Merry Christmas....in November?!

There have been many times in the past two and half months where I have begun blog entries only to get distracted and – to paraphrase Aldous Snow in the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall – “just carried on living my life.” For a while, just a trip to the grocery store was a serious undertaking and an adventure of near-mythic proportions, so please forgive me for the serious delay. I have never, ever been good at keeping a record of my activities. In fact, I’m pretty sure that pink, sparkly scented gel pen was my writing tool of choice when I last kept a diary. But since I am living at least six hours ahead of just about everyone I know, I have finally realized that a blog is the best way of sharing my life with family and friends and am kicking my butt into gear.

I originally studied abroad in Copenhagen during fall 2009 at the Danish Institute for Study Abroad (DIS), which typically has several Gettysburg College students attending each semester. I lived with a host family in small harbor town of Dragør, which is about an hour outside of the city center by bus. The friends I made during that semester became some of my best friends at college, and I wish I could have smuggled them back here with me in my suitcases. Long story short, I fell in love with Copenhagen, came back to the States, applied for a Fulbright, and to my great joy, was selected for a ten-month long grant to study land management at the University of Copenhagen. My project proposal focused on the still-undergoing development of the Danish national park system. I will say more about what I’ve learned so far in another post, as this one will already be pretty long. But now for some cultural exchange!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night! Too soon? Not in Copenhagen, where the Christmas season officially began this past Friday at 8:59 PM, with the release of Carlsberg Brewery’s Tuborg Julebryg. Julebryg is a Christmas beer released on the first Friday in November each year and the entire city of Copenhagen gets in on the celebration. The first J-dag (or J-day) was held on a Wednesday in 1990, but as time went on, the powers that be began to notice that young people were not turning up to school and work the following morning! Thus, J-dag was moved to a Friday. Despite only being on the market for about six weeks, Julebryg is reportedly Denmark’s fourth best selling beer. Tuborg trucks drive around to various bars, opening to reveal workers with free beer, light-up hats, bells, and horns. I also learned the hard way that you must be careful when they dance past you – it can end up being a drive-by stamping! The next thing I knew, my arms and neck were all saying “Glædelig jul og godt tub' år, “ or “Merry Christmas and a good Tuborg!” Thanks, Tuborg man, but I would have preferred the free beer or maybe a hat.

As much as I miss being home for the fall, enthusiasm for Christmas more than makes up for missing Thanksgiving. Fake snow outside of bars, fake snow on the windows, even fake snow on the table centerpieces. Fake snow on you and me and even somehow in my festively wrapped beer bottle! Copenhagen takes on a wonderfully festive atmosphere during the holiday season. There's something magical about rounding a corner and seeing Gråbrødretorv all lit up, with everyone gathered outside the bars and restaurants. Singing “Jingle Bells” at the top of my lungs with a bunch of random Danes flinging fake snow is a memory I will never forget. And then it was time for a sweaty, crowded dance party upstairs in Den Glade Gris, AKA The Happy Pig, always a good way to end a night, even sans light-up Santa hat.

Every Day I'm Shuffling

I found out that one of my students could moonwalk.  I thought I was gonna watch him show off his moves but, instead, I got to see this during lunch...

October is for Festivals

Hi all,

Heo, the witch.

    While Heo (above) may be one of the few people in Korea who actually celebrates Halloween, October is definitely not lacking holidays and festivities in Korea.  October is famous for having multiple festivals.  Luckily, I have been able to check out several of these.  Early in the month, I went to the Simcheongga festival with one of the teachers at my school.  Simcheongga is a story about a girl, named Sim Cheong, who works hard to help her father overcome his blindness.  After going through several obstaclest (going to the Dragon of the Sea, the emperor, etc.) Sim Cheong is able to help her father.  The festival did not have a whole lot to do with the story, but there were plenty of cool performances and activities.  I watched traditional drumming and dancing.  Aditionally, a famous singer was at the festival who sung a famous song about the Sim Cheong story.
    About a week an a half later, I had several days off from school so, I headed to Daegu and Busan.  Daegu is one of the largest cities in Korea.  I visited a museum about Daegu's history and learned quite a bit about the city and its rapid development.  It is an important industrial area for Korea (Samsung was originally based in Daegu).  Recently, it is also a leader in fashion in Korea.  While in Daegu, Kyle, another ETA in Naju, and I met up with friends and explored many of Daegu's famous outdoor markets. The most famous in Yangnyongsi, which is known for herbs and medicine.  Seomun Market, by far the largest in the city, was mostly filled with fabrics and clothes.  This market consisted of vendors outside and underground.
   Following Daegu, the Naju ETAs and I met with about 30 other ETAs in Busan for the Busan International Film Festival.  BIFF is the largest film festival in Asia and it continues to grow.  This year was the first year in which a good portion of the event was housed in a brand new movie theater (this building was massive).  Many of the other films were screened at the Shinsegae Department Store across the street.  Shinsegae is comparable to Macys in Korea.  It is in just about every city in Korea.  The store in Busan is the largest department store in Korea and the world.  In addition to having a movie theater, the department store also has an ice-skating rink, a museum, and a massive spa/sauna.

