Dear Changwon (Part I),

I love you, Changwon. I'm just going to come right out and say it. I know we've only known each other for three days, and I know we still have a long way to go, but I really think I love you.

The past four days have been amazing. Incredible. Unbelievable. Take your pick of superlative adjectives, I’ve felt them all. 8:30AM Thursday (US time) I got on a plane. Several layovers, one sore rear end, three extremely disappointing airplane meals, and a full 24 hours later I arrived in the Busan airport, South Korea. Travel is travel, so I won’t spend much time talking about it, other than to say, as emphatically as possible, WHAT IS UP WITH JAPANESE TOILETS?

At my layover in Tokyo, I wanted to freshen up in the restroom, only to find that when it came to relieving myself, I had to choose between the horrifying squat toilet (aka. porcelain hole in the ground) or some sort of SkyNet terminator/toilet hybrid.

Note the side buttons

None of these say flush!

Did I want a steaming jet of hot water shooting straight up into a place where hot water should never shoot? (I accidentally pressed this button) Or perhaps a general spray of the entire lower area, again with the scalding stream of water? (I pressed this button out of curiosity after the first one) How about a melodious flushing sound to cover up the embarrassing sound of ACTUALLY FLUSHING THE TOILET (I didn’t try this button, since there were other people in the bathroom, and I felt the yelps of pain were probably drawing enough attention)? And then to top it all off, in case I had made a real stinky, I could initiate the POWERFUL DEODORIZER, to mask the scent of my unseemly bowels (did not need). None of these buttons offered to actually flush the toilet, which was (of course) done with your typical hand lever hidden sneakily on the side of the tank (which took me a good 3 ½ minutes to find).

Anyway, Japanese lavatory eccentricities aside, it was smooth sailing all the way from Boston to Busan, where I was met by Alistair, my wonderful wrangler from Korean Horizons. My next statement deserves its own line, and special emphasis so:

ALISTAIR. IS. INCREDIBLE.

There. CAPS lock and emphasizing periods! That’s how much I believe in this statement. Alistair has been absolutely amazing in helping me along the way here. I want to recruit everyone I know to come teach in Korea, just so they could have the opportunity of working with him. I have heard serious horror stories about agencies here: how they just sort of cut and run as soon as you set foot in the country, how they completely ignore your cries for help, how they leave you high and dry as soon as the going gets rough, and all I can say is how glad I am to have chosen Alistair and Korean Horizons. I know this is starting to sound like some sort of paid advertisement (what do you think Alistair?) but it’s not, this is just my relief talking.

Alistair picked me up, in person, at the airport (holding up a sign with my name on it! Just like in the movies! I’ve always wanted that!) and drove me back to Changwon. Keep in mind that this is at 9:00PM on a Friday night. The guy gave up his Friday night just to come pick me up and help me get settled. (and that’s just the beginning!) A 30 minute drive later, we were in Changwon where we met my co-teacher Mrs. Choi who showed me to my apartment.

Studio apartment, this is the main room.

Kitchen/laundry. No oven :(

I'm on the 11th floor. This is the street view from my window.

Nice view, huh? The whole city is surrounded by mountains.

Mrs. Choi is also absolutely wonderful. I was already pleasantly surprised that I would be able to move into my apartment, since I had been told I would have to stay in a hotel for the weekend. Mrs. Choi had everything set up. She had even bought me some bread, jam, cream cheese, and milk so I could have breakfast in the morning (this is a big deal, since Koreans don’t eat breakfast food like Americans do). The next day (Saturday) we arranged to meet so she could show me where the school was. She brought her family along, which was wonderful. She has two young children, a boy who is 7 (Korean age, in America he’d probably be 6) and a daughter who is 2 (again, probably like 1 ½ in America)* and her husband, who was too shy to speak any English, but I suspect he knew enough to follow our conversation. She showed me the location of her school, Sang-Nam Middle School, and then informed me that I would also be teaching at another nearby school (Nam Middle School) for 2 days each week. This was news to me, but overall not a huge deal, since the schools are pretty close to each other (and I get an extra 100,000 won each month for teaching at two schools!).

*In Korea, apparently everyone turns a year older on January 1st. So, if a kid is born in February, he/she is already said to be 1 year old, and then they turn 2 the next January 1st. This gets confusing when you realize that if someone is born in December, even December 31st, they are 1 year old, and then turn 2 on January 1st. So, theoretically, a 2 day old infant could be 2 years old in Korea.

After seeing the schools, Mrs. Choi invited me for lunch. I readily agreed, eager to try my first Korean meal in Korea (I’ve loved Korean food that I’ve tried in the States). After some quick discussion in Korean with her husband, she pulled into a restaurant called… Bennigans. An American chain restaurant, serving American and Tex-mex. Sigh. Perhaps she was worried that I wouldn’t find Korean food palatable, or that I wouldn’t know how to eat in a Korean restaurant, and was trying to help me save face (saving face is a big deal in Korea). Either way, I enjoyed the company of her family more than I enjoyed the meal, and appreciated the gesture, despite my disappointment at not having yet eaten real Korean food.

After lunch I went back to my apartment, and decided that I should try to buy some groceries, so I headed off down the street to E-MART, the huge department/grocery/anything-you-could-ever-want store just down the street. Now, here is an instance where I let my expectations get the best of me. I was completely unprepared for E-MART. Grocery shopping in the US is generally a pretty stress-free endeavor. Supermarkets are fairly quiet and low-key, with patrons casually strolling down the well-organized aisles which are clearly marked for convenient, hassle-free shopping. This is what I have come to expect. E-MART sounding so close in name to American stores like Wal-Mart and K-Mart, I expected a similar experience…

Oh, how wrong I was.

E-MART was a teeming throng of bustling customers, all pushing and elbowing their way through the mob to get their desired items. Aisles were short and haphazardly placed, and of course, nothing was in English. In addition, at the end of every aisle was a sales person, apparently hired by companies to try to sell you whatever item is in that aisle. You know how sometimes grocery stores will have those tables set up for free samples of new foods, and you might casually walk over and try a small, toothpick-skewered piece of that new brand of hot dog? OK, imagine that. Now imagine one of those at the end of every aisle. Now imagine that they’re not just selling hotdogs on toothpicks, they’re selling toilet paper, and dish detergent, and everything imaginable. Now picture them all screaming at you in Korean to buy their product as you walk by. And you’re being jostled by an angry hive of hassled Korean shoppers, who just want to get their stuff and get out, and don’t care that you are a lost little American who can’t read the product descriptions and don’t know where anything is, or what it’s called, or how to ask for help.

And that is E-MART on a Saturday.

(to be continued…)