In Korea, peace is a topic that is not often discussed. However, the precarious situation between the North and South seems to continually reside on the periphery of everyday life. In the 8 months I have lived in Korea (study abroad + fulbright) I have never felt like I lived in a war zone except when visiting the DMZ. It is actually pretty strange to be reminded of the fact that I live in a country engaged in an ongoing war. I'm sure not everyone in South Korea feels this way, but as a foreigner I am often oblivious to or encouraged not to attend (i.e. protests and rallies) events that could potentially deepen my understanding of the conflict. I was informed of an event going on in Jeju city sponsored by a non-profit called Global Peace Initiative as part of (affiliated with) the UN World Peace day that was both a safe and educational experience.While it mainly focused on Jeju and their unique peace struggle, there was also mention of North Korea as well as other conflicts around the globe such as Gaza. Overall, I really enjoyed the 5 mile walk/hike and all the information presented. It was very tranquil, walking with a few hundred others who were also committed to the goal of peace. I was really excited to see my first authentic dol hareubang or "grandfather statue". They are all over the island but I think the majority are replicas- the one in my picture is the real thing! I also got a bit of reminiscing in as I walked by the statues my mom and I saw when we visited Jeju two years ago. The other thing I was really glad I got a chance to see was a village that had been abandoned following jeju's 4.3 massacre. During a period in 1949/1950 over 30,000 Jeju residents died in a massacre having to do with communist ties. This massacre has only recently started to be discussed and memorialized so seeing this village was a glimpse into the complex emotions and memorials of such places. This village had a sign commemorating what it had once looked like and many of the fences between properties were still standing. I hope I have the opportunity to look into the memorialization and research the events more in depth.
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For those of you who don't know what 6:01 is, my sincerest condolences to you that were not able to attend both the happiest and the greatest college in America. For those of you that do know, I am sure you will sympathize with me and the plight I faced whilst enduring my first ever "alone" 6:01. My definition of alone being that there were no other CMCer's present. The last time I spent 6:01 away from campus, also in korea, I had my dearest friend Ju-young at my side to revel in festivities with. more specifically, we went to a convenience store and drank and wore bro-tanks. It was a glorious occasion. This year, I spent the day hiking with my good friend Claire, who also happens to be a Hoosier. We got to see some of the best sites that Seogwipo has to offer and finished our 7 mile + hike at the world cup stadium outside of seogwipo (technically in "new" seogwipo). World Cup stadium was built for the 2002 World Cup held jointly between South Korea and Japan. The stadium has seen better days, but it is still a site to behold. It is a behemoth of a stadium, which means that even on the best attended games it looks kinda empty. Next to the stadium is the most "western" store on this side of the island, thus for dinner I had pizza, sushi, and beer. It was a glorious 6:01 and a rousing game- we won 6-2 I believe. Even though I missed CMC and all my five-C friends terribly this week, I can't really complain about my life here on the island. Much love, I had a wonderful Chusok with my host family, but this time instead of telling you about it I'm going to let you see through my eyes what the holiday was all about. Much love, Emsloth
On Sunday I had one of the longest days of my life I swear, Actually it wasn't that bad but I have become a huge wuss about sleeping. I wake up for school everyday at 6:50 (can you believe it Big Cat???) which means that I almost always go to bed before midnight. I love going to be early. My bed is calling to me, even though I'm not incredibly tired. There just isn't a whole lot to do late at night on school nights besides hang out with my host siblings so I usually do that for a while before I decide that sleeping is better than watching a Korean drama that I can only understand 50% of. Sunday started with a trip to the ocean. I was pretty nervous going into this trip because when they described where they were going they described rocks and fish and fishing. Now I didn't grow up near the ocean, I grew up on a lake and so when someone says rocks and fish and fishing I get a little scared thinking about how non-conducive that sounds to swimming. However, when we got to the ocean, it quickly became apparent that this was a snorkeling expedition! They even brought equipment for me! It was so cute. My host mom isn't a great swimmer so she mostly stayed near the rocks collecting snails to eat. Host dad snorkeled with me for a while then moved on to fishing. My host siblings snorkeled for a while too, but complained that the water was "too cold" and moved on to catching snails/crabs. I had a wonderful time swimming to my hearts content and seeing some beautiful plant and fish life. It had nothing on the snorkeling I did in Hawaii, but it was pretty awesome. After snorkeling, we went home to shower and then we were back on the road to Jeju-si in no time flat. I wasn't really sure what we were doing there but when I tried to ask, I got zilch. The trip turned out to be to a military festival? We followed that by a walk around Jeju-si and then a samgyupsal dinner. I thought it would end there, but after dinner we headed to someones house for fruit, octopus and wine. We finally got home around 12:30, and boy was the next morning struggle bus. This upcoming weekend/week is Chusok (korean thanksgiving) so I will be heading to Wimi to visit the host-family's family. Catch you on the flip side. Much love, Emsloth. So this weekend, on Saturday, I hopped in a taxi and met my friend Claire. We proceeded to look around wildly to find the bus to Anduk (who knew the Seogwipo city bus terminal was all the way out by the world cup stadium??) Claire lives in Jeju-si but like the amazing person she is she agreed to meet me Seogwipo so that life was a little easier for us on our inaugural outing. From the bus terminal we hopped on the 702 to anduk and got off...and didn't find the trail. We probs walked