Kansas, Toto, and all that

After a while, life begins to consist of routines, patterns and habits. Every day in Korea is no longer to the filled to the brim with glorious epiphanies, touching moments of intercultural understanding, and moments of intense revelation. This is not to say that these do not occur, merely that the quotidian living is, perhaps, less exotic than some might imagine it to be.

Having said that, I do often experience many things which remind me, subtly or overtly, that I am no longer living in the shadow of the CN Tower...

On Saturday, one of the secretaries at our school got married, and all the teachers were invited to the wedding.

As I waited for my coworkers before heading over to the wedding, a group of boys aged 12 or 13 passed by. Despite my wearing sunglasses, they were somehow able to deduce my anglophone nature, and called out to me, "very handsome!" with thumbs raised to underline their approval. On the one hand, it's simply a case of kids seizing the chance to practice their English outside of class, but on the other, it's an instance of young males commenting favourably (and without sarcasm, I assure you), on the appearance of another male. It must be said, of course, that I do look damn good in a tie.

Korea is a very conservative and homophobic country- there are very, very few openly out people here, and paradoxically, it may be for this reason that men are much more affectionate towards one another than they would be in Canada. It's not at all uncommon to see teenage boys sitting on each other's laps in the subway, or holding hands as they walk down the street. Being gay is so unheard of that one is able to engage in such affectionate activities without the fear of being called gay because being gay isn't even an option...but back to the wedding.

In many respects, it was a fairly Western affair: the bride wore a white dress, the groom wore a tux, and it was held in a wedding hall not hugely dissimilar from ones one might find in Mississauga or Don Mills. A major difference, though, was evident before the wedding, as the bride sat in a small room off the lobby and guests were invited in to pose for pictures beside her. During the actual ceremony, the parents of the bride and groom sat in big chairs on either side of the happy couple, who bowed to each set of progenitors (I do love me some big words every so often) at the conclusion of the nuptials.

I had my first Korean lesson today. It's mightily exciting, after four months in the country, to be finally learning the language in a formal, organized manner. It was even more exciting to learn that Korean verbs have only three tenses, and that there is no conjugation as such- the ending is the same for each person- I am, you am, he am, we am, and so on. Furthermore, Korean is largely a contextual language, so "are you going to Seoul" is written the same way as "you are going to Seoul" would be, with the only difference being the inflection at the end of the sentence to indicate a question.

Apart from the obvious advantages of speaking the language of the country in which I live, I think that learning will also be give me a better grasp of the perspective of my students, a from the general sense of learning a new language, but also of the differences between English and Korean specifically. I look forward to learning more.

As you may be aware, the leaders of North and South Korea have just completed another summit- the second since the end of the Korean War. Unfortunately, my grasp of Korean politics is not much stronger than my grasp of the Korean language. It isn't something which my coworkers discuss at all at work, or at least not in language, and I'm perhaps too careful when asking about it, because the relationship between the Koreas does fascinate me so.

As I touched upon at the beginning of this post, Koreans and non-Koreans may be distinguished from one another by purely physical characteristics, at least 99 times out of one hundred. There is a not inconsiderable number of Westerners in Busan, but I would venture to guess that at least 90% of them are English teachers. This is interesting because, a) it means that almost all white people (and the vast majority of English teachers here are white) in Busan are between the ages of 22 and 3o, and b) there isn't the same level of integration or assimilation as would occur under more conventional immigration patterns. It's not at all rare to be stared on the subway or the street, especially by children. This puzzled me for a little while because the number of Westerners, while only a tiny fraction of the overall population, is still substantial enough that I generally see another waeguk or two every time I go downtown.

But while a small town in Northern Ontario, for example, may be (and here we'll pick some numbers out of a hat), 10% Native Canadian, with the rest of the town being Canadian of European descent except for "that one Chinese family," the point is that even in that small town, the Chinese family is a family. There will be Chinese-Canadian kids in that family, and they will go to school with the other kids, and hang out with them, and so on. There may be racism and suspicion and so on, but there is also a level of interaction that is unusual here. The Western teachers and the Korean teachers may and do hang out, but there are no family picnics or family softball games, for the simple fact that there are almost no Western children here. It isn't rare to see white people (as mentioned, almost always between the ages of 22 and 30), but it's almost unheard of to see white children. A few months ago I was at the beach and hanging with a couple from Oregon who had their two small, blonde children with them. The kids fell asleep under a beach umbrella, and more than one Korean came up and asked to take their photo.

We are migrant workers, though more by choice than by necessity. Most teachers here will leave after a year. Some will stay on for a little while, but the vast majority will return within 3 years to Canada, the U.S., or whatever other corner of Anglophonia from whence they came.

And those are my thoughts for the day.

The waeguk is wondering if he's already answered all the possible questions you could have. If no, feel free to ask.