Bidet

Well I apologize for the twenty day gap in posting. I have been busy dealing with some personal items and have not had the time or motivation. But I do now! So I have a couple of stories to share as well as a an update of how life in Korea is going.

So in Korea, as is true with everywhere in the world, there are many differences in cultural and general modus operandi. Some things you experience right away, like everything being in a language with unrecognizable characters or being shoved into a train at the airport by something that I am quite sure was not the invisible hand of God. I recall my first time in Nairobi, getting out of the airport with Katherine Zook and having a man take our baggage cart away, I thought we where being robbed but he just wanted us to take his taxi, and of course tip him for taking our bags even though we where not using his services.

Most of these differences however, are noticed as time goes on. They are often small, or at least seem small but there impact is rather large. One thing I have begun to noticed is that a traffic stop will only let one direction of traffic go at a time and it rotates in a square, like an extended four way stop. This is good to know because I have almost been road kill three times because I was miss-judging whose turn it was. Another "little" difference is how Koreans view age. In Korea when you are born you are 1 and then you gain a year when the new year arrives. Take me for example, I was born on December 3, 1987 so by January 1, 1988 i was already 2 years old. Which means right now I am 22 in the USA, 24 in Korea. When I turn 23 I will remain 24 until New Years. Confused yet? Why is this a big deal? Well first, it makes a big difference to people here, when I say I am 22 they think I am 20 and still in school. Age is very respected and even 2 years can make a difference.

I could go through dozens of other differences but right now I want to talk about, what for me has been the most important so far: Bathrooms. So here is the thing, there are many 'little' differences in this area, and some of them have been somewhat unsettling. This topic may seem in poor taste but I believe these stories are the best way to show you the full extent of my plight. Just be thankful I am not sharing bathroom stories from Africa.

E-Mart...Duh

I was shopping at E-Mart (a major walmart-ish store that is 2 stories and full of everything Korean) and nature began to take its course. So I went to the restroom and was amazed at the luxury! The bathroom was immaculate, with beautiful tiled walls and stall doors of rich mahogany  that went all the way to the floor (I call them Larry Craig stalls). I was in heaven! So I took care of business, almost. For all the luxury and convenience afforded in this masterful commode, they for some reason had absolutely no toilet paper. At least not within the four walls of my stall, which now seemed much closer than before and far less luxurious. Not only was the TP absent, there wasn't even evidence that it was ever there at all. No holder, no stand, no naked tube. Then it dawned on me. It must be on the other side, out in the open with the general population. I cautiously unlatched the door to gain perspective and sure enough there it was. Staring back at me from the opposite wall, twelve feet away or in the terms of the moment, on the other side of the world. Just as I was about to make my move a cleaning woman came in (yes woman). Shocked and frightened over my embarrassing predicament I recoiled, slammed the door, and sat down. Too bad I missed my mark and fell, breaking a changing table I had reached for in a last ditch effort to stave off my inevitable collision. I immediately cursed the cold and unforgiving tile as well as the bathroom as a whole for luring me in with promises of comfort only to cause me pain. For the next twenty or so minutes I remained trapped while she cleaned.

This, unfortunately would not be my only 'incident' with Korean public restrooms nor my most traumatic. As I have written before, working at my schools have been both positive and negative experiences. You can decide what category this one falls into.

The one that got me...

