Remembering travels from February: South Korea

Korea is quiet. Much quieter than China. Even densely-packed-over-10-million-people Seoul is quiet. I don't notice at first because I speak loudly with my American friends, but then glares from surrounding elders make me realize the quiet that hangs over everyone else. It's almost required on the buses and subway. Or at least of the English-speaking foreigners. Everyone else already knows the unspoken rule and is quietly texting, playing electronic games, listening to music. Quiet or beeping, everyone here is wired.

An interesting difference between China and Korea is the background music in public places. In China, they play smooth jazz, otherwise known as elevator music, everywhere. And maybe traditional Chinese flute music in the parks, and then Chinese pop or American 90s pop outside of shops. In Korea, they play classical music--distinguished, elegant, secure--in the trees in the parks, in the shops, on the sidewalks outside shops, in the airport, at the train station, even in the bathrooms at rural tourist sights. I remember stepping into one isolated-looking bathroom and being surprised as a full orchestra suddenly welcomed me with Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

It's funny how small Korea is compared to China. And you can still see the difference between the rich, hip people who live in Seoul and the people who live in thatch-roofed, cracking houses in the countryside--but what separates China and Korea is that even the thatch-roofed houses have high-speed internet.
I have to say I am partial to small countries. They seem easier to manage.

South Korea is certainly more modern than the vast majority of China in many ways, and Seoul seems to emulate what China wishes its cities would become--modern, hip, tightly packed, active, but clean, pretty, neat, tidy. But China has very little chance of getting there anytime soon except for the exception of parts of HongKong. Why? Many reasons I'm sure. But it seems that China's biggest hold back seems to be its population (one Seoul is possible, but how could they possibly make 200 Seouls?) and then, of course, there is the difference in government. Korea is small. And so clearly a Democracy. I saw at least one protest each day I stayed in Seoul. and they were huge. With huge numbers of young policemen patiently standing with shields and helmets around the groups. Strange for an American to see that the protesters were older, perhaps middle age or so, and the policemen, because of the required military service, were almost all younger than I by a number of years. An almost perfect reversal of most protests in the U.S.

It was also a funny place because of how safe it was. It was as though everyone (at least professed) to trust everyone else. No real fear of pick-pocketing. even in Seoul. they didn't even check your tickets on the train...or at least they only checked randomly. I heard numerous accounts of people losing things and then having them (wallets included) returned to the police station by some nice civilian. (Unfortunately, I lost my camera in a rural tourist town and although we went to the police station and they treated us super sweetly and diligently wrote down all the details of the camera and where we had been, no nice civilian has come upon it yet.)

The Korean language is really interesting in comparison to Mandarin too. Mandarin has no conjugation for verbs, which, I think, makes it a simpler language to learn. Korean, however, has a ton of different forms for each verb based on how old the person you are addressing is in comparison to you. It makes sense for such a Confucian culture. So was China, historically, but somehow, although Korean used to be written using traditional Chinese characters, the language itself is so crazily different. Where as Mandarin has really firm syllables and tones, Korean has no tones and almost sounds like mumbling to me--many sounds get almost slurred together. It is really pretty though--quiet and soft, where as standard Mandarin sounds more harsh and loud.
But the Korean alphabet, I think, is one of the coolest alphabets ever. Each sound has a certain shape--you can learn how to read Korean in a couple days if you are studious. The alphabet gives a flexibility to the Korean language that Chinese lacks. Many words in Korean are borrowed from English--they just reconstruct them with Korean pronunciation. Chinese people have to use already existing words to create a new word--like electric talk for telephone, or electric brain for computer. (I've heard some theories that this absolute "unchangingness" of the Chinese language is part of the reason creativity is hard to come by in Chinese education. I'm not sure about that though, because as soon as my students are given the opportunity and some practice, they come up with some pretty brilliant stories and skits.)

Seoul is interesting in terms of the foreign population, because they are almost all soldiers or English teachers. (it is usually pretty easy to guess who is who) And you see a lot of foreign men with Korean women (who seem to get disapprovingly ignored by other Koreans), but not the other way around. Will (a foreigner also) and I hardly got stared at at all (an interesting change from the places I'm used to in China). But when I walked around with Alex, a Korean American, I was stared at quite a bit as people tried to figure out what I was and what I was doing hanging out with a Korean who spoke fluent English. When I was by myself, mostly just the foreigners stared at me. And a couple times, when I was wearing glasses, people started speaking to me in Korean first, until I looked absolutely confused, and they looked at my face closer. Gosh, I'll just never fit in in any country except for America now.

