Study Study Study

If I blink again, the fall term will be finished. It feels like I just posted a few days ago, yet when I look back at the contents of my last post, it seems like several months ago.

Despite starting off the week in disappointment, I finished with relief that I'll be able to pass level 3 and move up to level 4 next term. I took the writing, speaking and the greatly feared (only by me) listening test this morning. On Tuesday I took a practice listening test and failed it miserably. It wasn't until two days later, after much disappointment and worry about failing the term, that I realized that the teachers purposely made that practice exam much more difficult than the final exam. Off and on I have wondered if the pace of the Korean Language program might be above my language skill. Listening is my weakness, and to a lesser extent, reading. Yet, I have been reading so much Korean lately that looking back at the English letters in this post for the first time today feels a little strange, as if English were not my native alphabet. Now that I think about it, I may be losing my English skill altogether; this post seems remarkably difficult to write.

I guess that's a sign I'm improving. Before I had noticed that only my reading had improved, but now I can feel that my speaking is coming around, and to a lesser extent listening and writing. Grammar mistakes aside, I can participate in nearly any everyday conversation that doesn't involve emotion or conjecture. However, I cannot follow other's conversations completely, even if they have to do with simple matters.

I still plan to study up through level 6, at which point, according to the university brochure, I will be able to speak Korean free of grammar and pronunciation errors ad participate in professional activities at the same level as Korean undergraduate students. We'll see. While levels 1 and 2 are full of westerners, I checked the class names for the students in level 6, and I don't recall seeing a single one from the occident. Even in level 3, us whiteys are few and far between, and the numbers thin out quickly as the levels become more difficult. Since there is no relationship between western languages and Korean, it is advisable for westerners who plan on studying the higher levels to study the Chinese characters, which are the roots of some 60-70% of the Korean lexicon. Equivalently, Korean students learning high level vocabulary in English could study Latin roots. Fortunately while in Jeju I studied some of those characters, so I might make it.

My life outside of class is much different that I had expected. Studying Korean has consumed more time than I ever expected. I had hoped to join a club or take a class on Korean cooking, but the time rushed so quickly I never had the time to even look my schedule over. I will give it a try next term though. My social life isn't lacking by any means, but I only see people one and one for language exchange, dinner, movies, or an occasional cup of Korean traditional tea. While it may be difficult given the Korean work ethic, I'd like to establish a group of people I see regularly.

During the winter break I will return to Jeju where I lived last year to visit some friends I still haven't seen since my return to Korea.

A series of shocks

The economy has been going crazy. A very close friend of mine had surgery to have a cancerous tumor removed and will later undergo treatment. And most recently, I found out that I will most likely not be able to work part time here while studying as I had originally planned. So I am a bit worried about money, especially considering the current economic situation of the world. All of this and more in the past couple weeks.

The shocks can be positive too. On October 10th I got one. I won 3rd place in a writing contest and $300. A few hundred foreigners copied a short piece of prose written in the Korean script to see who had the most beautiful Korean handwriting. There was one prize for first place, two for second and four for third. I couldn't believe it when they called out, "And from America, Anthony..." People always told me that my writing was beautiful, but I never thought I could compete against the hundreds of Japanese and Chinese there, who spend hours in school learning the proper stroke order of characters much more complicated than those in the Korean script.

Now the backpage news. Well, actually I was on TV last night, Saturday October 25th. My roommate responded to an ad on Korean's most famous TV station's website. The station, MBC, wanted to do a story on an interesting living situation. My roommate explained that he lived with a foreigner who speaks some Korean. Enough said. A couple of reporters came to the house and filmed my roommate and I buying groceries, cooking dinner and so on. I managed to speak Korean rather well. My roommate later asked me, "Why don't you speak Korean that well with me?" I also just realized that if my students saw me on TV, they probably asked themselves, "That guy looks familiar, but I don't remember ever meeting anyone named Anthony."