One of the perks of my school is that the teachers are given there own restroom. Nothing too fancy - not like E-Mart - but clean and void of the messes children make. It is also one of the few quite places in the school. The only thing about this sanctuary that seemed out of place was the space-age seat attached to the toilet. This frightened me until I discovered that it was heated. This is a nice feature in these increasingly cold fall days. The toilet, as shown, had many different pictures and buttons that made little sense to me but i ignored them. Until a fateful day when curiosity got the better of me. The toilet has a normal flush in the back which I had been using, but a picture on the seat showed what I thought was water circulating around the bowl. I took this to mean it was a button to flush. So i pushed it. While I was still seated. I believe every person has a few moments in life when they start out in the best of moods making what they think is the best choice only to realize that they have chosen wrong and the outcome will forever change their life. This was one of those times for me. Upon pushing the button I was attacked, or at least that's what I thought at the time. I flew off of the seat, screaming loudly and smashed my face into the stall door. I was so mortified I just hung against the paneling, to scared to move. My body, in the awkward angle that it was in, slowly slid down the door until I collapsed in a heap on top of myself. What had happened was this: the button I pushed was for a bidet. A bidet (pronounced BADAY) is a device that shoots water up from below to aid the cleaning process. I have heard of and even seen these before in Europe but not like this. I was not expecting an icy and wet force to attack me from below. On top of this horrifying experience, my screams had brought the vice principle in, who attempted to save me by trying to bust down the door despite my plea's. Thank God for sturdy cedar.

Korea, despite being somewhat lonely and confusing, is very much the adventure. I hope you all are well  and learn something from (or at least find humour in) my experiences!

My Address

Several people have asked me for my mailing address in Korea and because it holds the Guinness World Record for longest-most difficult foreign address, I have decided to post here. I thought that perhaps this would be a bad idea because of junk mail or creepers but I realize that I am often bored so would probably read. Plus many of my friends are creepers. Anyways here is the 411:

Trevan Hauck

Special District of International Education

Korea Nazarene University (Attn. Jenny Kim)

456 Ssangyong-Dong Seobukgu 

Cheonan City Choongnam 331-718 South Korea

Just reading it makes me run out of breath! So if you want to send me something, great! If not thats fine but an elephant never forgets. Also never send anything but letters by FedEx, DHL, or UPS, use regular postage or priority with USPS - not their FedEx service. This is because I will have to pay taxes on whatever you send, even letters sometimes. Have a great day and maybe do something to make someone else's day better. 

What is My Job Exactly?

So I have written 4 times about food and nothing about what it is I actually do here in Korea (you can see where my priorities are), so I thought it was about time I wrote a little bit about it  show you a little video and put up some pictures.

Cheongryoung Elementary

My official job title in Korea is “Native English Speaking Teacher” and as this implies I teach English. I work a 40 hour work week but I am only in the actual classroom about half that time. The rest of the time is spent planning or blogging or what ever else I can do to distract myself from the hundreds of kids who scream “hello Mr. Trebun!” I actually work in two separate elementary schools, one called Boonyung and the other (my favorite) called Cheongryong Elementary. All of the pics and the video are from Cheongryong. These schools are dramatically different in economic status, education level, and what my role is.

One of my 5 classes

At Boongyung my job so far seems to be little more than a novelty act. I sit in the front of the classroom at a desk while the Korean English Teacher – I use this term loosely as his English is somewhat lacking – and do nothing unless he calls me up to read a list of words or to explain how to play a game. This school is a very old school in what seems to be a poorer part of Cheonan. I really enjoy the student and find the hour long journey to get there, the inability of my teachers to understand me, and the lack of an actual job to be frustrating; it’s a learning process for me. I think it is the place where I miss my ability to communicate the most. Often I will read directions to a game that have been translated from Korean to English, then my co-teacher will explain in Korean and what follows seldom resembles anything I thought I read. But what can I expect? When I first met my co-teacher I told him that I would be having my first day on Wednesday. He stared at me blankly and said “what?’ I repeated. He said he didn’t understand what a Wednesday was; and this is the fulltime English teacher!

Yes it is alive.
Yes she threw it at me after the picture.
Yes I screamed like a girl.

My other school is completely different. I only teach 5^th grade and many of the teachers are very competent English speakers. The school is in a wealthy neighborhood and is only 4 years old. The resources this place has are incredible. Every classroom comes with smart boards, plasma TV, and state of the art computer equipment. The best part about this school is my job. I am a full-blown teacher. I create my own lessons, games, worksheets, and I teach alone most of the time. The homeroom teacher is there of course in case I need something translated but other than that I get to run the show and it has been a lot of fun so far. Some confusing things happen, like the sanitizer and a crazy bathroom story that will be in my next blog.