Most of the tourists in Korea seemed to be Japanese or Taiwanese, along with some people from Singapore. There were some Chinese in Seoul, but mostly they were going to school or working. I had a couple of times where I accidentally spoke Chinese to someone and she replied back! That was always a shock for me--wait, we are in Korea, that was a mistake! You aren't supposed to understand Chinese--and even more for her--How does this white person in Korea know Chinese?! I even communicated with a couple Koreans who had studied Mandarin or who grew up in China with Chinese--they couldn't speak English very well, and I (like almost all the other foreigners there) couldn't speak any Korean.
Overall, it was really strange being in a country where I couldn't even speak two full sentences of the local language--quite an adjustment from China and the U.S., the past two countries I had been traveling in. It was isolating and liberating at the same time. Isolating, because suddenly it was harder to talk to strangers and understand the lives of local people, and liberating because I realized that even without knowing a word of a language there were ways to communicate and ways to get around on ones own. People again, just like in China, thought I was crazy when they found me navigating the subways, streets, or speed trains on my own, without a word of Korean to help me (even the foreign soldiers and business people who lived in Seoul always seemed to be escorted by a Korean friend). But it is surprisingly possible when you have a few friends to introduce you to the place, give you a few tips, and the absolute fascination with every color, shape, face, and aspect of a new place that comes naturally almost wherever I go.

Woah...

Back in Taigu after 2 months of life-changing travel.
Back here in my little room with a little white cat (who was put here because apparently, while we were away, the rats took over the house) in my lap and looking outside at the hazy air and the saffron-tan tint over everything, I wonder just how far away I am from all that I just left behind.

I found out recently that my Chinese zodiac sign is the Ox instead of the Tiger, because I was born just before Chinese new years in 1986. All my life I thought I was a tiger. A week or two makes me a year older in China. I am 24 years old by the lunar calendar and Chinese tradition. And this New years, 2009, is special for me they say, the year of the ox too--my year.
Strange, because, all of a sudden, I feel as though I am much older than I should be.

Going back to the U.S. was important to do. Back to the world that hasn't changed, back to the people who haven't aged, to realize that I have. Back to realize that when people asked me where I was living, I said China. (At which I would laugh because it seemed like it should be a joke, but wasn't.) Back to where the tap water was drinkable, where I could eat food off the table (and sometimes off the floor), where I could rely on the electricity, and hot water, and water pressure to not give out, where the grocery stores were stocked with over 50 kinds of cheese and 20 kinds of butter, where everyone spoke my native language, where I my chest didn't hurt after a run in the outdoor air, and where nobody had any idea what rural china was like and how it had become such an intricate part of my understanding of the world. And back to public protests, police violence, news about all the horrors of the world, free speach, controversial movies, and an inspiring, newly elected president. It was all rather overwhelming.
And at the same time, I was back to realize how many people my age were jealous of the opportunity I had snagged. It made me awed at the opportunity I had been given. I appreciated all the luxuries and rights the U.S. provided, but didn't feel like I belonged in the U.S. anymore. I belonged in China.

But perhaps part of why I feel so much older is that every Chinese person I ran into on while traveling in China (my Chinese family included) was surprised that I was a single, young (and really so very young, they all seemed to believe) woman traveling and teaching on my own in a strange country. Did I really come by myself? Didn't I have someone meeting me at the next train station? Wasn't I afraid of getting lost? Wasn't I afraid of bad people? Weren't my parents worried about me? What about my boyfriend? And as soon as I explained I didn't have one, the next series of questions would come--shouldn't I have one, and shouldn't I be finding one, and what about finding a Chinese one, and shouldn't I be getting married soon?

Only, in Chinese, especially from people much older than I, these statements were not questions. In English it would be polite to ask these things as questions, so that is how I translate them. But in Chinese, they are statements or "shoulds": you are so independent to come on your own, there are many bad people, you should be careful, you are very brave, maybe you should find a Chinese boyfriend, or you should go back to the states after you finish teaching and find a boyfriend to marry. It is not meant to be rude, it is meant to show you are concerned or care. So I smiled and nodded to all of their observations of me.
But mostly it just really entertained me. And reminded me that there were not many young, single women who had this opportunity. Or who took advantage of it.

They must see me so strangely, I thought--an independent, stubborn, unafraid, adventurous, friendly, educated but almost stupid, foreign young woman. Or, probably more accurately, just a strange young woman.

Perhaps strange, but loving it.


( I will write more entries about the travel, but gotta go lesson plan now.)

Chinese TV News and American TV News

There's an interesting difference between American and Chinese TV News:

American TV news spends the vast majority of its time talking about disasters, crimes, potential problems that you will run into in life, and then spends most of the rest of its time talking about what other sensational thing they are going to show next in order to get you to keep watching.

Chinese news spends the vast majority of its time talking about its developing economy.

Often, Chinese news doesn't make me feel as awful about the world after.

