementioned bee sting, felt like the worst mother in the world for not taking me into see the doctor sooner. She didn’t know my ‘cold’ was actually allergies that could not be ‘fought’ off like any ordinary virus or bacteria. It had taxed my sinuses for so long that they had become infected and made me really sick.

From then on I suffered one or two sinus infections every year until I finally got allergy tested in high school. Like my mom, I was hesitant of doctors and tests and all that. I avoided allergy testing and shots and instead relied on pills like claritan and zyrtec. When I finally got the shots they changed my life. I was no longer living in allergy hell.

Now I’m in Korea. I’m not getting allergy shots because I didn’t know how to deal with transferring prescriptions and, like I said earlier, I just don’t like to DEAL with all that medical stuff. I guess I still haven’t learned my lesson because now I’m suffering horribly.



(Me out at a bar on the weeknd. I was not up for partying)

I experienced the tell-tale signs of infection about three weeks ago. My co-teacher agreed to take me to the doctor. (She even said she thought she’d like to make an appointment because her throat was a little sore). I felt pretty proud of myself for going to the doctor. I was heading off the infection, taking initiative, not repeating my mistakes.

We went to an ear nose and throat doctor near my school. It was a small office and hardly anyone was waiting, although my co teacher was afraid there would be many people there. The doctor saw us right away. He looked up my nose and poked around a bit. I explained to him in English that I thought there was a sinus infection on its way. My co teacher didn’t really understand what that was, but I think she tried to explain to him the best she could.

After looking in my nose for a while he nodded and seemed to dismiss me. I moved to another chair where they had me put a weird red light thing on my nose for like a minute. My teacher got her throat looked at and, at the end, she leaned over a throat spray thingy and got stuff sprayed in her mouth for a minute. We paid about a dollar twenty each for our visits and trooped downstairs to the pharmacy. There we each paid about three dollars each for pills. I was supposed to take three different pills for three days. My co teacher got some stuff too (for what exactly, I’m not sure).



(Me after being sick for a while. You can see the sore on my nose from where I blew it so much.)


I took the pills. At the end of three days the infection moved into my lungs and I began coughing. This is where it got bad. I began to get feverish and extremely weak. I missed a day of school. I waited it out until my pills from the first doctor were done before I returned to the hospital. This time, I had to go to a big hospital because it was Sunday and all the small clinics were closed. This hospital was slammed with people.

I had to go up to a large counter and get a number, then sit and wait for my number to be called like at a Sears or JC Penny’s customer service desk. Then I went up to the desk to tell them my ailment, I guess they put my name in the computer on a list for a specialized doctor. I paid them a couple dollars and they sent me into another waiting room with a ton of people. I waited there for about twenty to thirty minutes. It was weird. We were all waiting in a central room with doors for different specialized doctors all around.

I went in to see the doctor, she listened to me breath through the stethoscope for a minute, listened to my self-diagnosis, and prescribed me some meds. The whole actual doctors’ visit took about five minutes. The whole process itself (I had to get another number in the bigger waiting room to check out) took about an hour. I went to the pharmacy and paid three dollars for a shit ton of pills. And when I say shit ton, I mean enough to take six different pills three times a day for ten days plus a bottle of cough syrup.

I took these and immediately felt my cough get better. AT the end of it I could tell the infection had moved out of my lungs, but now its back in my sinuses. I get sinus headaches everyday, I have to do a sinus rinse often. Its probably just Spring in Korea (it just now got warm enough for the blossoms to come out), but with all the antibiotics they were giving me, my body should not have been prone to infection that soon.



(Crash!)

From this experience, I will now tell you the pros and cons of the Korean medical system as I see it.

Pros:

1. Cheap Cheap Cheap!

My whole experience cost me under ten dollars. Perhaps a better example is Andrew, my boyfriend. He broke his wrist snowboarding. He had to go see two different doctors for preliminary examinations of his wrist, Plus had to get a cast on his wrist AND see the doctor twice for x-rays. The cast isn’t off yet, but the whole ordeal has cost him, as of now, under two hundred dollars. CRAZY.