Shinsegae Department Store

    While I loved Busan and thought it was beautiful, I did not really see much of the city because I was busy watching movies.  When I first got there, my friend, Aaron, and I went to watch several Korean short films.  While the production quality was high, the actual content of the movies was not so great.  The best film, Modern Family, was about a Korean family who, through a strange turn of events, end up killing their neighbors in order to protect their son (I shouldn't have bought popcorn).  I also saw and old Korean film called Buy My Fist.  It was a melodramatic film about a boxer who cares for the family of one of his opponents after he kills him.  The movie was a bit over the top, but it was interesting to see a very old Korean film that was extremely popular when it was released.

Busan Cinema Center

Aaron and Di-Hoa relaxing outside the Busan Cinema Center

Another view of the Busan Cinema Center

    My friends and I had bought tickets to see Marjan Satrapi's new film (she directed Persepolis).  Unfortunately, the screening was canceled.  Despite the disappointed, we ended up having a great time exploring Haeundae Beach, the most famous beach in Busan.  At the beach, several famous Korean directors were discussing their works.  I listened an then walked around and soaked up the atmosphere (reminded me a lot of Venice Beach).  Following the short break from the main center of the festival, we headed back in order to watch a concert by the Busan World Philharmonic Orchestra.  This performance was held in the outdoor section of the new movie theater.  Fireworks were launched in the middle and at the end.  Following the wonderful show, a French Ambassador came out to introduce the new film The Artist.  The Artist was a surprise hit at Cannes.  The film is about a silent film star in Hollywood who struggles once sound is introduced.  While the movie was charming, I think it should have been a comedy instead of a drama.  At the same time, it was great to sit outside and watch it on a massive screen.

Panel discussion on the beach with Korean directors

Haeundae Beach

Busan New World Orchestra

    While in Naju, I also had the chance to check out some festivals close to home.  Last Friday, I went to the Gwangju International Film Festival.  The festival has been going on for 11 years.  I saw a wonderful French film called Tomboy.  This movie was quite popular at Sundance.  It is about a young French girl who moves to a new town with her family and tells the kids in the neighborhood that she is a boy.  Lots of ambiguity and an interesting ending within this movie.

I am inside a presentation at the Biennale

     I also had a chance to check out the Gwangju Design Biennale.  This event was a special exhibit that was dedicated to design within Korea and the rest of the world.  "Design"was interpreted quite loosely.  It was applied to architecture, the human body, cars, and politics.  Exhibits focused on everything from the physique of atheletes and womens' headdresses to the rebuilding of Japan and sustainability.  I had a blast walking around and looking at al the ideas that were on display.   Afterwards, I certainly had a lot to ponder.

"Let's start out at the very beginning"

It’s almost one in the morning, but Glenda and I are still awake. Gone are the semi-jet lagged days of being conveniently tired by 9:30 pm and ready to get the day started at 6:00 am. They were filled with beautiful morning runs, the not needing of an alarm clock, and that fantastic feeling of falling asleep only seconds after your head hits the pillow. All good things must come to end, I suppose. I’ve never wanted to be a morning person anyway (sour grapes).

You should probably blame our late night on the fact that the dorm’s fickle wireless internet decided to cooperate for the time being, but if you were to confront us about it, we’d most definitely deny it. We’re awake TOTALLY studying Thai. Riiiight…

This does, however, bring me to what I really want to write about: the joys and frustrations of learning—and living—with a new language.

I’ve always identified myself as a language person, not to say that they are a focus of study that comes easily to me or that I have a natural knack for them, but I do find them interesting. Complicated and seemingly unpredictable, yet at the same time natural and systematic, language can be many things. It’s a science; it’s an art; it’s culture; it’s something we, every human being, has. There are a million ways to define language, to study and understand it, but at the end of the day, I think language is most accurately described as the ability to communicate. To learn even just one more language, or even to go somewhere where they speak a different version of your own, you open yourself up to an even larger pool of individuals to which you can talk and listen.

