작은 여행들 | Small Trips

This weekend, I was given the opportunity to go on a couple of day trips. It is an especially nice time for these now, because Spring has come here and the flowers are blooming. It has also been a nice break from the work that I am doing on my projects from school.

The first of these trips was on Friday. Mrs. Kim, our Rotary Officer, had organized a short trip to a town near Jirisan, a mountain in the southern part of Korea, because the cherry blossom flowers were blooming there. When we got there, we drove along a slow moving road with a light pink canopy of flowers above to a hill nearby the mountain. Here, we had lunch, then went for a short walk to see the flowers by walking along the road. We stopped at a greenhouse and had some tea before getting back in the car.

The Covered Road

From here, we went to another small village to see a type of yellow flower, forsythias (개나리), that had also come out. Unfortunately, it had started raining. We pulled out umbrellas and walked around for a short while, but we were back in the car to head home rather quickly. Still, I enjoyed the trip, even though it was a little short, because I got to see some interesting things. The flowers were not the same ones as there are in the US and Jirisan is the largest mountain that I have seen yet, but my favorite part was getting to converse with Mrs. Kim and the exchange students on the way.

The Yellow Flowers

The next day, I went on another short trip with my host father. Although I live just a short distance from the West Sea (Yellow Sea), I haven’t ever been to the beach. When my host family found out, they wanted to make sure that I would be able to get there. So, I went with my host father by car out to Seomyeon, a nearby town where there are a couple of beaches. The tide was out when we went, so the first beach that we went to had a few people there scraping the ground searching for clams. At this beach, I was able to see some fish and small crabs that lived under the rocks.

At the first beach

Next, we went to a place where I was able to see another of the spring flowers, a large red one, and after this, we went to a popular swimming beach in my area. Since it hasn’t warmed up yet, the beach did not have many people at all and because it was one of our first warmer days, there was a thick fog coming off of the water. It was and interesting experience to walk out to the water here.  Since the tide was out, we had to cover some distance to get to the actual water line. The interesting part was when the fog blocked our view of the normal beach, so it appeared as if the muddy sand stretched on forever. It was a very surreal experience. Although it would have been far too cold to go swimming, it was nice to see the water and I will be sure to go back when the weather gets warmer.

At the Foggy Beach, getting my shoes out of the mud.

삼월 | March Monthly Report

This month has been one of my busiest months in Korea. At the start of the month, I also made the move into my final host family. Now, I am living in an apartment much closer to the school and my hosting town, which has been very convenient. In this host family, I have two younger brothers, the oldest of which is planning on going for an exchange year in the fall. He hasn’t found out where he will be going yet, but he hopes to go to the US.

My new room.

I also started back up with school at the beginning of the month. The school year here runs differently from the school years in the US. In the US, we would start in September and finish in early June, while here they start in March and finish in late December. The school had us exchange students stay in the same grade while are classmates changed.

One of the largest changes at the school, though, was the opening of the new dormitory. The students that stay in it are mostly the incoming students, but we get to see the building a bit too, as it is where the school’s new cafeteria is. Also, with the new dormitory, we exchange students are also getting dinner at the school before our Korean culture classes.

The New Dormitory

Another major change in this part of the school year is our school’s goals for the exchange students. While in the first half of the year, we were spending most of our school day in classes to learn Korean, this half of the year, we have only the normal classes with the Korean students. Although we exchange students are not required to do the day-to-day work in class, our school is requiring one major assignment per class, assigned by the teacher of that class. So far, I have received three of these assignments: for our English class, we are required to give a 3-minute memorized Korean speech; for our Korean class, we have to write a 2 page paper in Korean about what we learned during exchange; and in our Engineering class, we are writing a 2-page paper in Korean about hanok, the Korean traditional house.

My Third Host Family

This month was not only school though, I also did some things outside of school. One major event this month was that Arne, the German exchange student, had his brother, Jannes, come to visit. It was interesting to see someone starting out freshly with new experiences in the culture. Another interesting event was that I went to the nearby city of Buyeo with my new host family where we saw the ancient capital of the Baekje Kingdom. It was an interesting visit that sparked an interest for me in exploring Korean history. I am very glad that my host family was able to bring me there and I look forward to some of the future trips that we will be taking together.

Visiting Buyeo

한국에 한국말 배우고 어립는 것 | Problems Learning Korean in Korea

This coming week in my English class at school, I am going to be giving a memorized speech in Korean. I thought that people would enjoy reading my speech and its translation along with some background on why I chose the topic that I did and my difficulties with learning Korean while immersed in the culture.

 

안녕하십니까? 제 이름은 피제이입니다. 저는 미국 교환학생입니다. 저는 대한민국에서 칠 개월 살았지만 한국어 아직도 많이 어렵습니다.

왜 저는 아직도 많이 어려울까요? 왜냐하면 한국 사람은 저하고 영어만 말 합니다. 한국 사람은 저를 코카서스 사람으로 보고 있어서 저는 한국어 모른다고 생각합니다.