2. Visits are fast

One of the first things Andrew said about seeing the doctor for his wrist was that it was amazingly fast and efficient. My own experience the first time I went to the ear nose and throat clinic was amazingly quick. I was in and out of the doctor’s office in thirty minutes. My co teacher and I even let school grounds to do it and were back before the school days was over.
Cons:

1. Quality may be sacrificed for Quickness

Although we were in and out quickly, neither Andrew nor I are feeling 100% better. In Andrew’s case, he happened to break a bone that takes a long time to heal. In my case, I think the meds they gave me were ineffective. Plus, I don’t believe they took time to examine thoroughly, especially when I went to the big hospital for my respiratory infection. This surprised me, because the language barrier prevented me from adequately explaining my situation. I thought, therefore, that they would take the extra time to examine me to prevent misdiagnosis.

2. Overperscription of meds

It has been my experience that doctors in Korea overperscribe meds like crazy. I think this is partly because they’re so cheap. Everyone can afford them so why not? But also, I think it has to do with the fact that Koreans feel better with a diagnosis and meds.

It has to do with the culture. I’ve noticed Koreans always like to prescribe a reason for things, even if the reason is not well thought out or based in fact. For example, Koreans like to say that the reason they didn’t get SARS when the other asian countries did was because of the healing powers of Kimchi. Also, whenever a kid is misbehaving in class, they like to say its because he/she probably has family problems at home even if that teacher knows nothing about that child’s family life.

I think it’s the same with medicine. They’re sick, they want to know why and theyw ant to be doing something about it. My co-teacher and her sore throat are a good example. She wasn’t really sick. She just went because it made her feel like she was doing something to get over her fatigue and sore throat (probably resulting from having to teach all day and yell at kids). My friend, Lisbeth, is another good example. She called in sick to school one day because she was tired and didn’t feel like going in. When she told her school, they said she had to have a doctor’s excuse. So she went to the doctor and made up some B.S. about “stomach problems” (of course there is still the language barrier and all that). The doctor diagnosed her with an infection of the large intestine and prescribed her meds!


Random List of the Day:

1.My co teacher just told me that we’re going on a faculty field trip at 1 o’clock. I wore a skirt and flats with holes in them to school today. I asked her when they found out about this field trip and she said “Yesterday, but we didn’t think we’d go because the forecast said it was going to rain. But it didn’t rain. So I guess we’re going.” To which I replied “I wish you had told me about the possibility yesterday so I could have brought extra shoes along.”

2.Its getting warmer in Seoul, but the temperatures are still pretty low. Like the low fifties and getting down into the forties at night. For a while, we felt like spring would never come (a week ago temperatures were still below freezing) The Koreans say this is the longest winter they’ve had in 100 years. Global Warming?

MEGA harsh

This is the story of my grandparents.

My grandfather, Kim Joo-taek, was the third youngest son of a fairly wealthy family in North Korea before the Korean War. They lived somewhat near Pyongyang by what is now the DMZ line. He had two older brothers and four younger sisters. During the Japanese occupation of Korea (in the years preceding the Korean War), his oldest brother became lost in Japan.

I have interpreted the term ‘lost’ in many different ways since I’ve been in Korea. The official story (from Halmony…my grandmother) was that the older brother was taken to Japan because the Japanese knew of his brilliance in some sort of science or math related field. This story is suspicious to me, however, because we were never allowed to talk openly about him in the family. My mother didn’t even know of his existence for a long time. I don’t think his name is on the family head stone at the cemetery. That kind of stuff. If he was taken involuntarily for some sort of extraordinary ability or intelligence, then it seems to me that we would honor him, or pity him at the least. But to pretend as if he doesn’t exist, that seems harsh even for strict Korean value standards.

A story closer to the truth might be that, during the time of Japanese occupation, he went there voluntarily. He was the first son of a semi-wealthy family. It would make sense that some Koreans made partnerships or friendships with the Japanese. I’m not even sure if it would have been seen as a betrayal of the family at the time that it happened. At any rate, as the years passed and the war uprooted the family, loyalties changed and this brother became ‘lost’ or, perhaps more like Halmony put it, dead. Who knows? Maybe I have some Japanese relatives out there.

