Hungry Ghosts: Part 1
by Leigh Hellman, ETA Alum The following is part 1 of a 3 part series, which will be published weekly on here on Infusion’s website. hungry ghosts “Tell me a Korean ghost story.” “Like Frankenstein—or Twilight?” “No. Those aren’t Korean. Aren’t there any Korean ghost stories? Any Korean monsters? There have to be.” They shrug. “몰라.” [1. ‘Mulla.’ “Don’t know.”] —– Park Chung-hee was assassinated on October 26th, 1979. He was shot in the head and in the chest by his security chief—and director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency—at whose safehouse he was attending an official dinner. Born in a single Korea strangled under Japanese annexation and colonial rule, Park rose through the Imperial Japanese and Republic of Korea Armies to the rank of general and finished his career off as the third president of the post-war Republic of South Korea. This Third Republic framed itself as a return to democratic civilian rule after a two-year military junta, and for the seventeen years that spanned the Third—and later Fourth—Republics, the Korean national economy witnessed staggering levels of growth that would ultimately set the stage for what Western capitalists sanctimoniously termed “The Asian Miracle.” In huge stretches of the southeastern province, which houses two of the six largest cities in South Korea as well as Park’s comparatively small hometown, he is a legend. In the province that helped elect his daughter as Korea’s first female president fifty-one years after her father’s reign began, the Parks are immortalized on screen-printed banners strung between street light poles at major intersections. There, Park Chung-hee is a national hero. In its neighboring province to the west, he is not. — It’s easy to forget that South Koreans have only lived under democratic rule—as propagated by American ideology so hopped up on misarticulated amendments that it can barely tell its Socratic from its Thermidorian—for less than thirty years. Gazing across the LED-backlit supernova of Seoul, weaving in and out of impeccably dressed herds with bi-gender heels clacking and the fastest fingers in the world typing texts out on domestically-engineered smartphones screens, in a land where calls don’t drop in tunnels or elevators and public subways have heated seats and run on military-precise schedules, foreigners can be forgiven for their misconceptions. When subtitled CNN newsfeeds telegraphing over plasma-screen TVs anchored delicately to corner walls in cafés aggressively debate on the despotic state to the north, I and you and them and we don’t remember what we were never truly taught to begin with. — “What was it like back then, during that time?” “It was different. A lot of things have changed, but not everything.” “What happened?” “We don’t usually talk about it.” They pause. “몰라.” [2. ‘Mulla.’ “Don’t know.”] — We say—us expats who land in Incheon as updated MacArthur pantomimes, full of millennial swagger and skin-language-passport season passes that whisper an inheritance to rule this place like our high-waisted ancestors ruled every place before it—we say that Korea gets to you. Gets in you. Korea grafts itself to your flesh and burrows down into your marrow and it becomes you, even though you can never become it. Stay long enough and you won’t be able to shake it, like a peculiarly virulent cold. Korea becomes an impulse to push through crowds without apology, a repetition of the question “밥을먹었어?” [3. ‘Babeulmeogeosso?’ “Rice ate?” (“Have you eaten today?”)] instead of “How are you?” It becomes assertions that sweet plum juice can help with digestion and that a scalding hot bowl of whole chicken stew on the hottest day of the year is objectively refreshing. It becomes an appropriated resentment of Japan, a fierce attachment to two craggy rocks [4. The islands of Dokdo.] that jut out of the sea between the Korean island of Ulleung-do and the western shores of Okinoshima. It becomes V-signs in pictures and staring at yourself in any passing reflective surface without shame and without arrogance—without realizing it at all. It becomes brushing your teeth after breakfast, lunch, and dinner and slurping hot noodles through lips and teeth and grilling meat with metal chopsticks. It becomes being surprised by shower curtains. It becomes waking up to phantom scents of spicy pickled cabbage and dropping articles in spoken English and a suffocating fire in your belly of you’ve got to get out got to escape that turns to chalky, ashy, lingering embers once you’re gone. — More than Korea, it’s Gwangju that’s sticky thick in my blood now. — Park Chung-hee and his Third Republic promised a reprieve they couldn’t—perhaps never intended—to deliver. The preceding ten-month military junta (known as the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction) had been touted as a temporary transition between the autocratic