제가 한국말 단어 질문할때 한국 사람은 영어로 번역만 해줍니다. 그렇지만 저는 설명을 듣고 싶습니다.

예를 들어서 제가 한국 가게에 갔을때 가게주인은 영어로 말하려고 노력하고 기분 나빠 보입니다. 그렇지만 가게주인이 한국어로 말해서 저는 많이 이해합니다.

어떻게 학생들은 저를 도울 수 있을까요?

첫번째 저하고 한국어로만 말합니다. 두번째 영어 번역을 안 합니다. 대신에 한국어로 설명하려고 노력합니다.

저는 한국어 정말 배우고 싶고 많은 도움이 필요합니다. 감사합니다.

“Hello. My name is PJ, and I am the exchange student from the United States. I have been living in Korea for seven months, but I still have quite a lot of difficulty in using the Korean language.

“Why am I still having so much difficulty? It is because Korean people talk to me only in English. Korean people see that I am Caucasian and then think that I don’t know any Korean.

“When I have questions about Korean words, I am only given the English translations, while I would prefer to get explanations.

“Another example of problems happens when I go to Korean stores. The people working there will try to speak in English to me, even if they appear very upset to do so. But if they would talk with me in Korean, I would be able to understand a lot of what they say.

“How could you, as a student at my school, help me to learn Korean?

“One way would be to talk to me using only Korean. Another way would be to avoid just giving me English translations. Instead, you could try explaining things I don’t understand by using Korean.

“I really want to learn the Korean language, but to do so, I need a lot of help. Thank you.”

 

Learning Korean has definitely been a large undertaking for me. Although I have studied languages before, none of them can really compare to the amount of work that Asian languages require. During my year in Korea, I have been spending quite a lot of time studying the language, but my largest difficulty with the language is not one that I can take care of through only studying. That is because my difficulty is that most Koreans know at least a little bit of English and they are more than happy to use it when they see me. Some of the times that it is used on me, I can find it helpful, but most of the time, I just find it a little insulting.

Because foreigners are rather uncommon in the Korea, and especially uncommon outside of the major cities, Koreans here are usually rather surprised when they see me. Since most Koreans have studied English in school, they are eager to say whatever they can to me, which means that I commonly receive a lot of Hi’s and Hello’s from people I walk by. When I respond to the greeting with a basic 안녕 (Hello in Korean), most Koreans are extremely surprised. When Korean’s meet non-Korean’s here, it is just expected that the foreigner doesn’t know the language.

This makes it so that most of the time when I go to stores, even if I say my side of the conversation in Korean, I will usually receive feedback from the person working there in broken English. I definitely appreciate the politeness in trying to make things easier for me, but it becomes difficult when I am trying to learn.

The desire for people to speak with me in English has definitely made it more difficult for me to learn the language, but with work, I have gotten to the point where I feel as if I am actually beginning to be able to function with the language. With the difficulty in getting people that will talk with me in Korean though, I have not been able to improve as much as I wish to in speaking the language, but I have been able to make a lot of improvement with reading and writing in the language. Lately, I have been putting more work into standing my ground to speak only in Korean, because it is the side of the conversation that I can affect.

내 한국 학교 | My Korean School

Last week was my first week back at school after the two month long winter break. The school year works differently from the United States, so during this break, the Korean students moved up to the next grade level. For the exchange students in my town though, we haven’t switched to move up a grade. Instead, our school has had us change focus from learning Korean during school to participating in the classes with the Korean students.

The front gate of our school.

For school here, the schedule is different for each day. It doesn’t get to confusing though, because we are in the same classroom for almost every class, with the teachers moving between rooms. I am required to arrive for 8:00 in the morning when our “Zero Hour” starts. During this first hour of school, we will sometimes have a class if the school decides that it is needed. Otherwise, this can just be used as free time. At nine o’clock, we start with first through seventh hour of normal classes, with a break for lunch after fourth hour, which is very similar to my experience in the US.

In the school's courtyard. The building on the right is where the homeroom classes and the library are; the building on the left has the faculty offices and the English classrooms; and the building straight ahead is the new dormitory.

Each week, I have five classes in English. This has actually been one of my harder classes, not because of the subject material, but because my Rotary Exchange Officer is the teacher, so she knows what level of Korean we exchange students have. Because of this, we have been assigned to study the same vocabulary lists for tests in the class and will be required to give a three minute speech in Korean later in the year.

We also have four classes each of Math, Korean Literature, Science, and Social Studies. In my Math class, I have really discovered how international numbers are. On a test they had, I was able to get half of the questions correct without even using a dictionary.  The class is below my level of Math though, so I only can get held up by figuring out what the questions are asking me to do. In my Korean Literature, Science, and Social Studies classes, I have not really been able to do much, because they both use language beyond my ability, but when the teachers give notes, I take them down in my notebook to work through later.

My classroom. We only have 12 students in our grade level!