The girl on the left is constantly following
me around asking me to do things for her
 or to give her candy.

I am thankful for the contrast though because it gives me a wider perspective on life here and how it differs within as much as it differs from my culture. I am also learning just how tough it is for most of the children. Education seems to be everything in Korea, kids go to school from 8:30 until 2 and then after that they go to after school programs for math or English at places called “Hagwans”. Most get home at late and then are up late doing homework for school and the Hagwan. I am told that high school students are often up until 1 or 2 a.m. studying. I couldn’t even imagine going to school all day (no real recess) and then going to school after that! Some even have early morning lessons. Oh and did I mention there is school every other Saturday? I only work during the week thank goodness

  

My other blog!

I have recently relocated my other blog from Blogger to WordPress! It is still in need of a new post, which I am currently working on.

This blog "Figuring It Out", is about theology, life, and God. It is not very dramatic, just some of my papers from college and newspaper articles I have written on various topics. I will be updating it but not as frequently as this because of the time it takes to create something I feel is worth reading in this area. My most recent post, from March, is about sex. Now that you know that you are more likely to go there! Just click on the picture or there is also a link on the left. Have a great day.

Korean Cooking! (Attempt #1)

Let us talk food! Again!

So many of you know how much I love to cook! Cooking is a big part of how I relieve stress (though sometimes it adds to it!) because it allows me to be creative, it allows me to try something new, and most importantly it allows me to eat! I have been very excited to begin cooking Korean food because there are many things here that I like that I have never really made or seen made back home.

My first attempt with Korean Cooking was made possible by this wonderful Korean woman named Maangchi who lives in New York and has an outstanding step-by-step cooking website that breaks everything down. She also has videos of most of her recipes. She was even featured on the Korean National News for bring Korean Cooking to the US - OK, I know I sound a little obsessed, but this lady is great and she is so funny! If you are interested I posted a link to her website on my blog, or just click her name above!

The first thing I made is called 찐빵 만두 (Jjinppang mandu), which is basically a steamed pork bun. The outside is a spongy, fluffy breading made with flour while the inside can be a multitude of things. I went along with the recipes filling and stayed traditional. Pork, sesame oil, carrots, mushrooms, onions, and chili peppers however, I imagine you could put just about anything inside these suckers. They take some time but are really simple and if I can make them here with my limited kitchen resources, you can surely do it. The only difficult thing may be the steaming part, but really all you need to so is fill a huge pot with a little water and put a metal rack or colander inside. 

I don't know why I am blogging this other than the fact that I am super proud of myself for adding a Korean dish to my repertoire. 


UPDATE:  After making this amazing dish and then writing about it, I decided to use my brand-new mandolin slicer to make potato chips. In the process of doing this I sliced off the front of my index finger! I mean this thing bled all night and the next day. Needless to say I am now on painkillers, with a stitch, and no fingerprint but yeah for cooking!

Thirty Days in South Korea

Tomorrow marks 30 days in Korea. Thirty days of exploring, getting lost, getting confused and eating crazy things, though I have been here thirty days and I have not even been to Seoul yet! This realization hit me yesterday as I got ready to go to school. I could not believe that I haven’t been to the number one attraction in this tiny country. A city of almost 15 million jam-packed with people from all over the world, buildings that are state of the art standing next to monuments old as a thousand years. Companies working on everything from cars to cell-phones and producing products at record speed.  This is one city I must see, even though I risk getting terribly lost in translation and perhaps even ending up in some un-reputable area that I would rather not be (word on the street is Seoul has a ‘Red Light’ district that rivals Amsterdam. Ok so word amongst the Americans. So far the word on the street is something like 이봐, 조심해!).

Thirty days and I have yet to learn more than a few phrases in Korean, which is not good because English is used very little in spite of the vast amount of money being poured into English education by the Korean government. Most of the people that can speak it refuse to use it for some reason, I have been given several reasons for this, either they are shy, they dislike it or my own theory – they get a kick out of watching you panic while you try to order a pizza without oysters on it. Whatever the case it does not serve me well in communication and if you know me you are aware that communication is my biggest asset.