As for my Korean language class, the pace is brisk. I wouldn't want to even miss a single hour, let alone a whole day. We learn dozens of new words every day and plenty of grammar. We have a test next week, so we'll see if I can remember everything. I'm not falling behind, but it's a struggle to follow the pace. At the very least I can say that my reading has improved. As for listening and speaking, I imagine the results will come much later. We're not supposed to use any English in the class, so it's challenging when unknown words or grammar come up. I often times cannot express myself when I need to ask a specific question. But my teacher told me that English speakers will have a much more difficult time in the beginning, while Japanese and Chinese, the majority of my classmates, will have more difficulies in the advanced levels. Nonetheless, I'll be very surprised I'll be able to read a Korean newspaper or watch a movie without a dictionary or subtitles, respectively.

The not so studious classmates I mentioned before are not any more motivated than before, but at least they settled down a bit during class. One of the "troublemakers" if I may say in a University setting, is actually helpful in explaining things to me in English when I can't follow the teacher. And since our class is quite small, everyone is now very comfortable with one another.

The search for housing

There has been so much to write about that I wish I had posted a week or two ago. So I'll date this post the 1st of October, even though I wrote it today, October 11th. I'll post again shortly with more updated news.

The housing search was more difficult than I had anticipated. In my previous post I mentioned that I may have found housing, but it ended up falling through. I arrived in Seoul on Monday, September 15th and didn't move into my place until Saturday, September 27th. Immediately the day after my arrival I began looking at places all over the city. The best ones were an hour or more commute from my school. Housing within walking distance from my school and in my budget was almost nonexistent. I went to all corners of the city and met so many different kinds of people. It was quite an adventure, especially since not a single one of the people I met spoke any English whatsoever. There was one girl I met who was looking for housing for her younger brother and as we looked at different places and talked with landlords about contracts, rent prices, security deposits and money transfers, I just felt like I was along for the ride. After taking the subway all over the city I realized that I wanted to avoid a commute. I tried to be as patient as possible, but all the while I searched for housing, I was staying at a youth hostel where I shared a room with six other people. There was barely enough room for all my belongings and I got attacked by mosquitoes.

But patience paid off and I found a place just a 15 minute walk from school and two minutes from the subway station. I live on the second of three floors in an older place with two bedrooms, a roomy living room, kitchen and bathroom. I get along very well with my roommate, and since he rarely speaks English with me it is helpful for improving Korean. I also really like the feel of the neighborhood. Within a one minute walk outside my door there are several small restaurants, shops, drycleaning and even a small market with fresh produce, fish and meat. I've already frequented many of the restaurants and the locals are interested to find out about the new "foreigner" living in the neighborhood.

While I really enjoy my new place, I actually miss the youth hostel I stayed in. I never expected I would stay for twelve nights and neither did the hostel staff. After only a few days it felt like home more than a youth hostel. I saw so many amazing people come and go, including a band from LA, a group of Japanese students putting on an art exhibit, and a guy from Ireland cycling around the country all with an abunance of interesting stories to share. So many times as new people would come in, usually hungry and tired from jet lag and I would show them around the hostel and direct them to the best neighborhood restaurant if the hostel staff were not available. I also got to know the owners very well, and they told me to come back and visit.

I started class before I moved into my place. I tested into level 3 as expected and the course is definitely challenging. I'm happy with the professors, but the students are not as motivated as I had expected. A large percentage of the 1500 or so students studying Korean at The Yonsei University KLI (Korean Language Institute) are there because of their parents. I met one student whose father is Korean, but his mother is Japanese. Another, whose parents are both Korean, grew up in the states and only has a basic level of the language. Three of the thirteen students in my class act like middle schoolers, almost like the students I had when I lived in Jeju. They are very rude to the teacher, speaking in the impolite form of which they are well aware. But they probably won't make it past level 3, because the grammar is challenging and the vocabulary more academic with each succeeding chapter. And despite the rude bunch, I get along well with many of the others, two from China and a girl from Nepal.

