Foreword: Volume 9, Issue 2
As we approach the conclusion of this grant year, we react differently to our eventual departure and feel an urgency to process and record our time in Korea before moving forward. This issue of Infusion explores and explains some of the feelings we have as we wrap up our year. We get a genuine look into how grantees came to understand their unique roles in Korea and what personal progress came out of this experience. Our contributors write about their daily interactions in Korea and speak of their personal relationships—those affected by our departure to Korea and those forged after our arrival in Korea. Committing to be a Fulbright Korea Grantee comes with the anticipation of a new adventure—and the expectation that the challenges embedded in such an opportunity would push us to do some hard work. We knew it would be hard work to keep in touch with our loved ones back home, and it would be hard work to adjust to new responsibilities and meet new people in a different cultural context. There seems to be a shared determination among us to be patient and persevere through any of the tough stuff until we reach moments of clarity, understanding and acceptance. The work we do as grantees is varied: it can be as seemingly simple as rehearsing a Korean greeting or as arduous, albeit rewarding, as learning how to make hanji paper. For some of us, the core of our work happens in our classrooms. We do our best to execute our lesson plans despite any hiccups and choose the most enlightening parts of our personal histories to share with our students. We also use plenty of emotional labor to prepare ourselves to visit—and revisit—places we expect to be comfortable. We must acknowledge the reality that with the passing of time and the widening of our perspectives these places may now feel entirely unfamiliar. I’ve watched the hard work of contributors and staff members produce four issues of Infusion during my two years in Korea. The effort put forth by the contributors and the staff is always impressive and admirable. Each issue is only possible with the willingness of grantees to embrace their experiences in Korea and the diligence of an editorial staff to refine and arrange this magazine to best capture an honest look at what it means to live, work and contribute to the communities in Korea. Please enjoy the stories, poems, student pieces and photographs presented in Volume 9, Issue 2 of Infusion. Dawn Angelicca Barcelona Editor-in-Chief
Stage Fright
Welcome to teaching in South Korea. You have four classes in a row. There’s no time for you to hide in that little bathroom stall with the motivational poster. The show must go on, malfunctioning computer or not. Get ready to tap dance on the stage that is your classroom. Spit out a character – voice and all. All the players have arrived. The classroom captain plays the techie. She’s checked the sound this time. It won’t refuse to turn on in the third line of dialogue again. Always thankful for the help, you don’t forget to send a nod of gratitude her way before you take the center. And then there’s the stage manager, your magnificent co-teacher. She swings in the room to settle everyone down–a show of her amazing skills. She tells everyone to take a seat. As everyone finds one, she clasps her hands together. You may go on. Rehearsal took a good amount of your sleeping time. So, you’re working with shot nerves and eyelids threatening to droop. Three cups of coffee down today, surely a dozen more to go. But you jump around while talking, excited like Bill Gates just gave you his fortune. The kids didn’t expect that. They snap to attention. They hang on your words like to-be-continued. You continue for a bit, throw a joke in here and there, and get them practically fighting to say the lines with you. It ain’t Broadway, but there’s a Tony award with your name somewhere. You breathe in the claps and shouts of encouragement to go on, sucking it in like air after drowning. Even if they don’t realize this, you know that the performance gets better with a good audience. That’s why you shut down a heckler with a quickness. All it takes is one thing to derail everything. The first act finishes in good time, and now the performance moves to act two. Full audience participation. They’ve been chomping at the bit for this. The first group had told them what was going down a week ago. You plan to have a little game going, a crowd pleaser. Start a scene, throw the ball, someone catches it and continues the story. You will signal when the piece reaches the end to avoid spinning into an eternity of random. They get the instructions. The game can go on. You move your hand to get the ball. It’s unevenly rounded body usually pokes up from your class materials box. You grasp at air. It’s not there. You definitely need the ball. Without it, it’s