University of Dayton - MyLife

Life in Korea

Today was my last official day of orientation in Korea. Tomorrow I will meet my Principal and leave for Cheonan, Korea where I will spend the rest of my grant year living and teaching. I will be moving in with my homestay family on Monday night, and I will begin preparing my lessons and classroom for the start of school at the end of the month.

The past month has been one of the most challenging times of my life. The schedule that the orientation team created for language courses, cultural workshops and teaching training was rigorous. I was taking four hours of Korean language classes each morning. The day I arrived I was introduced to the alphabet and since then I have gone through the first 150 pages of my text and workbooks. We have had quizzes on more than 200 vocabulary words and writing quizzes once a week. The speed of the class and the direct instruction has been very challenging and therefore, I spent an average of 10 hours a week in office hours with my language instructors. Today was the commencement ceremony for my official graduation from Korea University's Six Week Language Program. I passed! Thanks for the encouragement Mom and Dad! The commencement was really nice and included us giving speeches and performing skits in Korean.
This afternoon was a tearful goodbye to the teachers that we have spent the past six weeks learning from and living among. We had wonderful teachers who went above and beyond their job descriptions to assure our success with the Korean language; they were often up all night teaching us correct pronunciations before speeches, editing our writing assignments or practicing dialogues from class.

Just as I have spent the last six weeks trying to adapt as much as I can Korean culture, the locals had to adapt to having 76 Americans on campus. There is a lot of hesitation to have contact with a group of our size because "Americans have diseases." Within our first 48 hours in Korea our group was put solitary confinement; we were only allowed in our dorm and a special room in the dining hall because one guy from our group was sick. The university was scared that he had swine flu, despite the fact that he had no flu symptoms. People all over campus began wearing masks around us. The swine flu is an over exaggerated scare in Korea. Even this past week I walked into a store and as soon as I got through the door the woman behind the counter ducked down and came back up with a mask on.

While many Koreans avoid us because Americans have the Swine, others are fascinated with "me gugks" (Americans). In stores the sales ladies will follow you around telling you how pretty you are and children are fascinated by all of the differences in our appearances. One of my students at camp informed me that because I do not have golden hair I am not a real American girl. She followed that by pointing at one of the guys in the group with a lot of arm hair and screamed that he was covered in fur. Most Koreans just want to sit down and practice their English. One afternoon I ended up staying after lunch with one of the cafeteria ladies and practiced speaking over slices of fresh watermelon.

The food has been quite interesting. Most of our meals are in the cafeteria on campus and have consisted of lots of sticky rice and sea creatures. Koreans do not have distinct breakfast, lunch and dinner foods like we do and therefore you never know what you are going to get. I have showed up to breakfast and had a fish head put on my tray, eyeballs still intact. The local restaurants have kept my hopes up for good Korean food during the rest of my year. I will be mostly eating the food that my host mom makes and I have my fingers crossed that she takes the eyeballs out of her fish.

I have been taking Taekwondo and last week I passed my yellow belt test. Our master is an 8th degree black belt and is famous throughout Korea and the world through the taekwondo community. It was very exciting to learn from the best, but it was quite a physical challenge. I will not miss doing sprints and push-ups while wearing my TKD uniform (long sleeves and long pants) in 90 degree weather, but I did really enjoy my short experience learning to kick, punch and block like the master. One of the weeks here there was an international TKD competition being held on campus and the little kids at the competition were laughing at the group of thirty grown Americans walking around in our white belts.

Orientation has been a very challenging, yet rewarding experience. I have learned so many lessons about myself and it has set a great foundation for my grant year in Korea.

This afternoon we went over the contract that I will be singing on Monday to become an official English teacher in Cheonan, South Korea. During the talk about the logistics of our contract I felt a transition from student to young professional. I feel like the end of orientation marks the beginning of my next chapter, my grant year as a Fulbrighter in Korea. Dayton helped me to set the groundwork for the rest of my life. I am going to take the lessons that I learned in college and move forward to represent Dayton in the best light that I can.

I want to wish all prospective students the best in their search for a school that fits them well and all current students the best on making the most of their collegiate experience. Thank you for allowing me to share my experiences over the past four years with you all. May peace be with you.

Aug 16, 2009 10:09 AM Permalink