Beginning to learn Thai has been a great experience, because it has helped us to begin to understand the country’s culture. For example, in Thailand, the concept of the heart is regarded as very important, and you can see this sentiment expressed in the language. In Thai, to say “I understand,” you say “kao jai.” The literal translation of this phrase is “something enters the heart”. Pretty cool, right?

Learning the language has also been a fantastic way to interact with Thai people. One of my favorite post-class activities has been to buy my afternoon fruit fix from one of the local vendors who sets up her cart on our street. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve gone from simply pointing and smiling when ordering my snack (mostly mangos and pineapples—SO GOOD.), to then adding “hello” and “thank you.” After becoming a little bit more adventurous, I started to ask for the names of the different fruits (pon la mai!) in Thai. This all lead to yesterday, when I had what felt like the biggest accomplishment ever: I was able to tell the nice fruit lady that I that I’m American after she asked where all of us farangs were from. That’s my favorite part about language learning. It’s the stupidest little things that feel like the biggest victories.

These language exchanges can also make for moments of pure comedic genius, too. The other weekend, Jane, Kelly, Emily and I somehow ended up on a boat tour around one of the waterways, another adventure that was happenstance and a result of being lost in translation. As we were waiting for the locks to change, we started talking to four middle school aged boys that were spending their Saturday afternoon hanging out by the water. We shouted to them in the very very very basic Thai that we knew, and they would laugh at us and shout more things back in a combination of both Thai and English. After a couple of minutes they got really excited over something on the other side of the lock. They started to scream the same word over and over again. “MA! MA! MA!” What? What is that? We eventually gathered that it was some sort of animal. A fish maybe? Oooooh, maybe a crocodile! Look at us! Learning Thai in a boat in a beautiful country surrounded by friendly people experiencing cultural exchanges in the most organic way possible! What a life!

Eventually, the boat starts to move forward and we can see the other side of the lock.

Ma does not mean fish. It means dog. How did we find this out? There’s a dead dog floating in the water beside us. I do not make this stuff up, mostly because I couldn’t even if I tried. (Okay, you have to admit, that’s gross, but at the same time HILARIOUS! Nothing says, “stop being so idealistic and Anna Leonowens-like” as a decaying, floating animal carcass. Helllooo, reality check!)

I absolutely refuse to completely romanticize this whole language-learning thing, though. Yes, I love it and am so grateful that I have an entire year in such a cool country, but I’d be lying and completely crazy if I didn’t admit that sometimes I want to throw my hands up and scream, “CAN’T I GET SOME ENGLISH UP IN HERE!!!” When you can’t read, or write, or express what you want fully or even somewhat accurately, you’re back to being a vulnerable baby with little to no independence. Definitely a hard concept to grasp after fours years of being an ultra cool college kid, with no limitations and so free to do whatever I want (Right, parents? Hey, mom, can you send me more money, please? Or maybe keep me on your health insurance, still? Or does Obama have my back on that one? Well, whatever, I’m young and healthy. Dad, can you change my oil, you know, if you get around to it? Thanks! See suuuuuuuuper independent and grown up these past four years…HAHA! Anyways, I’ve digressed.)

At the end of the day, though, the 35 hours of Thai class we’re receiving over this month is only going to get us so far. Sure, it’s great to have native speakers teaching us how to introduce ourselves and to teach us food vocabulary so we have a general idea of what we’re buying at markets. And at the very least, I’m confident I know enough direction words so we can tell the cabbies how to get us back to our dorm and not to the opposite side of Bangkok. Being able to navigate the basics also gives us the benefits of learning bits of the cultural mentality as I mentioned before, which is incredibly helpful as we watch the water levels of the floods rise and people continue to say “mai pen rai,” or “don’t worry about it, no worries” even though we now know they actually do a lot a bit.

Most importantly, at least from my perspective, our journey in the crazy voyage of learning Thai is necessary because it reminds us to be empathetic and patient as teachers. Even though we’ll be in front of the classroom, we’ll still have fresh in our memories what it’s like to have no idea what’s going on while learning a new language. You don’t understand the assignment I gave you? Yeah, I didn’t understand how to conjugate verbs for the longest time either. You can’t remember the days of the week vocabulary? Kid, you should see me trying to figure out how to figure out what that sign on the street says. We’re all so confused and just trying to make sense of something.

So here we are. Sitting the International Dorm on Chula Soi 6, our “Thai for Beginners” books open up in front of us and our iTunes repeating long lists of Thai words and phrases. We must look and sound ridiculous bouncing back and forth between our studies and our Facebooks and, yes, season 1 of Ugly Betty.

Remember how beautiful and frustrating and daunting and wonderful it is to start out at the very beginning? Yeah. Me too.

