Hell No, I won't Go

(My mom and I at Jeju Island in front of the rock formations)

My mother came and went.

Now I feel deflated and sad, even though our time together was wonderful-- probably because our time together was so wonderful. We went to Jeju Island for a week on vacation while she was here. (Jeju is a popular vacation spot below the southern part of the Korean peninsula)

It was like taking a rest from running a marathon. An extremely difficult marathon in which obstacles in the form of Ajummas and Ajoshi’s are sent veering into your path in daily intervals and the extremely long winter wears on your nerves and your spirit until you think you’ll go insane from so much gray and cold. Jeju was wonderfully unpopulated. There were trees and greenery and nary a traffic jam in sight. And, best of all, there was plenty of room to avoid KVPs! (The Korean Veering Phenomenon)

We stayed on the club level at the Hyatt, a five star hotel mom paid for out of the goodness of her heart. Here are the club level perks:

1.Free drinks from 5-7 every night. These include liquor drinks, wine and beer plus heavy appetizers like spring rolls and smoked salmon. Andrew never felt like he took enough advantage of this little perk.

2.Free breakfast everyday. We stuffed ourselves so full, we weren’t hungry until Happy Hour. In fact, we spent very little money on food because we were always eating and drinking free food in the Club Lounge.

3.Free cookies and tea and coffee anytime you wanted.



(Enjoying free drinks and food in the club lounge)

Believe me, we were living in style. We had beach access, pool access, spa access. I saw a naked ajumma or two in the hot tubs in the locker room. (Korean bath culture encourages separation of sexes and nudity in public baths) Mom and I were fascinated by the intensity with which they scrubbed themselves in front of other people and then got in the tubs with us in all their naked glory. We toughed it out long enough to have an experience, and then we headed to the privacy of shower.

We took a taxi tour one day around the island. My Korean cousin, Dani, set the whole thing up. It was a long and eventful day in which we saw such natural wonders as a waterfall, rock formations, volcano and an underground lava tube (the tube was unlike anything I had ever seen before and will probably ever see again). The taxi man drove us around all day giving us information about the island in Korean which was interpreted through Dani. He took us around random back roads that followed the coast line…roads that we would have never found had it not been for him.



(Cousin, Andrew and I in front of some cool rock formations. It happened as a result of the way the rocks were cooled in the water. Each column was hexagonal or pentagonal)

At some point he asked if we wanted to stop for lunch but we told him we were fine (thanks to the massive free club-level breakfast we gorged on every morning). Turns out, we were probably starving the poor man… or at least jipping him out of a free meal. Dani called her mom during the trip who scolded her for not taking the taxi man out to lunch. Apparently its customary to not only pay the taxi man the agreed upon amount but also treat him to lunch as part of the fare.

So it happened that at the end of our long ass trip (at which point we weren’t even getting out of the cab to look at things when he stopped anymore because we were so exhausted) we had to take our taxi man out to dinner. Which was kind of a bummer, because he ended up picking the place and we had to eat dinner all sweat-sticky from our previous hikes up volcanoes and through lava tubes and other natural wonders.

Of course, he was nice and deserved the meal. I just feel like the whole thing was a wonderful illustration of the constant sense of obligation I feel in Korea. I feel as if my life is filled with unspoken but understood obligations. Obligation to my family, work, learning Korean, being polite to elders, yielding to people with children etc.



(Lava Tube Action: The lava tube was formed when the magma or lava or whatever was flowing underground out of the volcano and found an outlet. what was left over after all the lava/magma ran out was a hollow tube-like cave under ground. There was a whole park under which lied numerous lava tubes.)

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Everyone has obligations to work and family. But sometimes I feel as if I’m obliged to accept things that I would have a hard time accepting at home. For example, there are many times during the year when we do things as a school after school, like go hiking on a mountain or go to dinner or something. I’m often not told about these things until the last minute, after I’ve already come to school.

Sometimes I have plans to meet people for dinner or I wore shoes and clothes to school that are definitely not suitable to hiking. We are definitely not getting paid to go on these excursions, its just expected of you. If any of my teachers don’t want to go, they have to have an acceptable excuse and ask the head teacher if they can skip out.

Also, the other day, Yong-eun and I arrived at our second period class to find it empty, dark and locked. Apparently the class was doing some sort of health examination. We headed back to the office, happy that we had a free period off. (That’s one thing you can say about Korea, the incentives and rewards are just as unexpected as the obligations)

We get back to the office and the phone rings. It’s the home room teacher of the class we have to teach in the last period of the day asking if we could come in quickly and teach her class now instead of later. (I don’t know how she found out that we didn’t have class that period. She claimed that she wanted us to come in at the earlier time so she could let her class out early because she ‘heard’ that school was ending early that day) When Yong eun protested that the class would be short because second period had already started, the home room teacher said that we could just teach into our lunch time.

I don’t know about you, but in America, that’s when you say “hell no I won’t go.” In Korea, I guess you say okay and pretend like its all nice when you get to the classroom. Yong-eun was all grace and good manners, accepting the home room teachers’ apologies with a smile. I was not so graceful.

When we talked after class Yongeun said that the home room teacher felt she could ask those things of us because she was older, but that most of the teachers regarded her as rude and didn’t like her. I think people that are aggressive and straight forward like that are often disliked by people in Korean culture because many people don’t feel like they can say no to their requests.

I guess I could better explain it this way: Instead of having to say no to someone about something you’re uncomfortable with doing, the hard questions are just usually never asked. People are dissuaded from asking people for favors outright because its considered rude unless you know the person very well or they’re family. Even when your peers want you to do something, they’ll never phrase it that way. They’ll just say “you might want to….” Or ask some sort of question to dissuade you from your course of action… “Do you want to make up the class we just missed?” with an undertone of “because I definitely don’t want to.” its all about the tone.



(mom, andrew, me hiking up the path to the volcano)


Random Happenings:

1.During my after school class, the school intercom started playing the Disney movie “Anastasia.” The kids didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know what was going on. I just sort of yelled over the music.

2.One of my favorite after school kids, a fourth grade boy, is officially my favorite student. He had his homeroom teacher message me when he was going to be absent from after school class one day. “Bart says he can’t come to class today. He wanted me to tell you.”

3.This is the same boy who, one day when after school class was cancelled, came into the office and straight to my desk. (this is very unusual. Kids are usually intimidated by me and approach one of the other teachers instead) He came in saying “Malia? Malia?” saw me, came to my desk and stared at me for a minute, stammering some mixed Korean and English sentences. I waited for him, and finally he managed, “Class now?” I said no class today and made an ex with my hands. He nodded solemnly and went on his way. They’re always canceling after school class and not telling the kids.