Please understand us

Although I'm working fewer hours this month, I am just as busy as last month. There are two main reasons for this. One is that I have been taking advantage of much of my free time to study Korean and, thankfully, I am seeing some progress. It will probably be at least two or three months before I attempt a basic conversation. My knowledge remains limited to phrases such as "How are you," "Do you have milk," "What is your name," "I want [insert unpronounceable restaurant dish here]," "I am an American," "I want a green tea frappuccino," and the like. However, Korean sentence structure has taken on a new coherence for me, which is very exciting. In some ways, it is similar to Tagalog. My limited knowledge of that language has actually helped me greatly with the Korean. I know that my progress is the result of intensive study and a method that linguist Barry Farber calls the "multiple track attack"--receiving language input from multiple sources. For me, this includes a handful of textbooks and audio CDs. In his "Linguist" book, Steve Kaufmann's Mandarin Chinese study was quite aggressive--perhaps even maniacal by some standards. I have been trying to do the same with Korean insofar as it doesn't interfere with my work or other responsibilities. It's a work in progress. I often set unrealistic daily goals for myself that I don't meet.

The other reason is that I am now taking care of much of my administrative stuff for classes early. I am proud of myself for this and I hope you are proud of me as well.

My classes are going well this month. In one of my conversation classes, a number of the students (some of them a little older) are either involved in mass communication or education. It's exciting to have communication majors there, since I studied journalism. And having teachers there (at least two or three of them are teachers) is a humbling experience for me. I have always had a great deal of respect for teachers.

Sometimes we as Westerners tend to think of foreigners as "extras"--people that only serve to fill the backdrop. Many of my students have strong passions, diverse interests and lofty, sometimes unrealistic, expectations. Yoon Young is a fan of classical music and although his major is very scientific, he has a strong creative streak and has done Web design. A sweet young girl in another class told me that she was a fan of heavy metal music, and expressed disappointment at not being able to attend a local Metallica concert because of work commitments. An older student of mine is a businessman and has given me some fascinating insights into Korean corporate culture. Monday night I'm scheduled to meet another young girl and her friend for a mock job interview in English. She is treating me to dinner. People buying me food is always pretty cool.

I have really been impressed with many of my students, for better and for worse. Some are lazy and undisciplined. Some will apologetically but bluntly admit that they missed a class because they got drunk at a party the night before. Some are only there because their parents have forced them to be there, and they can hardly hide their indifference to the class. Some are accomplished visual artists. Many are wonderful, highly intelligent people. The only reason I am in a classroom in front of these people is that I am a native speaker of English and they aren't.

My school's recruiting director encouraged me in a recent e-mail to think more critically about the students, and I have been learning to do this. This includes checking up on students with attendance problems. This also means being more receptive to their suggestions and expectations.

The staring here from Koreans is relentless, and it is becoming slightly less amusing and slightly more uncomfortable. Sunday night after church I took the subway east to go walking along the Han River, which for me serves as a nice substitute for the riverside walkway at Battery Park City. It was a beautiful fall evening, and it was the first time in a long time I was able to take a relaxing walk in some kind of park area. But there were many people walking or biking around, and the amount of looks people gave me was ridiculous. It was unsettling.

I shared this with Sang Yoon over lunch today. He told me in his broken English that Koreans are "one blood" and have had little contact with foreigners. Therefore, "please understand us."