Anyway, war broke out in the 1950s, of course. As I understand it, Halbodgee’s family took a while to decide to flee. The trains were already shut down. They were a bit further south so I suppose they could afford to wait longer. Also, it seems like they may have had a lot to lose—their land, their house, their estate. My Halbodgee’s second oldest brother fled ahead of the family to the south. That left Halbodgee, at age 16, as the oldest functioning male in the family. His father was so old that they had to leave him behind when they fled.

I’m not sure where his family settled or how my grandfather was able to go to the best college in Korea. (There are three colleges in Korea that are like our Harvard, Princeton and Yale. Those are Yonsei Univ, Korea Univ, and Seoul National Univ. Koreans call it SKY. Of the three, only Seoul National Univ. is a state school. The other two are private. Its, therefore, much cheaper to obtain an education at Seoul National Univ. Koreans let a lot ride on those schools’ reputations. For example, when I came to Korea, Halmony told me to make sure to mention to my superiors at my school that my grandfather went to Seoul National Univ. and that he was a doctor...:-p. Also, if you ever have the privilege to go on a blind date with a Korean, one of the first questions they ask you will be “Do you go to SKY?”)


(My cousin and I dressed in traditional Korean Hanboks for a photo.)

My grandmother, or Halmony, has a little less traditional story. She was the product of an affair between a married man and his mistress. She was born in China; however, Halmony claims her father is Korean.

At some point Halmony and her mother moved back to Korea and away from her father (on the northern border of the peninsula right next to China). Now to give you some idea of the fluidity and politics behind Korean family history, the original story I was told by Halmony was that her mother and father divorced when she was young. I learned this story later from cousins and confirmed it through my mom at a later date. Anyway, at that point in time in Korea, it was very unfortunate to be a child without a father. It was even more unfortunate to be a child unrecognized by her father. And it was extremely unfortunate that she was a girl.

Family is important in Korea, and the fact that Halmony had no ‘official’ family left her with no ‘official’ place in the social hierarchy. Eventually, Halmony’s mother met another man and they tried to get married (let’s call Halmony’s mother G.G. for great grandmother and her man S.G. for step grandfather).

S.G.’s mother had a problem with G.G. (I’m not sure why, other than the fact that I get the feeling that she was kind of weird). G.G. was afraid that if S.G.’s mother found out about Halmony, she would keep them from getting married. So she told Halmony to go away and forget that she was her mother.

MEGA harsh. I mean, who deserves that? She didn’t ask to be born into existence. Anyway, this further proves my theory that G.G. was weird and cold.

Halmony went to live with her grandmother (G.G.G.?). Meanwhile, G.G. and S.G. got married and begot four children. Halmony helped raise them and was (I guess?) still involved in the family.

Anyway, Halmony eventually scored big and married Halbodgee, who was, I suppose, a catch for her economic and family situation. They met when a cousin or something introduced them. I don’t know, it’s all very vague. But they had two sons, my dad and uncle, and left Korea four years after my father was born. The story doesn’t really get interesting again until forty odd years later when a small miracle arrives in the form of a granddaughter…


(Halmony in front of a Korean exhibit in Washington DC)

List of CRAP things that have been going on lately

1.I’ve had the plague for over a week now. Two rounds of antibiotics and hospital trips. No going out on the weekends. Its depressing.

2.I just found out I have to teach an after school class once a week for two hours. That adds my total teaching hours to 25 hours a week. I already feel like I can barely handle the energy required to teach my class load. Almost everyday I teach classes straight from 9-2 with a break for lunch except on Wednesdays. So whatever day they decide to put my after school class on I’ll be teaching straight through the day.

3.I have an open class in a couple of weeks in which the administration and supervisors of the district are supposed to come in and watch. So we have to have a super awesome lesson plan and stress etc. But the thing is, no one speaks English, so they never wanna come in and watch English class. So we’re just doing it to satisfy some bureaucrats that won’t bother to check if we’re actually doing the class or not.

4.I miss my friends in TN a lot right now. The weather is FINALLY getting warm in Seoul (last week it was still freezing temperatures!) and I keep thinking about walking around the Fort and hanging out with friends and opening up all the windows in apt. 7. I’m coming back to K-town next year…will you be there?

5.Mom is coming at the end of the month! So excited.