What am I doing here?

The Han River (and the Yanghwa area) has become one of my favorite places to hang out. The autumn in Seoul is gorgeous, and I have been trying to enjoy it as much as I can before it starts getting colder. Last night I enjoyed a long walk along the river, but this time I decided to walk north instead of south. People's stares have, for now, become less irritating and more amusing, so I really was able to enjoy myself. Eventually I came to the Seonyugyo pedestrian bridge, which I might have bypassed if not for the fact that it was buzzing with people. I crossed this bridge to a small island containing Seonyudo Park. I think I can say without exaggeration that it was one of the most beautiful parks I have ever seen in my life. With it being so close to where I live, I plan to return there as much as I can. Because it was nighttime, many of the visual details were obscured, despite most parts of the park being fairly well lit. I am looking forward to seeing it in the daytime, and I hope to post a few pictures of it on this blog soon.

One of my students threw me a curve ball Friday morning. After we went through a reading passage in conversation class, I proceeded to go through the "language points" list of 10 or so vocabulary words before breaking them into pairs for discussion of a topic. One of my students stopped me and told me that the vocabulary list was not neessary because she knew most of the words. This comment surprised me, because teachers at my school are supposed to go through as many of the language points as possible. I didn't even do all of them at first, but now I've made a habit of trying to go through all of them quickly but thoroughly, which means that sometimes I will use three or four examples to reinforce the meaning of a word or expression. This comment also surprised me because in my performance evaulations from last month, many of my students gave me good overall ratings but felt that my classes didn't follow the curriculum closely enough.

Of course, the most obvious reason for me doing the language points is that not everyone understands all of the words. And unfortunately, when I ask a class if there are words they don't understand, people are often slow to respond if they respond at all. Yet it is obvious that they don't understand everything. This behavior is largely due to the face-saving element of Korean culture. I don't mind skipping the language points if I feel that the students understand all or most of the words. However, this is not always the case. After the student's comment, I asked the rest of the class (about seven or eight students) if they agreed with this remark and they all responded yes. I then said: "OK, if you guys don't need me to go over all of these, I can just narrow it down to the ones people don't understand. Are there any terms on this list you don't understand?" There was an awkward silence for a few seconds, then everyone began to laugh.

The whole experience was disorienting (and a little frustrating) for me, but it has helped me to better understand the highly technical approach that many Koreans take with their study of English. The positive element here that after having encouraged my students for the last couple of weeks to give me feedback, they are beginning to respond. But sometimes it's difficult to figure out exactly what they want.

I have mentioned on this blog how I occasionally wonder what I am doing, in South Korea and in my life in general. Last Wednesday I had one of my more intense moments. Shortly after waking up I began to wonder: "What in the world am I doing here?" By the afternoon, I felt as if I was going to snap emotionally. Sang Yoon and I went to a traditional Korean restaurant, the kind where patrons take off their shoes and sit on the floor. I have really come to enjoy this, despite the fact that sitting cross-legged has never been easy for me. As we chatted, outwardly I was calm but inside I was screaming. As an English teacher and foreigner that is closely watched by locals, I can't wear my emotions on my sleeve as easily as I could back home.

I think one of the reasons Sang Yoon and I have hit it off so well is that we are both Christians. Though our backgrounds and, to some extent, worldviews are radically different, there are some areas where we can relate as if we've known each other for years. I told him that sometimes I wonder, "What am I doing here?" Sang Yoon gave me a response that would help get me through the rest of the day and the rest of the week. He said: "I know how you feel. I asked myself the same thing when I studied in Japan."