A Day in the Life of a Heungdeok High School Student
by Tiffany Chu The biggest highlight of my Autumn Camp was seeing our school film come together in less than one week. I asked for student volunteers to step up and take the lead on this project, and I was lucky enough to get five passionate & dedicated campers + one non-camper, who was the man behind the seamless camerawork. My vision for this project was to have campers consider the most important elements of Heungdeok student life and condense these ideas into one video that they could share with their homestay families this winter break and ultimately, anyone who is curious to see what Korean students are involved in outside of their traditional academic classes. I’ll never forget the mornings in my English classroom spent reviewing filming schedule and our afternoons spent running all around school making sure we didn’t miss anything. I met our school’s award-winning shooting team for the first time (one of the members is currently participating in the 2015 Asian Games) and galloped on invisible horses across the soccer field with my film team. I was mistaken for a student countless times by other teachers and at one point actually donned a student blazer for a scene that didn’t make it into the final video. I’ll never forget the look of horror on a 3rd grade student’s face when he walked by in the middle of us filming a student leader stopping me in the hallway tensely and with a small push to inform me that my hair was out of dress code. :’D Through each of my 24 campers, I was reminded once again of why I came to Korea in the first place — to discover the many facets of Korean students that are often overshadowed by their portrayal in books and news articles as one-dimensional study machines. I fell in love with my students over the course of two short weeks, as they invited me into their lives and revealed their incredible talents and creativity. These are students who have a passion to explore the world. Yet, they are each uniquely fearless enough not to lose sight of who they are in doing so. Though my students all wear the same uniforms and may look similar on the outside, they are people with diversely beautiful dreams and the self-determination to get them there. I am so proud of the work we accomplished during autumn camp!
Lost and Found
“Sometimes, you have to be lost to find yourself.” I don’t imagine that the people who routinely photoshop this quote next to running feet and mountainscapes mean it literally. Certainly, you can find yourself through writing, taking a course for fun, picking up painting, or as I had hoped, by signing up for a week-long yoga retreat in Cambodia during your winter break. Having already spent six months in Korea, I expected to have attained complete enlightenment by now. Last July, I whisked myself as far away as I could possibly imagine, and envisioned myself obtaining wisdom and clarity commensurate with every mile I journeyed out of my comfort zone. But so far, rather than “coming into my own,” I was feeling even more unsure than before. And so, with dreams of zen master teas and headstands, I booked a trip to Siem Reap, where I was certain to find the inner-peace I craved. I arrived at the retreat center–a Utopian paradise of fresh-water pools and organic gardens–and tried yoga and meditating and yoga with varying degrees of success. Often, I was so fraught with anxiety and the anticipation of a sudden, majestic calm that I couldn’t concentrate. Then, I literally got lost. It was on the last day of my stay at Angkor Zen Gardens. Now essentially desperate for “inner peace,” I took up the suggestion of another traveler to meet with a “Wellness Coach” downtown. All I’d have to do, she told me, was bike into town and find this guy at a local hostel who would, on the spot, give me both advice and a new lease on life. I regretted it instantly. The first few minutes of the half-hour ride to town, I had to fight to not turn back. What am I going to say? This is ridiculous. He probably doesn’t even exist. But gradually, I smiled to myself as the adventure went on. I greeted dogs that wandered down the bumpy dirt road. I felt the chill breeze blowing back my flannel and refreshing my increasingly damp skin. The sun was shining on my face as I approached a tuk-tuk driver to help me navigate my small, handwritten map. “You know this spot?” I asked in unnecessarily-broken-English. “Oh, it’s so far!” he laughed. “Towards the airport.” I thanked him, happy for the long ride ahead, and hopped on my bike with a dwindling sense of urgency. I began to notice the ripples of the river, partially shaded by glimmering branches on either side. As I did, I stopped obsessing over my state of Zen.I impulsively pulled over at a gorgeous French-style cafe and parked my bike. Seated outdoors with my Kindle, I enjoyed a quiet lunch alone, for what felt like the first time in my life. Full and content, I crossed motorbike intersections and followed increasingly winding streets until I finally arrived at a cottage-style house. I opened the door tentatively. “He’ll be back at 2.” The employee apologized. No problem. I lost myself in a coffee table book about mindfulness for 30 minutes until I heard a chatting couple pulling into the driveway. The man, middle-aged and balding with kind, wrinkle-lined eyes, stopped, confused when he saw me. “Hi, I’m here for a wellness chat?” I said hesitantly. “Oh….” The couple whispered to themselves about room availability and he checked his calendar. “Can you come back tomorrow?” “No, I’m leaving in the morning.” “I’m afraid we just don’t have a space available today, dear, thank you for stopping by.” After exchanging some remarks about the town and other pleasantries, I backed out of the hostel. I hopped on my bike, took a deep breath, and realized I already had what I needed. “Finding oneself,” it turns out, isn’t as much of an answer, as a question. It’s like a scavenger hunt with no prize: the point is just to look, and see what turns up. My tiny biking adventure made me realize that truth and peace and calm are in the searching, not the end-result, and that people come back from traveling with a renewed sense of self simply because they left. It’s been a few months since Siem Reap and my close encounter with the mindfulness guru. From time to time, I still feel unsure and, depending on the day, more or less confused about who I am. But now, I also notice small successes throughout the day, like an effective lesson or bonding with my host family. I appreciate the creepiness of the tentacles in my soup and congratulate myself on being able to instruct a taxi driver to my home. Each day that I am here, I am learning to embrace this big, incredible chance to be lost. And maybe in doing so, I’m already found. Maeve Wall is a 2015-2016 ETA at Sadaebucho Elementary School in Daegu.
