Palm up or down?

Sign at my subway Station (Hoegi station) in east Dongdaemun, Seoul

I've been at my school now for a few days and it has been a much easier adjustment than I expected. All of the things I feared--unaccepting teachers, overwhelming workload, miscommunication--has not only been avoided, but seems to have been addressed and tackled by my co-teacher, Mi Jung, before I even got there. I heard horror stories about native speaking teachers being thrown into a teaching environment without any explanation of schedule, expectations or even a syllabus. 

Mi-jung was having none of that. She had a whole schedule made out for me. She explained that it was subject to change because she was trying to talk the principal into letting me teach third graders instead of sixth because the sixth graders were so rude. And was that what I wanted? She told me she was very sorry about the changes in plan at the last minute. (I wish I could present Mi-Jung to SMOE as a role model) I only had ot ask her about my settlement allowance once and she had the school accountant depositing it into my bank account this week. She gave me a specific time to plan out our lessons together. She reserved a classroom so we could have our own space to talk amongst ourselves. I love Mi Jung. 

I love her because she is all the things that I was afraid she wouldn't be. Don't get me wrong, she doesnt take me out to dinner like some of the other co-teachers. and she didn't buy a thing for my apartment. But she means well, and she's good in all the ways that really count. Jeeze, all my emotions are so raw I'm sounding corny.

Funny Story:

I sat down with my principal on the first day I came to school. It was very formal. We all had to wait to sit until he sat. A short, bobbing girl came in to serve us tea. No one said thank you. He spoke to Mi-jung in Korean and she interpreted for me. I kept my answers short. My tea was amazing, but I only sipped it twice because for some reason I thought that would be more polite. He dismissed us at the end with a nod of his head. We waited until he rose out of his chair before Mi-jung, the two vice principals Kim and I got up. 

But before that, he asked me, through Mi Jung, if I stuck my hand out the window palm up or palm down to see if it was raining. You see, I am only half Korean, and he wanted to see which half was dominant. This would be an indicator of how well I could adapt to the working culture at Myeon Mok Elementary School. I had no idea which answer was right. I answered truthfully, thinking that my truer half was American. "Palm up," I said, indicating with my hand what I meant. The Kims went "oohhhh" and the principal nodded. Mi Jung said, "That's what he thinks the Koreans do" with just the tiniest hint of exasperation. I'm more Korean than I thought.

In other news, I ran into a metal sign today. I was hiking back to my apartment because I had missed my bus stop by two. (It had to do with some confusion over what the 'stop' button meant and thinking, stupidly, that the bus doors would open to let people off at every stop). I was making the best of it, listening to my best cheerful music (Paul Simon) and taking in as much of Seoul as possible. I was absorbed in a type of miniature slum in which the houses, sitting far below street level next to the train tracks, were smushed closely together with trash and broken things on the rooftops. The day before I had passed the slum and witnessed a family perched in the narrow alleyway between two houses. They were all clean, and eating neatly with chopsticks from food spread out on a bright yellow blanket. My mind could not comprehend why the scene struck me as so interesting, so unusual. I was trying to figure it out when I slammed temple first into a metal sign. The sound was so loud, a young Korean male with headphones a few feet in front of me turned around to see what all the metal ringing was about. As I staggered backward I watched him turn back around so as not to witness my embarrassment. At first I was grateful, but as I walked I wondered if he would have helped me if I had fallen from the blow. 

Anyway, the blow did it. It cracked the careful wall I had built to hold in all my overwhelmedness. All my inflexible Americanness. Not since the first day when I saw how my bathroom resembled a prison and I would have to sit bare-assed on the sink to wash my hair had I cried. And only then a very little bit.

I guess I have more american in me than my principal thought. 

My address is: (1004) 319-12 Wooyong O.S. Vill 

    Hwi Kyung Dong, Dongdaemun0gu

    Seoul, Korea 130-876