But that doesn't mean that Chinese news is always positive. Or sometimes it means to be positive but rubs my American-raised mind the wrong way. For example, when they are showing this burning hot steel being heated up enough so that it can bend into the correct form, and there, maybe 20 feet away or less is a worker with a hardhat on. Besides the hardhat, he is wearing nothing particularly special to protect himself. Nothing to protect his eyes from the blinding white light that is coming from the furnace and nothing to protect his face from flying metal sparks that seem to be flying everywhere. The news reporter continues to report on the success of the business as the worker looks blankly at you from the side of the screen.
The next news topic is the pearl markets. The camera shows people individually sorting through piles and piles of harvested pearls. That kind of tedious work might outrage the average American. They would never agree to do that work themselves. And I don't know how many would like seeing that sort of work being done on TV. (But I'm sure they'd still go to the pearl market and buy pearls for their friends...along with their clothing and just about everything else we buy from China that is tediously put together. Many of these factories don't seem to have as many machines as we assume. I've seen documentaries showing a woman spending day after day poking a hole through a small plastic part and the woman after her in the assembly line squirting water through the hole to make sure the hole is complete. They weren't protesting on the documentary, they were just working. Work in China, for the ordinary people, is just work.)

It's still nice to watch more positive news than American news, but there are so many special words related to the development of the economy that I have trouble following the news here. I'm hoping by watching it every other day or so for half an hour, my listening comprehension will get tons better. Because right now, they speak way too fast for me to absorb exactly just what sort of economic progress is happening...

A warm fuzzy

There's this sweet stray dog that lives on campus that seems to turn up whenever I'm feeling down or lonely.
She seems young, with yellow lab-colored fur. She's got these sweet pointy ears that flop and a face somewhere between a chihuahua and a terrier. She’s a little taller than a terrier, but mostly because she has longer legs and a longer neck, and a slightly curled long blonde tail. She’s pretty slender, and her most defining characteristic is that her hind hips seem a little out of alignment so that she swivels her back feet a little when she walks. She sits funny too, with her two hind legs pointed to one side below her. But the best part is that when her tail wags, her whole rear behind goes crazy.

So i’ll be wandering around feeling a little down and then I’ll see her somewhere. And if I call her...usually with “Baby!” She comes running, or more like wobbling, her tail a wagging and shaking her behind all over the place. She doesn’t seem to do this to just anyone either. I’ve never seen her run up to another person. She comes and nuzzles against my legs and I scratch her neck and back while she tries to lick me (which I try to politely avoid by letting her lick my jeans and sweatshirt). She will sit herself down next to me and will continue to sit there nuzzling my jeans until I decide I have to go.
And she’s dirty too, no doubt. Whenever I’m done petting her, my fingertips are black with dirt and who knows what else. She’s a stray dog and probably ends up in the garbage more often than not...but I figure as long as I wash my hands thoroughly afterward I am basically safe. Afterall, the same stuff that’s on her is also on my shoes too, and all thought I don’t pet them, I for sure handle them all the time.

There’s just something so soothing about having a warm fuzzy creature who enjoys your company. She has a way with me that calms me and reminds me of the simple lovely things in life. I think it is in return for the scratches.

Halloween is coming

I think Taigu is probably the only place in all of Shanxi that will celebrate Halloween.

We've all been teaching our students about the American holiday in class. Each class gets to celebrate differently, some of us hand out candy and tell ghost stories, some of us talk about what we are afraid of, some of us share American superstitions in exchange for Chinese ones.

We will also have a Halloween party on Friday for all of our students. That's about 600 students. It's in an old classroom building. It is going to be crazy. These Halloween parties have a history of being crazy in Taigu. They all have to be in costume too.

I'm still trying to think of a costume. If you have ideas, you should tell me.

But my favorite thus far is that Ben and Nick have both had their classes carve pumpkins. (The pumpkins here are green on the outside instead of orange.) And they are awesome. Much more creative and clever than a lot of pumpkins I've seen in America. Some are faces, some are patterns, some have English carved on the side, and some of them are smoking cigarettes.
Nick has put them on our porch. And the best part is watching other students walk by the outside of our house and stop suddenly and stare at the strange carvings. Some smile, some step closer to get a better look, some look confused, some seem to shake their heads, others point to show their friends, most have never seen a carved pumpkin in their life.

My students are my saviors

I love Nong Da University students. Why? Because they are so sweet. And so eager to learn. And so willing to do silly things. And so dorky, but in the coolest and most love-able way ever.

For example, there was today. It was a dreary rainy day, and many of them looked really tired, until they looked up at me when I walked in. They started cheering and clapping when I walked in today. I had worn an absurd amount of clothes to class including a brightly colored stripped skirt on top of jeans that they claimed was pretty. The theme of the class was pretty obvious--clothes. I had gotten the idea from Beth and Ben who had used a fashion show in previous classes. I had my students say the names of everything as I took them off. (Don't worry I still had a t-shirt, sweater, and jeans by the end. Most of the stripping was accessories and jackets.) They were clearly tired still, some of them were nodding off after the initial show. But even their nodding off was more respectful than the nodding off in America. It consisted of a subtle closing of the eyes followed by a quick opening and determined stare in my direction and a wild writing down of the name of some article of clothing I was listing.

