How to Speak Korean: Part One in a Series

맛있다 Masheeta - "it's delicious"

You may be wondering what, exactly, could be delicious about anything involving kimchi.

Listen Jake, I've heard of this kimchi stuff, you'd say.  Cabbage, covered in hot pepper, garlic, fish paste, soaked in vinegar, and left to rot in the ground over the winter.  I may eat that plastic cheese from Velveeta, and that mystery meat that passes for "meatloaf" at school, but I'll die before I eat anything that undergoes the same process as a corpse.

And yes, dear reader!  You may be right!  Kimchi is indeed an acquired taste.  When you grow up eating it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner as my students do (no joke), you'd better like it.  When you move to a strange land after 23 years eating delicious, not rotten, food, it's - how to put this delicately - a different flavor.  Fiery, sour, bitter, and a little sweet, kimchi is not for the faint of heart, or those who place a premium of minty-fresh breath.  But follow me, and imagine the following scenario.

You're walking down the street on a frigid Korean winter night. Tiny snowflakes dance in the wind as a flurry passes over the streetlights.

You spot a sign in front of a restaurant on the side of the road.  "Kimchi zziggee" a strange little mushroom-man pronounces.  You're cold and you're hungry, so you walk in the front door.  Your glasses fog up immediately as you take your shoes off and enter the restaurant floor.

A middle-aged Korean woman points you to a table - on the floor of course.  You pull out the floor pads and sit down, the floor is heated, but you're still chilled from the cold outside.

Not two minutes later, the woman brings a large, hot bowl to your table. Inside is a red liquid, bubbling furiously.  Through the steam you catch glimpses of green onions, huge cabbage leaves, and massive slices of pork, with the fat still attached.

Dive into the pot with the provided scissors and chop away, breaking the cabbage and pork into manageable chunks.  Spoon the soup into your bowl, making sure to get plenty of cabbage, pork, and onions.

Dunk a bit of rice into your bowl, and dig in.  The pork is phenomenal, tender and flavorful.  The kimchi is soft and mild, all sourness and bitterness lost to the bubbles and the heat.  The broth is delicious, rich and flavorful.  Feel the hot pepper warm you from the inside - or maybe it's just the broth bubbling and steaming inside.  Either way, it's the perfect antidote for a cold Korean winter's night.

I'll have pictures next time, I promise!

Freezing on the Floor

Wow, two posts in a week.  This must be some sort of record for me.  I'm getting good at this whole "New Year's resolution" thing.

When we last left our intrepid heroes (Devon and I), we were gazing proudly at the 50' tall banner on the side of our building, complete with a 15-foot image of us in traditional Korean garb.  Needless to say, life here has been pretty exciting since then.

The giant posters on the side of ECC and emblazoned on its buses have made Devon and I quite recognizable around Gwangju.  Everywhere we go now, it's we're followed by whispers:

"Hey, isn't that..."
"No, it can't be."
"It must be.  Look!  He's got that spot!"
"Oh my god, it is!"
"Say hi to them"
"No way!  I'm not saying it, you say it!"
"Hello!  Nice to meet you!"

At this point, we usually just make eye contact with the person, offer a friendly "Annyong!" and continue on our way, leaving a mob of twittering Korean teenagers in our wake.

The attention got to be so unbearable, we had to skip town.  So early Saturday morning, Devon and I put on our best disguises, and hopped in a cab.

"Bus terminal, please."
"Hey, aren't you--"
"No, it's some other foreign teachers."
"But you have the same spot as--"
"As you can see, good sir, we wear thick black glasses and both have large fuzzy mustachioes.  Besides, we aren't even teachers.  We're with Gable Pharmaceuticals, investigating some of these new-fangled Asian medicines we're hearing about in Kansas.  Now please, to the bus terminal!"

Our destination was Jeonju, a city about an hour and a half north of Gwangju that, according to my Lonely Planet was far enough from Gwangju to avoid recognition.  It's known as the birthplace of both a thousand-year old Korean royal dynasty and bibimbap, an ingenious combination of rice, slivered vegetables, and hot sauce.

Traditional Korean Bike

To capitalize on their reputation as the birthplace of a thousand-year old dynasty, the people of Jeonju have constructed a "hanok" village of traditional wood and paper guest-houses, restaurants, tea shops, and museums depicting how paper, fans, pottery, and of course booze were made in the old-days.