An overwhelming return

I recall being overwhelmed when I first arrived in Jeju, but Seoul is just nuts. I'm really beginning to wonder if I can live in a city of 11 million. My head was already spinning by the end of the second day as the previously dormant Korean in my head was defribulated back to life. I had to stop, relax and catch my breath. Finding housing requires a Korean language ability I won't have for months. Getting around the city and remembering the names of subway stops and routes requires the energy that was zapped from the flight. Without my cell phone to send hundreds of text messages in Korean every day, I would not be able to function. Talking on the phone is out of the question since my listening skills are still pretty weak. Despite all that, after looking at places all over the city, I think I may have found something suitable, and very close to the university.

I can't recall how many people have asked me, including Koreans, "Why Korea?" The answer lies in my previous post that I wrote during the summer, which I realized a few days ago that I had only saved as a draft, but finally now just published. But others have asked, "So why are you studying Korean? Aren't you going to Italy?"

There are several reasons why I've returned to attempt to tackle the exotic language, all of which seem to be the least common among the other foreigners doing the same thing. I'm sure I will have to explain that, "No, I do not have a Korean wife and no I don't plan on working in Korea." So, first and foremost, I had hoped that after a year teaching in Korea I would be able to be fluent. No way. I left the country after 12 months without achieving the unrealistic goal. Another reason is grad school. My degree in languages alone it isn't really all that impressive on the resume. My trashed GPA from the engineering courses I barely passed during my first years will put me below the minimum requirements. So possibly receiving a scholarship as a result of good grades and attendence in a Korean Language program from the second best university in the country might help. In addition, learning Korean has and will continue to improve my second language acquisition skills in general, all very essential for graduate studies.

Monday I will take a Korean proficiency test to see which level at which I will start. There are six levels in the program, each lasting three months. I'm expecting to start at level 3.

In conclusion, long overdue

As the case with people's dusty library books, this tenth and final post of my full year in Korea is long overdue (and yes, later than promised), mostly in part because of a great deal of bewilderment surrounding my planned return in the near future. Why on Earth would I want to return to South Korea? Didn't I hate it there? Everyone always remembers the negative stuff, which is why the news is plagued with death tolls and murders, while the good news makes the back page at best, such as the second half of my third post about my trip to the mainland. No one has mentioned anything about that. So anyway, in an effort to not let that ninth post overshadow the previous eight, how about a little reflection on my part?

First the bad stuff. In a nutshell, I did not enjoy my work life in Korea. But even that's a generalization. I had many great classes with students, and even enjoyed many of the classes with the noisy ones. More specifically, my frustrations were with the school administration all the way from the teacher level up to the top of the Provincial Office of Education.

One major disagreement I had was the use of Korean in the classroom. My students' level of English required Korean without a doubt. But the administration insisted that I only speak in English. Of course I wouldn't even attempt at speaking in Korean during the entire class. But my Korean was good enough to say a phrase or word here and there to make sure the students and I were on the same page. But one teacher wouldn't have it and rudely let me know it in front of my students and other staff. I probably would have been better off screaming back at the teacher, but I kept my cool and it remained a very uncomfortable final two months at one of my middle schools. At the time of the ninth post, I was very unhappy and still several weeks away from a very relaxing summer, which I never got around to write about.

Now that that's out of the way, I can easily say that my life outside of work was great. Many Koreans I met showed me around the whole island: beaches, mountains, museums, neighboring islands, even lava caves. I was always invited in or out for lunch or dinner. I had most of the month of August off (my last month), during which the temperature hovered at a constant 94 degrees during the day, and mid 80's overnight, which sent all the big critters into our apartments. Those days were spent at the beach and the evenings usually in relaxing tea houses. I enjoyed many of the summer dishes, including 콩국수, a sort of cold bean soup. On the evening of my departure a group of Koreans accompanied me to the airport, some in tears. I'm still in touch with many of them, and I look forward to seeing them again when I return.