around a good half hour until we found the actual trail hahaha. The directions were pretty good, but as we would soon learn, following the olle trails is not always super easy. The first part of the trail was beach followed by extreme hiking. I thought we were really in for it. Then once we got over the first hill everything was pretty easy paths. We had a terribly difficult time trying to follow the set course and ended up taking an hour jaunt along the coast but the views were 100% worth it. If you ever find yourself hiking Olle #10 though, be on the lookout for those little blue and red tags. Also, good luck finding the bus stop back. But find it we did! The weather wasn't always cooperating but I am so glad I got the chance to Jungwon, you were my home for six very long weeks I am not sad to leave you, not at all your kimchi was terrible, your ceiling had leaks I guess you were good to me, overall So I am playing a bit of catch up on the blog but I am sure you can understand- The last 7 days of orientation were, in some ways, the most grueling of them all. The weekend before this one Fulbright brought us up to Seoul, posted us up in some fancy digs and gave us a lot of information about the coming year. We went to Hwacheon to see the DMZ, had a day off, and attended lectures for two days then back to Goesan for Departure day (post soon to follow) Well, after I wrote that last snetence I lost internet for a while and wrote the rest of this blog post out on word...but what ended up happening was a very long rant about some things that I am not sure how to express yet. I want more time to think on that before posting, look forward to it. However, I want to share the beauty that is Seoul weekend with you all #cantstopwontstop without further ado please enjoy! My Korean class final was yesterday and our "graduation" ceremony is tomorrow. Time really does fly when....well it flies when your schedule is jam-packed full. I'm not complaining though, this was one of the better Korean courses I have taken in that because I knew my grade wasn't at stake I felt more comfortable making mistakes. We also had the option of going to office hours every night which was awesome. I often would go and either converse with my professors or just work on my Korean in a setting where I got instant feedback. While I am a bit sad that Korea no longer has a CLEA (even though its still on the CL list) I really hope that my home stay family will greatly help my Korean speaking and listening ability. I still can't believe it has been so long since I left home. I feel like I am just at that point where I don't want to leave Jungwon... that's a lie. The food is terrible. I want to leave for that reason alone. I cannot supplement my Jungwon diet on my 7,000 won a day diet. But I have truly come to love and appreciate the other 74 ETAs that I am sharing this experience with. It will be extremely difficult to leave them come Tuesday. Tomorrow, at 5:15 am *ugh*, we will be heading to Seoul for our graduation so this will probably be the last post until I get to Seogwipo/get settled into my life there. (don't worry mom I will make sure to skype in on my phone this weekend) I still don't know if/who will be hosting me this year, but I am really excited. Also, Sunday/Monday all the ETAs who are renewing will be in Goesan for a little mixer-get-to-know-you type thing. Sorry this post has been rambling, I am so burnt out on studying Korean and preparing a presentation for our final. I will post pictures from the end of orientation/Seoul weekend as soon as possible- until then- Much love, mem So I haven't done much writing in a while but I need to start studying for my Korean final....my alternative is to offer some vignettes of life at Jungwon. For those curious I go to Seoul next Thursday morning to sign my contract ect. and come back to Jungwon Sunday, then Monday is the returnee-newbie mixer, followed by Departure day on Tuesday. No word yet on my flight but I guess I shall find out soon! Sorry I've been so busy, hopefully things will chill out once I start that Island life.
Korean Class Korean class is a struggle for me because it is so boring. I am definitely at the top of my class which has been strange but in some ways satisfying. The range of ability in the intermediate class is one semester to three years. So sometimes we cover things that are super elementary. It has given me the chance to work on my speaking much more however. In previous classes I was always the one who had to be coaxed into talking and was very nervous to mess up on grammar structures. In this class I am usually the first one to speak up and I try and fail sometimes too. The other girl in my class at my level did CLS for a summer which really gives me hope that Fulbright will give me the immersive language experience I always felt was so critical (haha) to learning Korean. I really love both of my teachers in their own way. They are really funny and I will be sad to not have them anymore. TKD In taekwondo we had our first sparring match this week. You know that video of the two little girls kicking at eachother but not hitting? Thats what most of us looked like. I took on this really cool kid named Ted. He kicked my butt. If I got a chance to do it again I think I would not choose to spar a boy. Lolz. Tuesday is our last class and we're breaking boards. Orientation The OCT has overall done an admirable job trying to get us ready to be Korean teachers. I still have doubts about the effectiveness of very smart people to magically be suited for teaching a la TFA but after meeting a few of the English teachers past ETAs co-taught with I'm more than willing to believe that just by the pure virtue of being a native English speaker we have something to offer these kids. As a last caveat I will say that I have felt considerable pressure to present a positive narration of the Fulbright Program so while I have some complaints about Orientation and the Fulbright Korea program I'm going to save them for after Seoul weekend and the contract with my school has been signed. PS we recently found out we are only guaranteed 18 business days for Winter break. PSS Don't fret yet fam, I think that given my school had a previous ETA they will grant me a break similar to the one the previous ETA recieved...Feb in Hawaii! |
Author안녕! I'm Emmy and this is my blog detailing my life in Korea with Fulbright mainly through pictures. Feel free to contact me on my about page. TTFN Archives
June 2016
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