Walls and Paint
by Breanna Durham, ETA ’15-’16 Have you ever had the urge to throw paint on the wall? No paint brush, just hands plunged in color and then scrapping against blank barriers. I have no paint in my room, except for an old primary-colored set of face paint. That’s for the students I teach. So, they can express themselves in colors when words fail them, add some excitement to their usual routine during lessons. One student used the paint to make herself look like a mime. She sat up confidently in her chair, arching her back and lifting her head high. The careful brushes of black paint neatly fold around her eyes and mouth over a chalky white foundation. She checks herself in the mirror. I snapped a picture. I was told that the school needed pictures, confirmation that the students had done something, had progressed, and enjoyed the process. The combinations of them looked that way. I’d like to think that it’s true. However, the truth of it might not be as clean-cut. I still have the pictures, tucked in between books on my desk, waiting for a scrapbook to be made at the end of my grant year. There are plenty of other pictures, of when I traveled, of when I stood in front of my school, of when I joined an activity, of when I spent time with my friends. I took a lot. Others took a lot for me. You can see my gums in many of them because I’m smiling that wide. I don’t have all of the pictures. I deleted many of them. Many were lost by accident too. I comfort myself that I’ll have the memories. My next thought is that those fade. For the scrapbook, I’ve collected tickets, posters, bits of art made by my host brother, and the handful of diary entries that I managed to write. I think about burning the diary entries. They just sound angsty and overdramatic to me. I rarely write diary entries when things are going well. Diaries, to me, are more for purging emotions than remembering them. When I usually write, I write stories about other people and things. There’s so much out there to discover and so much that people should know. I want to know. I want to share. I want to connect. I haven’t written much lately. I can’t think of things and I have trouble focusing on the page. I’ve had spurts here and there, but nothing consistent. Usually, I come home really tired and my day starts much the same. And in the middle of my day, I’m busy teaching or planning. When I teach, I feel like the sun pouring out for the plants. My students often get excited. They easily burst out in laughter. Their voices shout and bounce off the walls until I tell them to bring it back in. If a lesson is good and the mood is right, I can get them excited about writing and speaking English. I laugh at some of the things they come up with for assignments. I love it when they write stories and perform skits. They’re a creative bunch. When I get to my office, I realize that I now feel more like a lightbulb with a switch. It’s likely that I won’t make the scrapbook. The only one I’ve ever made was a college photo album that I gave to my dad as a present. My parents worry. They want to know that I am happy and doing well. The album, filled with my smiling face would give some relief to them, even though I was states away. Now, I am a country away. On a national grant! It’s amazing that I can be here. It’s an opportunity to do something, to do anything that I can think of. And have support. And have a community. And help the community. And do something. Do something different. Move! I look at the white wall paper from my bed. It has silver-ish lines running down it, like a tree if I am feeling imaginative and happy, like crooked bars if I’m imaginative and not happy. If I am numb, it looks like nothing. I have a red marker, part of a birthday gift from my host family. The whole body of it is red. It feels smooth in my hand except for the cap. When I lift it, it makes a small pop. A tiny red triangular tip greets my eyes. You can see the red bleed into the white tubing like a sponge. When I place the cap back on, it makes a snap. I can’t paint the walls. They aren’t mine. Even if they were, what would people think? I turn and look out the window next to my bed. There are giant crane like machines working at the port nearby my apartment. I hear the soft rumble of their movement. They never seem to sleep. At night, the yard of them looks like a sparkling city, full of wonder. In the day time, it loses much of its magic. I see their colors clearly, faded yellows, blues, and reds. But still, it’s comforting to hear their rumble when I’m lying in my bed.