The King of Hogye

Today I heard some really beautiful words. “Shane, you don’t have class today, the students have exams.” I asked, what about Seodang? (Seodang is my after school class) “No Seodang class either, the students will need rest.” My thought…Great day incoming, maybe time to update the ole bloggy blog. That’s right, bloggy blog (Elizabeth, good wordage). That wasn’t a stutter, it was emphasis.

I start this post with a nice little thought a friend sent my way “Don't worry about writing everything. Just start where you're at now. It will get overwhelming if you try to recap it all.” So with that, I retract from my current state of trying to chronolog this whole process, and I’m just going to open it up with the topics that come to mind.

I’ll start with some thoughts on the culture here. The reason I am starting here, is due to the fact that I don’t have to teach today. Free time is a gift. One thing I’ve observed while I’ve been here is that Korean’s don’t seem to have many free days, or time off. I don’t either, but they have even less. Aside from the very dedicated, hard working type of ethics, Koreans in general seem to be very positive and wonderful people. I’m not sure how they do it. I work M – F from 8:40am – 6pm. I have 1 hour for lunch, and the rest is filled with English class, and lesson planning (and my guilty pleasure of checking on people back home via facebook). I never really used facebook quite so much until I moved here; It helps with the transition I suppose. My Korean teachers all have around the same number of English classes, but also teach other random classes, and work on Saturday (killer!) I’ve only encountered 2 situations where I’ve felt unwelcome. Matt and I had lunch at a local market area, and a snail farmer told us “Go back home”. Matt said to the farmer “you’re a farmer, we make 10 times what you do”, and I said “your tax money pays my salary!” It should be noted, this guy couldn’t speak English for anything, and he struggled to say “go back home”. This is why we rattled off our rebuttals. The 2nd time was in an elevator, where a younger college aged kid sort of ran right into me without a doubt on purpose. I figure that’s pretty good considering, I’ve felt more unwelcome back home in a less amount of time, and our population isn’t homogenous at all.

Korea is homogenous. In America we take it for granted how many cultures are present, and to the educated open minded few of us, differences are welcomed. Due to this homogenous population; if you aren’t Korean you stick out like a sore thumb, and you are treated pretty wonderfully. I am the only foreigner (Waygook) at my school, and I get treated like a King. I always told my friends back home I wanted to wake up one day and get treated like Hank in the Starbucks commercial. I experience something similar every day. At my school I average a good mix of 30-50 “ one of the following: hello, hello teacher, hello Shane, handsome teacher” a day. Not only do they say hello, but some students bow…and let me tell you - It feels great. The co-teachers are wonderful too. They are so kind, and offer to make me coffee, tea, and feed me snacks. I thought it wouldn’t last, but 2 months in and it’s still coming, if not even more. I go to the local mart to purchase groceries now, and on my journey complete strangers will say hello, or say “handsome guy”. My confidence is so high here, I don’t know if I’ll ever come back! Perhaps this is why my buddy and I call ourselves the "Kings of Hogye." One funny thing about Koreans is their inability to recognize the slightest change of a word. If someone from another country said to me “Hellloww”, or something of that nature, I’m pretty sure I’d recognize them trying to say hello. In Korea, if I say something like the word Sauna and pronounce it “saw-ewnah, instead of saw-eww-nah” they are completely perplexed at what mysterious word you’re saying. I’m still confused by this.

The language barrier leads me to the next topic of Food! I’ll start by saying I love Korean food! Food here has been a wonderful and great part of my experience here in Korea. I ate my first Korean meal on the plane, and haven’t looked back. I will say my mornings consist of a fairly comfortable breakfast such as cereal or eggs, but the reason behind this is they are quick and easy meals, and I don’t know how to make many Korean dishes. I eat lunch every M-F at my school, and I am completely satisfied. Most nights, I eat out for dinner at a local dining area. The food here is super cheap, and you can get away with eating a full dinner for about $4, and you’re plenty full. Another great thing about the cheap price; It is complimented by cheap service. In this culture, you don’t tip (it’s pretty great!). Now I don't want to lie and say that I haven’t made the occasional trip to McDonalds, but in all honesty it’s usually due to the time of day/night, and lack of food options (short weekends call for longer nights!). At first this was quite the experience. I had no basic knowledge, or simple sentences memorized for ordering food. I would often look at the menu (which was written in Korean, with no pictures) and just point. This has led me to discover the many great tastes of Korea. One of my newly acquired tastes this year has been for Kimchi. I first ate this food during my orientation here in Korea, and I told my friend Daniel “I will never eat this, I hate this”. I stand corrected, Daniel you were right. I ate a little bit every day, and now I really like it. Until the recent Napa cabbage shortage (one of the main ingredients), I’ve eaten Kimchi just about every day as a side dish to just about every meal. Rice as you would probably guess is also a common food found in Korean dishes. Koreans use so many ingredients I’m not use to, but I really really like the food here. They use many more types of fruits, vegetables, sauces, etc. Some of my favorite meals are Bibimbop, Kimbop, Samgyeopsal, Mandu, many types of Guksu (noodle soup) or any type of gogi (meat), which are all on Wikipedia if you'd like to have a better idea. One night I went out with my co-teachers, and I ate live octopus. I was having a terrible time trying to grab a little tentacle, and all of the sudden one just wrapped itself on my chopstick. I feel about 10% more manly. Koreans also make pizza, and let me tell you its tasty. Back home I would never eat a supreme pizza (I’m not a fan of olives… sorry), but here every pizza choice has a ton of veggies on it, and it’s a beautiful concoction of greatness. Chicken here seems to be somewhat of a specialty. As far as prices are concerned it’s a bit overpriced here, and I’m not really sure why (all in all though, nothing is too expensive). I had my first chicken served at a school volleyball day (which has been every Wednesday pretty consistently). The school staff, and I all enjoyed chicken, beer, grapes, and a few other snacks after the game. Unfortunately I only attended the food portion twice because I have to leave early for my Seodang classes :/ bummer!

I have only 2 complaints concerning food. I once unknowingly ate Beondegi which is silkworm larvae, and it was horrid. I also ate a dish called Buldak which literally translates to "fire chicken". I wish I would of known before I ate it. That was the hottest thing i've ever eaten. I can handle spicy food, and this was over the edge.

Well that’s a decent update, enjoy
-Shane