governments of the First and Second Republics and a more democratic system; it began as a coup orchestrated by then-Major General Park himself. As the junta’s power buckled, now-General Park left his military post so that he could run in the civilian elections—elections which he and other influential junta members had pledged not to enter. On October 15th, 1963, Park Chung-hee was elected president of the Third Republic of South Korea. Records indict that he defeated the Second Republic incumbent (and US-backed figurehead) by a margin of only 1.5477%, or 156,026 votes. — Koreans, if they’re being traditional about it, don’t do cemeteries. That’s not to say that there aren’t cemeteries in Korea, or that every Korean is stuffed into the soil when they die. There are bureaucratically bland sand-colored buildings that are filled floor to ceiling with small-stacked marble lockers labeled by uniform white plaques with three Chinese characters[5. For administrative purposes—birth, marriage, death—Koreans use the Chinese characters that represent their name instead of the Korean alphabetic spelling.], written top to bottom. The implication is urns, although it could (in many cases) be symbolic. I never really found a good time to ask. “어머니, 도와드릴까요?” [6. ‘Eomeoni, dowadeurilkkayo?’ “Mother, help will give?” (“Mother, can I help you?”)] My Korean is stunted, like a frustrated five-year old
Fried Cabbage in the Kyomushil: A Poem
a poem written and read by Victoria Su, ETA ’15-’16 I wrote a poem on the eve of Thanksgiving. That morning I was still suffering from the hurricane of homesickness that had struck me all of a sudden the night before. My host family’s extended family had been visiting, and while they were friendly and warm, I couldn’t help but feel like an outsider in the midst of this joyful family reunion. I thought about how I had spent all my past Thanksgivings surrounded by family, friends, and the irresistible smell of my mother’s candied yams, and how this year I would just be alone in my room staring at my computer screen, worrying about how to make the Lesson 9 “target language” interesting for my middle schoolers. The simultaneous thoughts of missing Thanksgiving this year and how far away Christmas (when I would go home) was, mixed with feelings of guilt and regret for wishing away the precious time that remained between me and my third graders hit me hard, and I cried silently in my room all night. There is a famous Chinese poem that goes like this: 独在异乡为异客，每逢佳节倍思亲。 Roughly translated, it means “Alone in a foreign place, I am a foreign guest; every holiday season brings a double measure of longing for my family.” When I learned this poem in middle school I didn’t really understand it. Who knew that it would be in middle school again that I would experience this poem’s core sentiment as reality? The next morning (Thanksgiving Eve), when I had finished my first class of the day, I was pleasantly surprised by some of the teachers cooking paechu jeon (배추전), which is a cabbage pancake (basically just sheets of cabbage dipped in a flour-water mixture and fried). Korean cabbage tastes pretty similar to Chinese cabbage, so even though we never eat it in pancake form like this, it reminded me of home. The warmth of the smells, the sounds, and the taste of the food and more importantly, the inviting mirth of my fellow teachers filled me with an unexpected joy and inspired me to write this poem in the little time I had before my next class. Fried Cabbage in the Kyomushil (teachers’ office) Eager noses pressed up against doors and windows, peering in, breath fogging up the glass What is it? What is it? I can’t see! Smells good— Here comes Teacher, will she take pity? it’s cold outside— oh! Time for class. Kids scurry off—still, a few noses and sighs Linger in the corridor. A chuckle slides opens the door: Welcome. Step into the room now, another world— Warmth. tips of Ears, Nose and Fingers suddenly aglow the hearty crackling of grease permeates the air, paechu jeon sizzling in a pan. The room is bright with anticipation as six or so surround the expert hand— flip! crack! sizzle… a steady buzz of chatter and cheer complement the spitter-spattering of the prize— Do you have cabbage in America? —a deft motion, deference (or maybe preference) to the delicacy at hand and—flip! crack! startled! for a split second by the flying object momentarily poised to wreak havoc break—disrupt, disturb, suspend—our heady expectation of perfect satisfaction to come then, swiftly as it came, summoned back as if by magic SNAP! Perfect landing. sizzle, crack, sizzle… back to the same simmering state, just sizzling, sizzling, smelling of simplicity And common grace fills the room. Soon—a Feast! It’s not quite Thanksgiving, but the spirit is here Chopsticks separate at lightning speed Dip, drip, devour Crispy cabbage with a kick of spice Flavor of delight.