Traditional Korean Cup of Tea

Devon and I arrived in town and timidly removed our thick, furry mustachios and stepped into the chilly winter morning.  A group of Korean kids were walking on the sidewalk towards us.  We held our breath.

"Look natural," Devon said.

"Do you think they recognize us?"  I asked.
"This is Jeonju, those kids have probably never been to Gwangju," she reasoned.
"Yeah, but didn't you say one of your student's hometown was Jeonju?  And remember, one of mine has a cousin here.  What if they're here?"  I asked, panicking.

We walked on, holding our breath, our ears straining to pick up any signs of recognition.

After a few tense seconds, they passed.  Nothing more than a casual glance - the kind any foreigner gets while walking on the street here.

Our first impressions of Jeonju were favorable.  The sun was shining, the sky was clear, and the buildings looked exactly like those in Gwangju: tall, steely-glass structures with neon signs on their sides advertising love motels, bibimbap, and banking services.  We took a cab to the hanok village and began our first order of business: finding a place for the night.

Traditional Korean village as seen from a Traditional Korean Mountain

Between our limited grasp of Korean and well, our limited grasp of Korean, this proved to be a much more difficult task than anticipated.  The only options for lodging in the area were in hanok-style guest houses, which were either located down a back alley somewhere and/or labeled with Chinese characters.

After a fitful search full of empty courtyards, locked doors, and one woman who scolded us when we asked for a room (either there were no rooms available, or she didn't want to risk being flooded by a swarm of fans from Gwangju), we finally found a guesthouse that would take us.  The rooms were private and it was a high wall, so we didn't have to worry about the pesky paparazzi finding us either.

Traditional Korean Silhouette Scene in a Traditional Korean teahouse

We wandered around town for a couple of hours.  We went to the "Jeonju Traditional Life Experience Park" to find out what life was like back in traditional Jeonju (sleepy), we went to the "Traditional Wine Museum" and learned about how they made traditional wine (with rice), drank traditional Korean tea at a traditional tea house (cute), and saw a monument on the top of a mountain to a famous general who defeated some Japanese pirates (nice view).  The town itself was charming enough that we could just walk through the broad main streets and twisting back alleys and still enjoy ourselves.

Once the sun fell and we'd pretty thoroughly frozen ourselves, we decided it was time to find dinner.  We walked to the "downtown" area of Jeonju, and wandered around on the "street that is desired to walk" and "street of youth" (as our map helpfully indicated).  Eventually, we found a galbi place that looked good (warm), and we walked in.

Traditional Korean Teahouse: suspiciously modern

Feeling full of Korean tradition, we indicated that we'd like to sit on the floor, in the traditional Korean manner.  The ajumma who ran the place, however would have none of it.  She began yelling at the young boy who was seating us.  With our broken Korean, Devon and I were able to understand two words: "foreigner" and "chair."  We did our best to explain that we'd like to sit on the heated floors, and then just sat down anyways.

Dinner was delicious and after a drink or two, Devon and I headed back to our guesthouse at the ripe time of 10pm (Dad, you'd have been proud) and sleep in the traditional Korean manner: on a floor heated by a fire underneath.

We fell asleep, freezing cold (because it was freezing cold outside and our walls were made of traditional Korean paper—I'm not kidding). But when I woke up two hours later (at the still respectable hour of midnight), I was sweltering in the blankets. I took off the socks, sweatshirt, and long-sleeved shirt that I had gone to bed in, and got up for a quick drink of water. And I froze.

The dissonance between cold outside my bed and warm and toasty inside is one I'm used to from my days in cold Connecticut winters. It sucks, and I'm sure most of you can relate to the feeling. You have to drag yourself from between the cozy sheets and out into the chilly morning air. Then you have to run to the shower to get it nice and hot, then jump in before you freeze in your underwear in the bathroom. It's not a dignified way for your mother to find you as she's yelling at you to get downstairs or you'll miss the bus.

So we've all been there in some way, but those winters in Connecticut could have prepared me for the shock of that night. It was cold in our room; the phrase "Siberian winter" comes to mind. Yet, under the covers it was sweltering. The phrase "tropical sauna" comes to mind. And the floor felt as if there was a raging inferno underneath it—hot to the touch. And so, getting out of the covers to get a drink of water was much the same experience as jumping from a sweltering sauna into a frozen lake. I distinctly remember getting the wind knocked out of me as I did it. Waking up should never be so cruel.

The next day, Devon and I wandered around town for a bit, visited a shrine to a thousand years of Josun kings, and drank some more tea.