a game of “gotcha!” Students will think you’re gunning for them if you call them out directly. Shoot. Shoot. Shoot. You can’t use the eraser as a replacement. That looks like you forgot. You can’t make a new one. No tape and it looks like you forgot. Can’t drop the smile. As soon as you drop the smile, they know something is wrong. That’s blood to a shark. Big smile while you’re praying to God for an angel to bring you a sphere made of tape and wrapped paper. The angel just happens to be your tall co-teacher in an overcoat. She reads the panic setting in and takes the arduous journey to the teacher’s office across the school. You stall with review, fun facts, and Q&A with bribes in the form of new, shiny, pointed-tip pencils – really anything that will stop this whole thing from imploding. After a while, you can stall no more. Right before you admit that this whole thing has been a sham, your co-teacher returns. The ball has come to thee. Praise to the Almighty. You look around. No one caught on. You thought that everyone could see the mistake. No one did. The game goes smoother than chocolate silk. At the end, they all clap. They even bow to you. They’re sad that it’s ending. You assure them that they’ll get another round next week. Back stage, in your office, you and your co-teacher joke about how everything went. You wonder if you should have two balls in play to up the ante during the second act. Your co-teacher tosses tape to wrap around your next paper masterpiece. You catch it with ease and she’s already turning away, getting ready to take her own center. As for you, you begin to take note of things to remember for the next time you have to run this show, which is ten minutes from now. No rest before the next curtain call. You down another coffee, this time with a drop of mint. Breanna Durham is a 2015-2016 ETA at Yongwon Middle School in Yongwon, Gyeongsangnam-do.
To Be a Daughter
My Korean is poor, your English almost non-existent. Yet you let me into your home for a year; A stranger became your daughter. This is what it is to be a daughter: Struggling to look up words on a dictionary app Just to talk to you. Hovering near you in the kitchen as you scurry around Mixing together ingredients I’ve never seen, Concocting dishes I’ve never imagined. Is that a whole squid? Really, omma ? A squid for dinner? You appreciate my help; our best way of communicating. You were lonely; dad only comes home on weekends, onni, is in Seoul, Brother lives at the PC room, so I keep you company. We grow close over Korean dramas and brief conversations. Our friendship blooms in the shared struggle to communicate. I call your house home for a year; a stranger becomes my mother. — You are at home, hoping I’ll fly back soon. The girl you raised became a woman who moved to the other side of the world. This is what it is to be a daughter: I am constantly reminded of the burdens Carried by a mother and her displaced daughter. It is layered in your voice and present in my loneliness. You call me almost every night, across oceans and time zones; Facebook messenger and KakaoTalk are our lifelines. “When are you coming home?” “You really want to stay another year?” “I miss you.” I feel guilty. I miss you too. I try my best to never miss a call. Your advice and wisdom bring understanding or contention depending on my mood; But you are almost always right. My time at home is short but wonderful; summers and Christmas bring us together again. Love wells up to replace the arguments fueled by distance and miscommunication. I leave you again, But your calls tether me to the family I left behind. I love you mom; I’ll be home soon. — You are the mother of my future husband, With a language and culture vastly different from mine, But I am grateful to be your new daughter. This is what it is to be a daughter: Standing anxious to meet you, Having prepared my insa, a thousand times in my head, I worry: ‘Will you accept me?’ Upon our first meeting you pull me into a sweeping, back-thumping, Ajumma, embrace. Instantly, I am your daughter. The pressure to impress you is built up only in my head, But I desperately want to prove that I can be a good wife, And a good daughter. You show me how to correctly peel fruit, You cook alongside me as I try my hand at jjimdalk, You teach me how to talk with appa, , whose brusque, thick dialect confuses even your son. I look at my vibrating phone: “Shi Omma, ;” I have a brief panic. Will we understand each other over the phone? But your reassuring, measured voice guides me; You are patient with my stilted, awkward Korean. You accept me as I am. We go to the beauty shop together; people stare. “Who is this foreigner?” they ask you. “She is my daughter,” you reply. Emily Lembo is a 2014-2016 ETA at Samgaksan Elementary in Seoul. She previously worked at Chipyong Middle school in Gwangju.