The fashion show, however, was what made my life. At first when I explained that pairs would have to do a fashion show, with one person as the announcer and the other as the model, the girls giggled and the guys grumbled. But as soon as the fashion show started, the cheers and clapping overflowed. The modeling and announcing was amazing. Male students, no matter their level of cool or awkwardness, were seen strutting down the classroom aisles convincingly tousling their hair, throwing off scarfs, pulling off sunglasses to flash a dashing glance at the audience and throwing jackets over one shoulder. Ordinary young women flaunted them selves as movie stars, with the confidence to match. The imagination and acting ran wild. It was great to see.

American students are sometimes too cool to have such fun. A group of American students, besides perhaps an acting class, would never be able to pull off such a stunning performance as my students presented.

Our classes seem to be one of the few creative outlets these Graduate Agricultural students have. And they live it up.

I'm gonna follow their example, live it up too while I can, and enjoy these wonderfully enthusiastic students.

难过 and 过了 （sadness and getting through)

China, for me, has a perpetual, essential sort of sadness that permeates everything in the countryside.

There is a sense, especially when a Chinese person finally gets close to you and starts opening up, that people here have a lot of difficult things that they deal with and have to keep hidden. And so I think the earth, building and streets start breathing sadness instead.

I’ve had a number of students already ask for leave to see doctors for various surgeries and conditions. It is not as easy to be open about having a disease here. The U.S. is sometimes rough for sure, but here, students often won’t even tell their close friends that they are suffering from a serious chronic illness. A chronic illness can prevent people from getting the job they want, and word about it will spread like wildfire on a college campus. A few people have opened up to me about their illnesses because I am foreign and they know we have different standards about such things. To suffer from an illness and not be able to ask for the support of your friends seems crazy. As does the number of 20 year old students in this small population that I've already found out are dealing with some chronic disease.

That doesn’t begin to talk about the sadness of young women who have given up playing basketball because they are girls. They now sit on the sidelines and watch the handsome boys make the shots instead. Or the sadness of young women who are afraid to be outspoken in class because they believe that the men really are smarter. Or the sadness of the young men and women working on the streets serving all the young students street food because they never graduated high school or never passed the Gao Kao (the College Entrance Examination). Or the sadness of the man old enough to be my grandfather who sells fruit on the corner and who probably has his whole life and probably will for the rest of his life.

Then there is the sadness that you feel when you walk out on the streets in Taigu. It is written in the dust, the faded plaster on the houses, the lines on people’s foreheads, the tired way the waitresses toss the dishwater out on the street, and in the wobbly slow way the bicycles make their way down the street. Beth and I talked about both having felt it—this common sadness that seems have a presence all over the countryside.

And the Chinese version of "sadness," like many emotional words in Chinese, is much more specific than its equivalent in English. The usual translation in Chinese is 难过 （nanguo) which literally means hard going or hard to go through. That is the kind of sadness that permeates everything here.

But then, as clear and present as the sadness is the persistence, calm, acceptance and even joy in the face of it all. People continue, people 过了. People don’t seem to complain about their work, they just do it. Women don’t complain much about their status, they just keep doing their studying and all the things they are allowed to do. And there isn’t a student who isn’t proud of China. Their faith in their people and country, in spite of their knowledge of fraud mines causing mudslides into villages, failed milk that has poisoned children, and knowing first hand of all the poor people still struggling in the countryside, is incredibly strong. Even my friends struggling with illness, who sometimes explain to me their frustration with Chinese cultural norms, continue to impress me with their pride in their country. There is a patriotism and faith in family and country here that is stronger than anything I’ve met in the U.S. It’s pretty incredible.

And then there’s the friendliness here. The average American would not think to be half as friendly as the ordinary Taigu person is to us. In spite of the stares and comments about us wherever we go, I feel really welcomed and completely safe here (well except maybe from the traffic). People here are by and in large honestly curious and really tolerant of our differences from them. I find that I can sooth any stare with a friendly smile. I’m so grateful that smiles and laughter are international. I’m really good at those. And they are accepting of me playing basketball with the young men (I even got a few of my female students to join me), of me as a teacher, of me talking with the storekeepers and ordinary folk on the street. There’s an interesting line that I walk that has them viewing me with something between tolerance or respect, between viewing me as just crazy or acceptable. I rather like it actually. And I’m pretty grateful the people here allow me to walk it. It’s a privilege I’m willing to accept.

I have also realized that part of what drew me to the people in China this ability—this extraordinary ability to face a country and history of sadness and continue to smile and hold their heads up. I’m still always amazed. Our young, proud country could learn a lot from these people.