Vegetarian Vignettes
“Why do you only have rice and kimchi? Do you not like Korean food?” A concerned teacher asks me this in Korean on my first day as I set down my nearly bare plate on the table. Before I can respond, my co-teacher replies, “Monica does not eat meat. She only eats chicken.” Then, she turns to me and sighs, “You know, Monica, our cafeteria serves a lot of meat because without meat, these students will not grow well.” “Oh I understand. It’s okay,” I say with a smile and with far too many enthusiastic head nods. It’s only my first week here, and I do not want to be difficult or annoying. “Besides, my host mom makes delicious chicken and vegetarian food, so I eat a lot for breakfast and dinner,” I assure her, the other teachers and myself. ~~~~ “Why is Monica only eating rice and kimchi?” Another teacher asks me in Korean later that week. “Gogi anmeogeoyo[1. I don’t eat meat.],” I proudly reply with one of the most useful phrases I have learned in the past few days. ~~~~ A few weeks have passed since the beginning of school, and I now dread lunch time. The cafeteria has become one of the most uncomfortable places for me in school. After carefully inspecting the meat in the orange sauce, I scowl at it. It’s pork, not chicken. Picking up my tray of rice and kimchi, I tread carefully towards the table, trying to avoid teachers I have not interacted with before, solely so I do not have to entertain… “Do you not like the food? You didn’t take any meat or oyster soup.” …those questions. I sigh and annoyingly make eye contact with the concerned teacher behind me, “gogi anmeogeoyo,” I say in a tone harsher than I mean. ~~~~ After a two-hour drive to our condo in Boseong, the five other English teachers and I drop our bags on the floor and check out our room for our English retreat. I take a seat at the dining table while the other teachers gather on the floor of the main room, a stone’s throw away from me. “Seonsaengnimdeul![2. Teachers] Let’s eat raw meat for dinner tonight,” a teacher suggests at the sound of growling stomachs. “Yes! The school is paying for this English teacher’s retreat, so we should indulge,” another teacher excitedly agrees. “Okay, I’ll look for a good restaurant, so we can eat well tonight.” The conversation is in Korean, but from experience, I already knew what is going to happen next. I feel everyone’s gaze shift across the room towards me, despite the fact that I am intently staring at the super interesting thing happening with my hands in my lap. Eventually, the awkwardness forces me to meet the assortment of pitying and slightly frustrated eyes. Though, their voices drop to a whisper, I can still make out the conversation. “Oh, but Monica cannot eat if we go there,” a teacher sadly remarks. “She can’t eat any meat? Not even pork?” another teacher says in a voice laced with disbelief. “What about fish? She has to eat fish, right?” With a sigh, “No, we should go somewhere else. Maybe we can find a bibimbap restaurant nearby or…” “Aww I really wanted to eat raw meat tonight.” “This is too bad…” We ended up at the raw meat restaurant. ~~~ I convince myself to endure the awkwardness and feelings of being burdensome at school. It’s okay, I tell myself, because I can always eat everything served at home. My host mom makes kimchi jjigae[3. Stew usually made with kimchi, pork belly and tofu] without sausage, japchae [4. Glass noodles with stir-fried vegetables and meat] without ham, and bibimbap[5. Rice with mixed vegetables, beef and red pepper paste] without beef. However, I feel like this comfort and food security at home will not last long. Day by day, I notice it slowly escaping my grasp. For example, lately, my host mom has been making more meat dishes. Today, as I was picking out the ham from my fried rice, my host brother asked me, “Teacher, why don’t you eat meat?” “I was raised Hindu, and Hindus believe it is our duty to God to not harm God’s other creations, including animals. For us, eating meat is like committing an act of violence.” Before my host brother can ask why I eat chicken, I add, “When my parents immigrated to America, they found it difficult to be completely vegetarian. So, they raised my brothers and me as semi-vegetarians—vegetarians who eat chicken.” I look at him with squinting eyes wondering what he is thinking or if he even understands me. Feeling guilty and burdensome, I apologize for my dietary choices. “I’m sorry. I know it must be hard to feed me. It seems that there’s a lot of seafood and meat in this area.” “Oh teacher, you should not say sorry. You come from another culture. I think it is important that we respect other cultures and lifestyles. It’s important to understand other people,” he reassures me in broken English. I was touched. I’m not sure his mother or my co-teacher share the same sentiment, but now I feel like at least one person understands me. ~~~~ Charlie and Kingsley, two of my Fulbright friends, are visiting my placement city, Naju. My host mom has unexpectedly planned the entire weekend for us. I’m a little hesitant, but I suppose she will do a better job of showing off Naju than I will. Our first stop is the neighboring town of Yeongsanpo’s famous Hongeo row—a line of restaurants that serve fermented skate fish. The smell wafting in the streets should have been enough warning, but we felt it impolite to protest. We did not want my host mom to think we were unwilling to immerse ourselves in a new culture. As we walk in, two older men point and laugh at the absurdity of foreigners trying the local dish. My friends and I exchange concerned glances—hongeo is
Stretch
There’s a particular joy in overcoming In fighting to find calm In working to appreciate. Tadasana Arms raise up Then collapse at the heel There’s a joy in difficult circumstances In breathing through the fear In feelings so strong your stomach hurts. Notice how discomfort is different from pain. A foot lands softly on a rubber mat Strong and stable There’s joy. Maeve Wall is a 2015-2016 ETA at Sadaebucho Elementary School in Daegu.
