Back Home in South Korea

On Sunday I returned to Korea from my Winter Vacation in Vietnam. I traveled there with my friend and fellow Guest English Teacher Morgan Nixon. We experienced nonstop hustle and bustle, relaxation, and an exciting adventure in 6 long days in north and south Vietnam. More on this later.

My school Winter Camp started today. Winter Camps in Korean schools are special week long classes, that vary in duration, and are dedicated to specialized courses like English, math, science, and music. I'm enjoying the students and their attentiveness in my English camp. I feel refreshed after my vacation and even more appreciative of my job and the fact that I am living in Korea as opposed to another Asian country like Vietnam. I have a lot to say about Vietnam, but I'll save that for next week's blog post. I'm still digesting everything I saw there and of course, I'm still downloading the dozens of pictures I took.

 Before I left for Vietnam, I had an interesting and pleasant experience with my coworkers and vice principal and principal. We had one last teachers dinner. 

It was the last teachers dinner because it was the end of the school year. The new school year will start the first week in March, after the March First Independent Movement  holiday, which happens to be the same day as my birthday. 

The dinner was a usual dinner, but I could feel that many of the other teachers felt closer to me. I had finished my first semester in Yeongyang and I had experienced a few of the ins and outs of teaching. "Teaching is challenging, but you love our students. And that is first, to love the students," one of the 6th grade teachers told me. For many of the teachers, the dinner was the second to last time they would see me or each other. 

We will have one week of school in February dedicated to 6th grade graduation. So I will see all of the teachers once more then. But both my coteachers are leaving and even one of the administrators I have come to like and talk to often will be leaving. The teachers who are leaving have been here for three years or more and they will go to further their careers elsewhere in bigger cities like Daegu or Seoul. That seems to be the universal goal at least. At one point, I was sitting next to the vice principal.

It is common at traditional Korean dinners, at least in my experience, to move around and hold a conversation with everyone. The vice principal gave me a compliment, but he stared at my hands. My coteacher Heejung laughed and said, "He will teach you the right handed-way to eat with chopsticks." I do everything left handed, I thought. Some Koreans don't think eating chopsticks left handed is right, some do. It depends on who you ask. "Three weeks," the vice principal said. "In three weeks he will teach you how to eat them right handed." Heejung said. To refuse seemed thoughtless. I accepted. Even if the Vice Principal couldn't teach me how to use chopsticks or ended up giving up, I thought it would be wise to listen to him and to gain his trust.

I accepted the offer because I'm all about building relationships. My chopstick skills still aren't that great, and I could use a few tips. "For free?" I said. "You bring soju," the vice principal said. And it was  settled. I start "right-handed" chopstick lessons in a week.

above: our dinner; Sashimi, snails, kimchi, sweet potato, and other side dishes.

  left to right: my coteachers Heejung, Jihye

During the dinner my coteacher Jihye, who is the English Program Director  at Yeongyang Elementary, showed me some photos she took of me while I was teaching her class of fourth graders. Below are a couple of those pictures.

The teachers dinner was an emotional time for all of the teachers. Some of them cried, including my coteacher Heejung, because they had been teachers at Yeongyang Elementary for so long. It was an emotional time for me, too, even though I had only been there for five months. My coteachers, the school and the community of Yeongyang have been so helpful to me. Up until now I didn't realize how helpful and courteous they all were until I traveled to Vietnam. Koreans are very forgiving and helpful people indeed.

Yours truly,

               Evan