---

Also, for your entertainment, you too can learn the Thai alphabet!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgHMjNs2XEw&feature=related

Good night and good luck...

Geumseong High School

   Hi everyone,

Geumseong High School

    The past few weeks have been very busy but a lot of fun (not going to fit everything into one post so, I will probably do another one later this week).   In this post, I want to focus on my school.  After roughly 2 months of teaching, I now feel right at home.  My school is on top of a hill and is next door to Geumseong Middle School where my good friend, Eric, is working as an ETA.  Here is a website about Geumseong High School: http://www.njgs.hs.kr/
      Here are some of my students...

These guys are relaxing between classes

   The students at Geumseong, and most high schools in Korea, start school at around 7am in the morning and finish around 10pm.  They do not have as much homework as American students, but they often are up very late studying (average is around 5 hours of sleep a night for Korean high school students).  They LOVE Soccer.  As far as music goes, they love k-pop.  Their favorite groups are T-ara (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xsus8EugZgg), Girls' Generation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7mPqycQ0tQ), Shinee (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roughtzsCDI), and 2PM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgrB2KBZws4).  As far as American music goes, they are fascinated with Beyonce (more specifically, the "Single Ladies" Video) and Lady Gaga (just for being Lady Gaga).  Most of them will say their favorite movie is Ajeossi (a fantastic action film starring Won Bin; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1527788/).  They also like Twilight, Transformers, and Harry Potter.  A few have girlfriends, and lots of them like computer games (especially Maple Story; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MapleStory).

He saw me taking photos in the hallway and struck this pose- his new nickname is GQ

   I teach 14 classes a week to second years, or Juniors.  Each class is at a different level in their English ability.  At first I struggled with planning lessons for different levels, but I have found many ways to face this challenge.  I try to have a lot of variety in all of my lessons and frequently use videos and games in order to keep my kids focused.  One of the most successful lessons so far has been a Introduction to American Hip-Hop/ Rap Battle with Eminem's "The Real Slim Shady."  I used the chorus in this song in order to help my students with pronouncing the letter "l" (very difficult for Koreans- not in Korean alphabet).  I also recorded some female friends over Skype and played the dating game with my students in order to help them with self-introductions.  Other successful lessons were with commands and directions, describing people, listening comprehension with Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me," and listening comprehension with an episode of Glee.  Last week, my good friend Sonia visited and we co-taught the Dating Game lesson together.  I am not sure if they actually enjoyed the lessons or were just excited about seeing a new female around campus.  This week I am going to introduce my students to prom (they have know idea what this is) and do another listening comprehension activity with prom music.

They love soccer and the tv

    Thankfully, there have not been too many discipline problems.  I have to wake guys up from sleeping and keep them from speaking Korean.  A few weeks ago, students were trying to cut my class and other classes as well.  I became stricter with having students come to class on time and, since then, there have not been as many issues.  For whatever reason, my guys feel very comfortable around one another and frequently remove clothing in the middle of class or in the hallway.  At first, I would tell them to go to the bathroom and do whatever they were doing, but I realized that I was going to lose this battle.  Now, I just avert my eyes and accept the oddity.
  Recently, I have begun to become friends with many of the people in the gyomusil (Korean for teachers' room).  My co-teachers are my main support at the school.  They are all fantastic and always willing to help me with pretty much anything.  Many of the younger teachers have also befriended me, and we frequently go to lunch together.  We have to speak Konglish with one another but, the difficulty only helps me improve my Korean.  More updates to come very soon!

My students and I

This guy loves to tell me that we look alike and are twins

Orientation

So ends week one, and I almost forgot how exhausting it can be to be a student.

One of the great things about Fulbright Thailand’s ETA program is the extensive orientation program that the directors have designed to help us get ready to teach, live, and stay safe over the next year. Covering everything from Thai language classes to lectures on Thai politics and education to discussions on Thai cultural norms and expectations, the days are long and mentally exhausting (so much new information at once!). However, it's super clear that this month in Bangkok is going to be incredibly useful and fun!

Probably the most helpful part of this past week was spending two full days with the ETAs from this year. Fresh off their grant period, it was absolutely fantastic to be able to talk to people who have already gone through a similar experience. The 12 former ETAs were so fun to talk to and had so many eclectic, funny, unbelievable, and fantastic experiences. They told us that we’d always be stared out for being farangs (the Thai word for white, western foreigner), constantly confused, unable to get straight answers, overwhelmed by teaching at first, but we would love our schools, students, and the country. Their best advice? Just go with the flow. Done and done.

