I Became Food on a Train, Wandering: Five Poems
By Dawn Angelicca Barcelona, ETA ’14-’17 Cake we grilled our own meat at restaurant 108 and drank beers and soju, sitting Korean-style. we spent too much time teaching our language to learn the language of this new country. we leaned on each other to pick from the few words sown inside our mouths. we were just kids wondering how to eat. 어떻게?. we planted a new alphabet to help us sprout through the soil of Sejong, in our new little neighborhood. with soft-spoken syllables, our courage boils up: 맞아요? back at home, we said “fork” and “spoon” or “please” and “thank you” now we only point and say “여기요, 이거 더 주세요” our tongues burn, digging for more words when we see a kitchen. we set the cake down next to our grill. here we sing 생일 축하합니다 instead of happy birthday. the song tastes like an expiration date another birthday I wish I could be home for, hoping after a year it will still be waiting for me in the fridge. Microaggressions I don’t like rice. It’s the core of what my mom and dad love. They eat it plainly, sometimes with their hands. It’s the food of their homeland. I wish I knew how to use my hands the way they do. When we go out for dinner, we eat with forks and knives. They leave behind traditional ways for dinner time. I’m not who my parents were at 23. They flew away from a familiar life to make a better one for me. I flew away to forget about New Jersey. In this second home I’ve come to know, I am asked why I am a teacher. Why I didn’t become a nurse. Why I’d rather write poems. Why my hometown isn’t Metro Manila or Cebu City, two places that didn’t raise me. I go to church to pray but instead get distracted. I hear people say, “America isn’t your real home.” In the winter, I flew away from Korea to feel less like a question and more like an answer. To be something definite, that ends. Yet a tourist shop cashier says, “you must be one of my people” and a hostel owner speaks in English to everyone else but never to me. In countries so foreign, I’m seen as familiar. Wherever I go, there are always assumptions to erode. It never fails to come: “So really, where are you from?” Upon Arrival The morning I landed in NYC I just wanted to curl up and crawl into a huge black bowl and burn. From one home to another in 14 hours. I am mixed up inside over what I didn’t say goodbye to enough times. I suggest Korean food for lunch. I miss being so good- mannered: tilting my bowl to have the last of my hot soup, using two hands to pass the com- munal kimchi dish and keeping my chopsticks out of the hardened rice I tried not to eat. I wish I could drink myself out of this bowl while I’m still scalding hot so I don’t feel me on the way down. I miss my tongue. How swollen it got from a soup burn. Re: Last night I dreamt of a poem I wrote to you on a plane a year ago Last January in Gangnam, at Oz board game cafe, we built train lines by playing Ticket to Ride until the owner said you’ve been playing the wrong way Before you my weekends were perfect successions of Americanos You said I had always wanted to travel I said I never wanted to leave America You asked me why do you work so hard I said I don’t know, I’m in love with being tired After you I bought fewer groceries we traded poems over dinner You wrote of every favor, I ask but one don’t forget me while you’re gone I wrote though I’m miles away I’m not really gone you’ll see me every day, in each rising sun Twelve months later I moved across America Upon landing I hit send I wonder what you’re doing now You replied steady and smooth I miss you. Guro Station, Line 1 In another dream, I’m bundled up in the warmth of fish-shaped bread. A treat in the winter. The smoke from a chestnut stand beckons me back to my apartment. I choose the subway instead. The ten-minute walk rings in my eardrum. It always sounds like this: “Teacher, where are you going? Where is your home?” 출입문 닫겠습니다. Track two sends me uptown to Gwanghwamun, where I walk journal-in-hand past palaces and stop to eat street food. I’ve had every taste in every season. I try to hold them all in my too-small palms. Track three drags me downtown with the sunset. After two years: two placements, a different alphabet, hundreds of students’ faces I wonder if it is possible to love another city or two different countries so tightly. 이 역은 타는 곳과 전동차 사이가 넓습니다. Guro held nine roads, all leading me home. I tried to pick out the words I knew in the poems painted on the glass doors, feeling the breath of each train car’s mouth swallowing me and the rest of the crowd. I would do anything to go back. 내리실 때 조심하시기 바랍니다. I still use the same alarm. I wake up on time, after the subway car halts in my sleep. I miss the way I became food on the trains entering Guro Station, leaving crumbs in my splintering. Dawn Angelicca Barcelona was a 2014-2016 ETA at Yangji Elementary School in Sejong City and Sinmirim Elementary School in Seoul. She currently works on the talent and recruitment team at MuleSoft in San Francisco
Losing Face