One Way Ticket
I didn’t recognize my host father’s contact by name when it was added to my Kakao messenger friends list. Instead of Hangul characters, the name “one way ticket” accompanied a cropped candid shot of the smiling adult with an overgrown teenage haircut I chalked it up to a gag he had neglected to right. Months later, however, his self-label – and the depth of our relationship – remained unchanged. Uncomfortably huddled around the kitchen table on the first night at my homestay, my host mother introduced her husband as someone who doesn’t talk a lot unless he drinks a lot. He understood enough English to grin at the description, taking the introduction as a cue to offer me beer and see how I held my alcohol. The man unwound, the spirits washing away the intercultural barriers and stiff demeanor he had thus far shown his wife, his children, and me. He grabbed his two boys in broad bear hugs and smiles to match; to his wife, he dusted off his English with saccharine love stories from their past. Still in my suit and drinking at a steady pace half as fast as the man I would have called a stranger hours before, the two held pleasant conversation while treating the beer cans like checkers. She’d tactfully moved them further from his reach, and he’d finish a story with a theatrical gesture, outstretching his long arms to recapture and then drain his drink in protest. At one point he spilled, and my host mother and I caught eyes – she flashed a labored smile as she beat him to upright the can. The conversation in between each can wasn’t unpleasant, or even that awkward; though the imbalance in sobriety was just too great to ignore. Politely declining another glass or gratefully accepting one felt like a test, a test which would determine the parental faction I would befriend. Eventually, he crawled into a full-sized camping tent erected indoors. Settled, he began to play and sing along to all the English songs he knew. By now, he was on his own – his wife crushing cans and tending to the children, doing chores unaccompanied. I had been briefed on the gendered drinking dynamics where men would flex the number of soju bottles they could down, but felt unprepared and unsure as the antics continued. Literally bowing out once he began to chant a solo-chorus of “Puff the Magic Dragon” in his tent, I let the juxtaposition of the man’s warmth and his wife’s warranted hesitation trickle in and begin to color my impressions. Every morning after sported a similar tone of caution. His wife would hastily apologize; now sober, he would remain somber if he wasn’t audibly vomiting one room over. To cover the sound, she’d blow dry her hair even though she hadn’t washed it. Those mornings, the two host brothers and I would stare at the table and eat breakfast quickly. Too young to let out a long enduring sigh but too old to ignore that their father was hungover, they nervously switched from silently playing with one toy to the next. His drinking progression was linear, reaching a pit stop of flushed character before the final destination of paralyzing, colorless sobriety. The words the man shared between midnight and noon could be counted on one hand. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Despite his daytime gruffness, my host father was fond of music and had impressively diverse taste. Downloading all of his songs from YouTube and playing them from a USB in his car, the playlist would playfully meander from obscure 80’s Korean rock ballads to modern singles like 아메리카노 (“Americano”) before returning to ajeossi [1. Middle-aged man] hiking yodels. During the winter months when it was too cold to bike, he’d drive me to school, sitting taciturn aside from the occasional guttural throat clearing. One morning after de-icing the windshield with a once coveted “DOOM” floppy disk, he turned on the radio and unceremoniously announced, “This one, I like – Disco, but sad.” An ethereal voice preceded an upbeat electric organ tap before giving way to the sudden chorus jolt – “ONE WAY TICKET…ONE WAY TICKET TO THE BLUES.” I processed intently, both pleased that his mystery name had been discovered and wondering why, of all banal disco hits – of all music in human history – had this one aligned with the man enough to adopt it as his digital name and identity. The Jamaican/Ghanaian/Curaçaoian collective Eruption etched their mark in history with the 1978 one-hit-wonder: “One Way Ticket”. The track is repetitive (albeit dreadfully catchy) with a cringe-worthy bridge – “Gonna take a trip to lonesome town, Gonna stay at Heartbreak Hotel”. Despite it’s dull melody and content, the tune roused my hungover host father to hum-sing at 7 AM. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I hardly saw my host father during the fall. As a third grade high school math teacher, he would often eat breakfast quickly and leave, throwing us a monosyllabic acknowledgement our way if we were lucky. He’d return home long after I’d fallen asleep. The occasional out of place shot glass or beer can cast an arms length from the bedding on the floor suggested he still had time for a “night cap.” I thought that we’d have more time to share at home together after the Suneung [2. A college-entrance exam taken in the third year of high school, equivalent to the SAT] exam and final grades passed, but was naïve to expect contact sans-liquor. Even if he came home early on the monthly school half-day called “family day,” I’d find him strewn on the floor, gambling on his smartphone as his kids galloped in circles around him. It’s not that they didn’t care; they just seemed no better able to acknowledge their father as their father could his children. His wife, too, often took to simply ignoring the man, referring to him in the third person even though he lay outstretched drinking beside us. Direct