Orientation has also been great, because, as cheesey as this sounds, it’s also been a great way to begin to be integrated into the Thailand Fulbright family. A smaller but mighty program, our the directors and staff seem to view us ETAs as their kids and we are told to look to them as our P’Mommies and P’Daddies. They’ve been nothing but supportive and have taken the time to get to know all of us, which feels so nice.

When we’re not busy being oriented, we’re still being tourists to the max! Yesterday was especially great, because we finally were able to make our way over to the historic district. While we originally had planned on spending the day at the Grand Palace, we instead spent a couple of hours checking out the National Museum, somehow ending up in a tuk tuk that took us to a river and canal tour, and then we explored Khoa San road a little bit. Soooo touristy, but so much fun!

Bangkok

Greetings from Bangkok! It’s the end of day two here although in some ways it feels like it’s already been a week. The kind people at Thailand Fulbright gave us the weekend to settle into our new city, and, oh, have we ever been settling in.

After arriving late Friday night after an unbelievably long, no-human-being-should-have-to-eat-that-much-airline-food kind of flight, the 19 other ETAs and I were bussed to the international housing provided by Chulalongkorn University. The university in located in the central part of the city and is the country’s premiere school. Word on the street is that only one out of every 1000 student is accepted. Some might even call it highly selective.

The room that I’m sharing with Glenda, another ETA and fellow Centennial Conference grad (Dickinson. Don’t hate.), is on the seventh floor of the building, only a short jaunt up several flights of stairs or a quick ride on an elevator that closes so quickly you need a running start to make it in alive. The accommodations are very comfortable, each of us having our own bed, desk, lockable closets, a shared bathroom and refrigerator. Miracle beyond miracles, we also have wireless!

Not wanting to waste anytime, our exploring began Saturday morning. So ready to have a proper meal, it should come as no surprise the top priority on our list of things to do was finding food.After wandering a couple blocks away from our dorms, we found a street vendor selling phad thai and fried rice. After a bit of, shall we say, creative communicating in broken Thai and English, seven of us ate for just over 300 bhats. That’s about $10, folks. Not a bad price. And let me tell you—it was delicious!

Saturday night was especially exciting for me, because my host teacher, P’Moo happened to be in Bangkok with some others teachers from my school and the ETA that spent this past year in Yang Talad. Earlier in the week P’Moo had mentioned that he would be in the city and invited me to join them for a dinner. Over Italian food and conversation in a mix of English and Thai, I had the chance to learn a little more about my school, the province of Kalasin, and the teachers and students with whom I’ll be I will be working. It was really great to meet everyone early and have a better idea of what to expect (if that even means anything at this point!)

Sunday morning a group of us took the Sky Train over to the Chatuchak weekend market, the largest outdoor market IN THE WORLD. Seriously, this place was insane. Thousands of vendors set up carts and shops selling anything you can imagine. Clothing, suitcases, souvenirs, silk, food, sunglasses, bags, even pets! Given my incredibly oversized suitcases, the only purchases I made at the markets today were a spicy, spicy curry and homemade coconut ice cream topped with peanuts, pineapples and, get this, sweet red beans.

After the spending a couple of hours wandering the markets, Glenda, Jane, Kelly and I treated ourselves to the experience that I have been waiting days, weeks, months, maybe even my entire life for: THAI MASSAGE.

I use the word massage lightly. According to Wikipedia (totes legit), Thai message is a “type of massage in Thai style that involves stretching and deep massage.” According to me, Thai message is the process of a small Thai lady bending you into positions you never thought you’d be in and then slapping you around a bit. More of a yoga session, some of the massaging is less than enjoyable, but when you leave, after cracking joints you didn’t know you had and having muscle knots pounded out of your legs, back and arms, you feel absolutely fantastic. By all accounts, it’s totally seems paradoxical, but I’m not going to question it.

The message parlor we went to was very clean and relaxing and was set up so that the four of us could all have our massages at the same time in the same room. Even though the atmosphere was dark and relaxing, complete with the ubiquitous classical music playing in the background, as much as we tried, there were some parts where we couldn’t keep our cool. At one point Kelly’s massage practitioner was slapping her so much that we just started laughing. Trust me, you would have too!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_massage

As we’re wrapping up the weekend here, I’m getting very excited for this week. Orientation begins early tomorrow morning and over the next month we’ll study the language (a MUST I found out this weekend!), learning about Thai culture and customs, as well as learn how to be effective teachers. It should be an incredibly helpful and necessary experience.

Even though I’ve only had the smallest of small tastes of the city so far, I think it’s safe to quote the Hangover II (again, totes legit) to describe the past couple of days here: Bangkok has me now.