By Rachel Fauth, ETA ’16-’17 I am at the three-quarter mark of a lesson on the past tense “used to.” The phrase can be used in three ways, according to my handwriting, which has suddenly become law: to utilize; to be accustomed to; to talk about a past action or behavior. The students chant the bullet points. Chanting doesn’t teach them anything other than the fact that they’re in class, but repetition is a mystifying and alluring thing. The rhythm reinforces our relationship—my voice solo, theirs in unison, repeating me, repeating the sounds and the shape of my mouth. I feel the excess chaos of the classroom—shuffling paper, scrapings of leftover side conversations—get all swept up into a sort of wind tunnel, swirl up and disappear as their voices get progressively more pointed. “To-talk-about-the-past,” they say. “To-talk-about-the-past.” It’s unfortunate because chanting is no indication of anyone’s success despite how oddly good it feels. I gesture at the TV monitor, humming at me with static. A photo of a green-eyed, curly-haired man from the waist up flashes on screen. This is a famous Australian singer. I’ve started using the word “famous” in my presentations more often; it grabs their attention immediately, like proof that other Americans unanimously agree my class material is important. “And what is his most famous song called?” They read aloud from the TV: “Somebody that I Used to Know.” “So does he still know this person?” “No!” “When did he know them?” “In the past!” “Is this possible?”” “…No? Yes, no?” “Why or why not?” One student in the front answers with confidence, “Because when you know someone, you always know them. Because, memory.” “Thank you. That’s good.” * * * Thirty-one girl-students in identical uniforms tossing my inflatable watermelon ball around class, asking each other the given prompt: “What-did-you-used-to-do-when-you-were-12?” A lot of squealing, some screaming laughter. In this moment there’s a quick and total wave of relief that spreads out from the epicenter of my chest. Loud is better than quiet. I think a quiet class is learning nothing, thinking nothing, retaining nothing, wishing me away. One student answers, “When I was 12, I used to play piano,” tentative and smiling, “but now I don’t because no pianos here.” Faint giggle, throw, ask, catch, answer, repeat. While the game goes on there’s one girl in the back row who’s turning all sorts of colors. Her cheeks yellow and pink at the same time, as if they’re actively bruising. She’s blushing like a chameleon and staring at the floor, then the ceiling, then the floor. Her mouth is just a line. From my vantage point at the front of the room I could see her while other students couldn’t, and in this moment I become aware of how different the perspective of student and teacher really is. How singular it it is, expansive and sweeping—I could see all 31 of them at once, I could measure their expressions in my peripheral view, I could compare them, survey them; if I’d opened my arms all the way, it would look like I was reaching across every desk at once though I absolutely wasn’t. * * * “Music video!” The lyrics start rolling. Dictation exercise in palatable form.Listen closely to the song, watch the video (has minor nudity!) and try to fill in the missing words. Her face looks broken now, succumbing to gravity. How many of my classmates, when I was in high school, wore faces like hers, and I couldn’t see it from where my desk was? But the teacher could? Could my teachers tell when my face fell like hers? The lyrics are singing, Now and then I think of when we were together. / Like when you said you felt so happy you could die. Girl-students are distracted by the man-nipple that appears fleetingly on screen. Squealing, some screaming with laughter. I float over to her in a way I hope is inconspicuous and ask her, “Gwaenchanayo?[1. Are you okay?] Okay?” Extremely limited Korean to offer. “Yes,” and she begins sobbing. I have to ask more than once for her to leave the classroom; it’s like she’s glued to the chair. * * * In the hallway: “Is it…your studies?” First guess. “Stressed out?” “No,” she says, the waterline to her eyes doing its job, brimming. “Gajok?” Family. A male teacher—red polo tucked into his pants, hair parted neatly to one side, black leather belt, nods to me and strides past us down the stairwell. He disappears in a wind-tunnel and the situation settles around me like dust. I feel empty-handed, ill-equipped, vacant arsenal of Korean vocabulary ready to fail me at a time when English will most certainly be abrasive. “Yes, my mother, dead.” “When? Eonje?” I think about processing—what it means to process, the verb. “Today.” Her small hands and small face, the perfect size for each other. I want my arms to be long enough, longer. Other teachers know her mother died today and still she’s sitting in my class, in other classes. Tonight she’ll go to Seoul, to the hospital, but not until after the school day’s over and she’s cleaned her assigned corner of the school. Behind her there’s a row of different colored metallic mops leaned up against the wall and for a moment they look expectant. The girl goes on to apologize to me, to me, “I’m sorry, Teacher,” and motions to go back to class. I say, “No, I am sorry,” but the expression doesn’t work that way in Korean. The air around her crumples like a sheet of thick gray paper. * * * At dinner last night, my host father started choking on a duck bone, briefly. He turned his head and swiveled away from the table towards the far wall of the restaurant and faced backwards. He sat there coughing, not exactly “up a lung” but for a considerable length of time, an uncomfortable length of time, while his wife and daughter volleyed conversation