I am a communicator and according to Strength Finder I am a WOOer (stands for ‘Winning Others Over’). These characteristics are key to how I function and I have been completely disarmed. Gone are the days of using my infamous charm to get discounts or free stuff. Overwhelming is the amount of information being shared, advertised, and reported here yet I understand none of it. It is mostly my own fault, I don’t know why but I have just not put the effort in to learn more than ‘hello’, ‘thank you’, and ‘goodbye’ except in the case of food words. I can successfully order about 25 different things in Korean. Being able to order food is an essential, and let me tell you I have gotten enough chickens feet and fungus to motivate me into learning how to say “hold the fish head”.

I have been here thirty days and I was begining to feel at home however, yesterday I was made aware of the fact that I am still very much a foreigner. I was feeling pretty good for my first couple of weeks in Cheonan. I know the buses for the most part, where many places are and I found several dishes I like. One of my favorites is tonkaseu, which means breaded pork. Because of my love for this dish I learned how to say it right away and have ordered it many times. My program director asked me what dishes I have tried in Korea. Excited to show off my skill I said a couple of Korean foods prefacing the last one as one of my favorites “I love tonkaseu, it is so good in fact I would eat tonkaseu every night if I could. I could go for some tonkaseu right now.” As I was saying this, I watched her eyes getting bigger and bigger, finally she doubled over laughing saying to herself “ttong gaseu! ttong gaseu!” Finally she explained that it is pronounced “donkaseu”, and “ttong gaseu” means feces fart. No wonder the lady at Kimbob Nara (local restaurant) laughs and says only for you when I order my pork!

Now since I am on the topic of feeling like a foreigner or in other words looking like an idiot, I might as well tell you about yesterday mornings adventure with water. The tap water in Korea is no good, can’t drink a drop. Because of this there are filtered water machines everywhere, I mean everywhere. If you know me and my disdain for tap water or ordinary fountains – especially those in Idaho – you know that this is like my paradise. Fresh Ice cold water down the hall, in school, in every business and anyone at anytime can fill up; in most cases you need your own vessel to fill.

Water Machine in South Korea

Now I am no rocket scientist, but I believe myself to be a fairly competent individual when it comes to life. I feel confident in my powers to use deductive reasoning to assess a situation. So I am walking down the hall at school looking for my water bottle so I can fill up at one of the dozens of watering holes, but I cannot find the dang thing anywhere. So I go in search of cups or some other means of slaking my increasing thirst. Walking downstairs to the first level, an area I am not too familiar with, I see a water machine with paper cups on top just outside the principles office. Now this particular machine had a different look to it, it seemed streamlined, black with a blue light on the front, most of these machines are white with a little lever. I’m thinking “well of course, this is the principle. He’s the big man, the boss; he would have the best water.” Getting excited about the cups and the upcoming event of drinking the best water, I walk up to the machine. I grab a cup, feeling a little disappointed that it is not bigger because surely I am going to desire more of my new-found “principle water”, I put the in the hole and push the button. A tiny amount shoots out into the cup, confused I press and hold; a bit more comes out, I repeat. Maybe this is like a pump or something, designed to keep people from running down the reservoir. After a I get a full cup (it feels icy cold in my hands) I look over to see my head teacher approaching; I down the water. Three things happened simultaneously: first, upon entering my mouth I am instantly aware that this is not water however I am not quick enough to completely reverse the swallowing process; Second, my head teacher runs over and screams “geumanhae!” or “stop!”; Finally, while my brain is saying “this is not water” and my teacher is saying “stop!” my body is saying “turn your head and spit this crap out at her!”. All of this happening at once, I freak out she screams, I spit, she screams again – dodgeing it thankfully – and then I begin some sort of choking and tap dancing routine. The principle then arrives on the scene and begins to laugh saying “Sanitizer! Sanitizer!”

Thirty days and I have yet to go to Seoul, but all things considered it is probably safer for me (and others) if I stay put for a while.