Traditional Korean Dynastic Gates

Eventually, we came back to Gwangju, unsure of how we would be greeted by our adoring fans and the paparazzi after such a long absence. It turns out, we had nothing to worry about. After doing whatever it is that Gwangju-ites do on weekends, the tabloids had moved onto the next new thing. The couple from that hagwon across town who unwittingly found themselves plastered on the sides of their building in Traditional Korean garb.  Suckers.

You can see more pictures from our trip to Jeonju here.

Korea's Next Top Models

Hey again.  Remember me?

I was all ready with a post (well, half a post really) about some wanderings I've had around our neighborhood, but recent developments have forced me to delay that post.  Because this news is BIG!

A couple of weeks ago, Alex our school director called Devon and I into a meeting.  Unsure what to expect, we ambled into the school's conference room and met with him and another Korean teacher, who was translating for us.

"Thank you for meeting with us today," he said.  "Can you do modeling?"

It was a strange question.  "What do you mean?" Devon asked.  Neither of us had ever done much modeling, though Devon had watched it frequently on TV.

"We want you and Jake to wear the hanbok.  We will take pictures of you.  It is for ECC."

Devon and I looked at each other, and began to get excited about the prospect of wearing traditional Korean clothes, though we were a little unsure about what the pictures would be used for.

Can you tell my ankles are being crushed?

A little less than a week later, Devon and I were kneeling on the floor in a traditional pose of respect, in rented hanboks, while the photographer asked us to hold our head just so. 

My knees and ankles hurt from kneeling for so long, I was freezing, and I didn't know what these two Korean men were telling me to do.  So far, being an international supermodel wasn't turning out as I had hoped.

"Think happy thoughts for the New Year," Alex instructed us.  "We will mail this card to the parents.  Wish them good fortune with your smile."

I did my best to think happy, fortune-sending thoughts to my students' parents as I did my best to keep from shivering in my silk shirt and pants.  When I stood up, I did so slowly, letting the blood return to my feet.

Happy I can feel my feet again.  Oh yeah, and prosperous thoughts.  

Always thinking prosperous thoughts...

The next day, Alex called me into his office to show me how the pictures turned out.  "I think this one, Devon is very pretty.  You are..." he sort of trails off, his face in a grimace.

"Thanks Alex," I laughed.  "Sorry I ruined the pictures."  After a thought, I asked him, "Hey Alex.  Do you think I can get one of those cards when you mail them to the parents?"  I thought it might be cool to get one to send to my parents.

"What?"  he asked.  I wasn't sure if he hadn't heard me, or didn't understand what I was asking.

"Well, what are you going to do with these pictures?" I asked him, hoping to get at the issue that way.

"We will make a big, how do you say..." He made a rectangle with his fingers.

"A poster?"  I asked.

"A big poster.  To go on the side of the ECC.  And one for the first floor, and on all the buses."

"Ah good!"  I laughed.  "Then we will be famous!"  I left the office chuckling to myself.


Two days later, Devon and I walked into ECC and were greeted with a modestly-sized poster on the window of the conference room, splashed with a pink and orange background, and some Korean writing over us.

We were surprised.  "I thought he said they were gonna put the picture on a bigger poster" Devon said, clearly relieved that they hadn't.

"I guess not," I replied.  "It must have just been one of his jokes."

"Let's hope so," she said.  "I want to see those cards."

The next day, on our walk into school we saw it.  A huge banner- maybe 6'x12' in the front entrance to ECC.  The same picture as the poster on the conference room window, except our images were life-sized.

Life-sized.  Can't read what it says though.

"Uh-oh," Devon said.

"Come on!  Let's see if they've put a big one up!"  I exclaimed.

We walked around the front of the building and saw another giant poster, even bigger than the one inside.  Again with our faces wishing prosperous thoughts on our students' parents.

The camera clearly adds three or four feet

"I don't like where this is heading," Devon said.

We continued around to the corner of the building and looked up.  Hanging from the top floor was a huge banner covering the entire corner.  Five stories tall, with our pictures stretching across two of them.  We looked more like giants bent on eating children than happy, benevolent teachers wishing prosperous thoughts.

Later that day, the buses pulled up and stretched across their sides - if you guessed a big banner with our picture on it, you'd be right again!  These buses go all over Gwangju, as Alex told me later, and soon everybody would recognize us as the faces of ECC.  "We are hoping that parents will see you, and want to send their children here," he said.  Yeah, right.  No pressure.

We're huge in Korea.