Sting of a Hard Serve
By Rebecca Brower, ETA ’15-’17 May 23, 2016 I winced and drew a sharp breath as another fiery jolt of pain ripped into the middle of my back. I was paralyzed, bent at a 90-degree angle with my hands braced against the wall. The pain tore through and traveled down the back of my right leg. When it subsided, I took another shuffle-step sideways and continued to inch towards the bathroom—I had only minutes to complete my mission and return to my bed. It was shortly after midnight. My homestay family was asleep. I had been up for just a couple minutes, but I could feel the nausea settling into the pit of my stomach already. The nausea and dizziness were new, probably from the muscle relaxers I had been prescribed at the clinic. By the time I stepped out of the bathroom, I was in a cold sweat and my ears were ringing. I stumbled through the now blurry darkness; all I had left was survival instinct to carry me into my room where I collapsed onto my bed. As things gradually returned to normal, I felt an immense feeling of helplessness wash over me. I couldn’t even make it to the bathroom on my own. As I fought back tears, I looked down at my feet and saw that I had brought the bathroom slippers with me. I kicked them off onto the floor. I was going to have to explain that in the morning. * * * Early March 2016 “Can Becky practice with you? She’s a volleyball player…” At my co-teacher’s request, two of our coworkers paused from their warm-up and turned to look our way, each with a sliver of speculation written on their faces. Outside of the English office, the teachers at school were largely afraid to talk to me, despite any efforts I made to engage first. Often, I was lucky just to receive a polite “annyeonghaseyo” with a bow, and maybe even a shy smile. After a moment, Junho, one of the fifth grade teachers, nodded and passed the ball my way. * * * Midnight crept on to 4:00 a.m., and then on to 6:00 a.m. I slept for little bits at a time, but with great difficulty; staying still hurt…rolling over hurt…and sitting up was just impossible. During the early morning, Kakao messages with my mom in New York occupied my time while I waited for Nancy to wake. I told my mom that I had gone to my host uncles’ garlic farm over the weekend to help pull shoots out of the middle of the plants. There had been no pain while I was working, but it appeared suddenly when I woke up for school on Monday. At first, there was only minor pain when bending over, but it had gotten progressively worse during the day, forcing me to go to the clinic after school with Nancy. * * * Late March 2016 “You, main attacker. Me, English major. I hate English.” Junho was standing on the other side of the net as he joked over his own fear of English; it was one of the first times he had spoken to me out of his own volition. After proving myself capable in the staff game, I had been invited to join the teachers’ volleyball club on Mondays, and those that attended were quickly becoming more enthusiastic about trying to connect with me. In a matter of weeks, one sport had broken down a barrier that I had been struggling to get over for an entire semester and it felt great. * * * Nancy entered my room around 7:30, and when I repeatedly succumbed to cringing blasts of pain while demonstrating my inability to get out of bed, we decided it would be best to go to the city. She called and made an appointment for me at a hospital in Daegu, and after a failed attempt to help me out of the house on her own, she then called the EMTs. They arrived a few minutes later and carried me down the stairs of our four-story villa before heaving me into the back seat of the car. The rest of the day at Wooridul Hospital—a place that I found online was world-renowned for spinal care—was filled with x-rays, blood draws, an MRI, CT scan and numerous localized pain shots that allowed me to wobble to and from the bathroom. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, Nancy left to teach her hagwon classes, and realizing again how helpless I was, I cried myself to sleep. * * * April 2016 “Becky. An ga. You stay. Don’t go.” Kiljong, a teacher that worked at another local elementary school, stood in front of me, arms outstretched, blocking me from leaving his team. After rock-paper-scissors had left the three teams uneven, most of the women were being redistributed to balance out the teams. During our first meeting, Kiljong was just another teacher hesitant to talk to me, but months later he would become my closest friend through volleyball, close enough for us to call each other brother and sister. * * * “Becky?” I woke up sometime in the evening when I heard my name being called. I looked to see my homestay aunt, who lived in Daegu, approaching my bedside with a look of concern on her face. She had no doubt heard about my hospitalization from Nancy and had come to check on me. Unlike my homestay mom, my aunt couldn’t speak English, but the kindness and patience that she had when she spoke allowed us to bond and understand each other in Korean. My aunt was there the next day too to wash my hair while Nancy ran down to the third-floor billing department and back again, trying to get things squared away with the insurance company. My assigned doctor had come in first thing in the morning to give me the diagnosis on my back: two