Expression
by Janine Perri, ETA ’15-’16 “Teacher, I am shy. I don’t have a lot of confidence.” Chan Young, one of my best students at Gimhae Jeil High School, sat across the table from me during English conversation club. He spoke English almost as well as a native speaker, yet he rarely participated in class and often hesitated before speaking with me. I could relate. Shyness was a feeling I knew very well, especially when I was his age. “I am shy, too!” I said with understanding. “I know what that’s like. I am an introvert.” Chan Young, usually so solemn, cracked a small smile and shook his head. “No, Teacher. I think you are extrovert.” I felt my smile fade a little. An extrovert? Impossible! He may as well have looked at my brown hair and said, “I think you look like Taylor Swift.” Recovering myself, I gestured toward the front of the classroom. “See this?” I asked. “This is my stage. When I teach, I am an actress. I am actually shy and quiet.” Chan Young was unconvinced. He shrugged, as if to say—“If you say so, Teacher.” In America, I was like Chan Young—a shy, introverted student with my head always buried in a book. When I first came to Korea, I was nervous that my quiet personality would not be effective in a foreign language classroom. I would be teaching students from a culture, with a different language and different expectations of their English teacher. The ETA must adapt to Korea and Korean students, we were told at orientation. For me, part of that change would mean that my face and actions would have to express what words could not. I remembered that during my first few days of teaching. I was setting up my computer in the classroom when a student in the front row said, “Teacher, so serious!” I realized that I had been frowning when the projector would not turn on, so I quickly softened my expression. I did not want to be another “serious” teacher, and I could tell my students felt the same. The changes were subtle at first. I made a concentrated effort over my first two weeks to smile more often and become the friendly teacher my students wanted. By the time I had met all of my students, I was using more gestures and facial expressions to complement the simple English I used. The textbook was boring enough as it was, so I tried to compensate by exaggerating my mannerisms so much that I looked like an entertainer. I smiled and tried to show excitement over the stilted listening exercises in the textbook. I laughed too loudly when my students told a joke. I became an outgoing, sometimes over-dramatic English teacher, feeding off the enthusiastic student choruses of “Hi, Janine Teacher!”. Every action, every emotion became over-exaggerated in an attempt to communicate and–in the case of some less motivated students–cajole or amuse. After all, this was what their foreign English teacher was supposed to do, right? “When you are with English teachers, you are quiet, introverted,” a co-teacher told me a few weeks into the semester. “I was surprised to see how animated you were with students.” “She noticed!” I thought. “I must be doing something right.” But I was not. I had told Chan Young that it was acting. Then I started to wonder–if it was acting, did that mean I was not sharing my authentic self with my school and community? Had I really changed so much, or was it this persona that my students call “Janine Teacher”? Being expressive and an extrovert was so foreign to me it seemed fake. I wanted to adapt to my students and meet their expectations of being a “fun” teacher. But I began to worry that I was turning into something I am not. Midway through the semester, I met with a team of four students, including Chan Young, to prepare for an upcoming debate conference in Busan. As I listened to my students read through their speech about North Korean defectors I was struck by the precision in pronunciation and grammar, but lack of emotion in their delivery. They spoke loudly and clearly, but their hands stayed at their sides and their voices were monotonous. I was surprised to realize that it was, in some ways, like watching myself as a student in America—precise and proper with my words, but guarded and measured with the way I felt. After my students finished speaking, I went to the board and wrote one word: PATHOS. “Pathos means emotion,” I explained. “When you read a speech, you want the audience to feel your words. Make them sad. Make them angry. Make them want to take action!” My students nodded, but they looked confused. “How?” asked Chan Young. That was a good question. I thought for a minute about my teaching—how I often pretended to be excited about textbook topics like sound waves or anger management. I realized I did not want them to be acting to express themselves – and they did not have to for this debate. This was a topic my students and I chose together because we were passionate about refugee crises, in Korea and other parts of the world. Outside of the classroom, we often had discussions about politics and our empathy for those displaced from their homes. This was something they could connect to, could care about, could express. “Can you show us how to do it?” I read their speech, watching their transfixed eyes as I varied my pitch, tone, and emotions to match the words. As I read about the struggles that North Korean defectors faced in fleeing to the South, I felt my throat tighten as I remembered the stories of defectors I have encountered during my grant year. I thought of the North Korean defectors I taught on Tuesday nights, of the old and young students who struggled to find a