Outside of this main curriculum, we also have classes a few times per week in Engineering, Ethics, Physical Education, Music, Art and Hanja Characters. In the Engineering and Ethics classes, I usually find myself in the same position as in some of my main classes with the level of Korean I would need. My Physical Education and Music classes have also mostly been lectures so far, but I will definitely participate when we start to do things later in the year. The last two, Art and Hanja characters have been two of my favorite classes. Right now in Art, we are beginning to make traditional stamps, which is very fun to do. In the Hanja characters class, we learn the Traditional Chinese letters that the Korean language is based on. This has been very interesting for me, because it is something that is just completely different from classes that I am used to.

A "hallway" at my School

All of the time that we spend on these classes each day brings us to four o’clock in the afternoon, but we still have another hour before our school time is over. On Mondays, we have a sports club during which we get learn how to play a chosen sport. The sport that I chose to do was Ping Pong, which has been rather interesting, because I had never learned much of the technique to play before. On the other days of the week, we exchange students go to the library while the Korean students have classes to prepare them for the standardized tests they take during the year.

After this class, the school day is over, but the school has the exchange students stay after to participate in Korean Culture classes. So, we eat dinner at the school  then have free time until 6:20 when the Culture class starts. This school year, we are getting to do classes in Dancing, Samulnori, and Calligraphy. My favorite has definitely been the Calligraphy class, because it was something that I enjoyed at Sup Sogui Hosu, the Korean Camp I went to last summer before coming abroad.

Eating Dinner at the new cafeteria.

The Culture classes finish at 8 o’clock, which means that I have a twelve hour day at school. It sounds rather harsh, but it really has not been too bad. Most of the Korean students even go to private tutoring schools, called hagwon (학원), after the normal school hours to get in even more studying. During the school day, I seem to find a lot of time to work on my own things, and there are also a lot of breaks, during which I get to interact with the other students in my class.

이월 (제주도여행) | February Monthly Report (Jeju Island Trip)

This month has been very hard on me with homesickness taking its toll on me, but things seem to be looking like they will be a little bit better now as I am starting school again this March after a two-month break. Near the end of the break I learned the lesson that life abroad is best as long as you keep busy, so I am looking forward to heading back to school. Being back at school means that I will be very busy in the months ahead, which I am looking forward to a lot.

The major highlight of February for me was the Rotary-sponsored trip for the exchange students to go to Jeju Island, which is a major vacation spot in the Southern part of Korea. On Sunday morning, we got on a plane at Gunsan airport and took the short flight to the island. Although it wasn’t hot, it was significantly warmer than it was in Gunsan, which was a nice break from the winter weather.

When we arrived in Jeju Island, we piled into a taxi and made our way to 한림공원 (Hallim Park). Here, we were able to see the many plants of the island along with some of the Folk Villages and the Geology of the area. They also had a large bonsai garden and many animals. While we were here, we also met one of the contestants that was on the show Superstar K, which is like a Korean version of the show American Idol. We spent most of our day at the park, and then went to have Samgyeopsal at a local restaurant before making our way back to the hotel for the night.

Part of the Bonsai Garden

The next morning, we started our day by going to 김녕미로공원 (Gimnyeong Maze), a hedge maze. We were given the challenge to see which exchange student could reach the end first. I teamed up with Josh, the Taiwanese exchange student, and we found the way there long before the rest of the students. Although we wanted to go through the course again, we were just starting on a busy schedule. On the way to the next attraction that we were going to see, we stopped at a marketplace and got a snack.

A section of the Maze

From here we went to the 해녀박물관 (Haenyeo Museum), where we learned about the haenyeo women of Jeju Island that partook in the traditional style of diving in the ocean surrounding the island. This was an important stop, as we were told that Jeju was famous for its plentiful women, wind, and rocks. The island is famous for the large numbers of women, because the men in the community would be gone fishing for much of the year. The winds are caused by its location in the ocean, and the many varieties of rocks were created by its volcanic history.

Seongsan Ilchulbong

The volcanic history in the area created the next place that we visited, 성산 일출봉 (Seongsan Ilchulbong), which is a crater over an extinct volcano composed of the porous volcanic rock that is all over the island. We climbed to the top of the mountain and could see quite a large distance from the top. From here, we went to get lunch then made our way to a nearby area by the water that was made up of large boulders of the same volcanic rock. At this spot, I put my hand in the Pacific Ocean for the first time.

Me on the volcanic rocks by the shore.

After seeing this, we went to a folk village, where we got a tour and were able to try some traditional local products. One of the traditional products that I found interesting was made of a native fruit that would taste sweet or sour to different people. Afterwards, we went to a museum that should the Korean culture as it changed from the traditional to modern styles. At this museum, they created replica buildings that we made our way through, designed to appear like small villages of the time periods represented. From here, we went back to the city of Jeju, went shopping at an underground mall, and then went back to the hotel for the night.

Jeju Folklore and Natural History Museum

On our last morning on the island, we went to the Jeju Folklore and Natural History Museum (민속자연사박물관), which was a nice overview of Jeju Island’s history to end our trip on. After visiting this museum, we went back to the airport and made our way back home. This trip to Jeju Island was a very enjoyable time for me in my year in Korea, as it really pulled me out of a hard time and allowed me to truly enjoy myself in this new country.