I'm still unsure as to when that will be, but I plan on attending an intensive language course through Yonsei University, in Seoul. My primary objective in returning is to make a worthy attempt at reaching a respectable level of proficiency in Korean. But I also want to give Korea a second chance so that when asked, "How was Korea?" I might be able to respond as I have after my stays in Europe.

Less than 60 days

I’m long overdue for another post, I know. First, let me get the usual report of the weather out of the way.

In early May I was still using the heater, but by June the Koreans cranked up the air conditioning at school as temperatures lingered in the 80’s with substantial humidity. Now we’re in the middle of the month long rainy season which will end in the third week of July. So at any time during the day a thunderstorm can drop an inch or two of rain when you least expect it. Once the rainy season passes, then things will heat up a lot more.

I declined to renew my contract for a second year for various reasons, too many to mention here. But those that top my list are as follows:

1. Isolation at work. Teachers are either too shy, too busy, or uninterested to say anything besides a hello, if they even manage to get that far. I give credit to the younger teachers who try to talk to me. But being the youngest at the workplace means they’re swamped with all the menial administrative work on top of teaching prep. If for a second they’re speaking to me, some older authority will call their name from across the room, drop something on their desk and make sure they’re busy. And should that young teacher be a girl, rumors spread about us dating or getting married the moment we begin exchanging words, which of course puts pressure on the young teacher.

I keep myself busy, but I think a certain level of social interaction is healthy to maintain sanity. I only need a little and I’ll be okay. I can remember back in France wanting to come to school whenever I could. I was always talking to one teacher in English, another in Spanish or French, or both. Wine and cheese would often occupy the table during morning recess. The lunch hour wasn’t rushed and people actually talked to each other.

2. Lack of a purpose. Meeting with students once a week at best, some 60+ students in all, it’s hard to have a serious impact in the students’ improvement in English. Given those numbers, and the fact that foreign teachers can come here without any teaching experience whatsoever leads me to believe that foreign teachers are not actually here to teach at all. The Korean government is shelling out all this money to have entertainers in the classroom to keep all the students motivated. I can honestly say that I have motivated some students to learn English more, so perhaps I completed my objective. But entertainment pays a little better in Hollywood.

3. Social barriers in language acquisition. Korean, as I explained before, is an impossible language to learn. Add to that an unrivaled desire that Koreans have to learn English and you can imagine how difficult it is to try to get a Korean to speak to you in Korean. The Korean you just met probably hasn’t had a chance to talk to a foreigner in months at the very least, so of course he/she is going to want to speak English. In Jeju Koreans outnumber foreigners by one thousand to one, so we’re a precious commodity. Fortunately, I have one friend who speaks to me in Korean. But given the busy work schedule of most Koreans, my speaking time with her is very limited, hardly enough to make significant headway in the language. These sociolinguistic barriers contribute greatly to isolating me.

4. Treatment as a resource. I have often felt like a resource among Koreans, to be used and exploited for English language acquisition - and I’m not talking about at work. Without naming anyone specific, but I have often told to speak in English to several people. Yes, speak English to other people so they can learn English. Not so they can get to know you. At least this is how I feel sometimes.

To put it in a nutshell, Jeju is not a place that feels like home, despite that I’ve lived here longer than I have in any other foreign country. At any rate, I will be flying to Paris (I had typed I will be flying home to Paris!!!) on September 1st, the day after the conclusion of my contract. In Europe I will visit some friends and finally return home sometime in the late fall.

I will post again before I leave Korea.

A very difficult language

The cold weather finally lifted a week or so ago, but the approaching monsoon season will bring the rain before long. In other news, the usual frustrations of working in the Korean public school system have continued, such as being notified 20 minutes ahead of time about teaching a supplementary English conversation class. I refused to do it straight away, demanding more advance notice. Other frustrations among the few EPIK teachers with whom I keep in contact include lack of support from school administrators regarding student problems and pokes in the ass from elementary school students. Read this.

I've spoken about how difficult Korean is, but sometimes it's hard to imagine the extent of the difficulty. While surfing the internet, I found some interesting information about foreign language study for English speakers. The National Virtual Translation Center hosts a page that breaks all the world's widely spoken languages into three categories. In the first category were the easy sister languages: French, Spanish, Italian and so on. The second category included quite a few languages, distant from English, which require twice as much study time in order to achieve a comparable level of proficiency. I thought I would find Korean in that category, but I didn't. It was in the third category of languages exceptionally difficult for English speakers where I found Korean, considered by some linguists as a language isolate. Japanese, Chinese and Arabic also belong in this exotic class, which require in upwards of four times the preparation as the so-called easy languages.

The first thing that came to mind was that I shouldn't be upset for still not being good at Korean. But then I thought of the students. I always joke around and tell my students that Korean is harder than English, but I can only imagine how difficult it must be for them. Should every Korean student be required to study a language so incredibly difficult? Shouldn't Korean students be able to choose other easier languages, such as Japanese or Chinese, which are more closely related? What about 100% of American students being required to learn Chinese starting in 3rd grade elementary school? I remember how difficult Spanish was for students back in high school or how my classmates struggled with French, and even they weren't required to learn those to the extent that students must learn English here. As for Spanish and French, you can learn them your sleep.

In my second post back in October, I briefly mentioned how difficult Korean was. Now, over 6 months later, patience tested and failed, a multitude of frustrations later, I can explain better. Korean is agglutinative. In linguistics lingo, it means that Korean uses a lot of different endings that are attached to verbs and adjectives. In English, different words are added to alter meaning. But in Korean, you just attach a different ending on the verb or adjective. There are supposedly five and a half million of these endings, when all combinations are considered. Depending on whether you are surprised, talking to an elder, or speaking in the future tense about an undecided a event, you will use a certain ending. Figuring out the meaning of verbs and adjectives wouldn't be that difficult, if there were a dictionary to consult. But such a dictionary with five and a half million conjugations for each verb and adjective in the Korean language would fill an entire library.

That's just the endings. The word order is another thing to think about, especially when sentences start including multiple conjunctions and relative clauses. Words at the end of a sentence in English might appear at the beginning of a Korean sentence, and visa versa. Translating such sentences is burdensome, so thinking in Korean is easier, relatively speaking.

For the conjunction of the English but, there are several choices in Korean, depending on whether or not the speaker is simply giving background information, expressing two contrasting ideas, or introducing exclamatory expressions. For because there are even more. For the verb to wear you have six choices in Korean, depending on whether you're wearing shoes, glasses, a watch, earrings, pants or a hat. Yet, the words interesting, fun, and funny all mean in Korean jae-mi-it-da, so the learner is left puzzled as to how to precisely convey meaning. On the other side, my students will usually say "not funny" when they are bored. Then you just get some words in Korean that don't don't have any English counterparts at all. A friend of mine told me that our relationship was eo-saek-han. The dictionary didn't have the right word, so I was frustrated until I found the meaning of the word by looking at the Chinese roots: eo = language, saek = block. Expressing this in English requires an entirely different sentence structure.

That's just a bit of what I know, I don't intend to bore anyone with a plethora of linguistics jargon. While I'm on the subject of Korean, a Korean friend of mine did tell me that my reading level in Korean is equivalent to that of a second grade elementary school student. When I first arrived, I had hoped that I would be able to read the newspaper some six months into my contract. I recently found out that the newspapers were written at a reading level too difficult for most middle school students to understand, so now I don't feel so bad for not even being able to read the headlines in a newspaper. I can remember reading the newspaper in the forth grade...educated students in Korea probably have a higher proficiency in literacy than American students.