Awesome Things about Korea #45: Eating foods that Koreans think Westerners can't eat

Homemade Doenjang (Photo credit: powerplantop)

The other day at lunch at my school, they served one of the best lunches I've had there by far:  make-your-own bibimbap with bean sprouts, carrots, lettuce, kimchi, and rice.  On the side they served some fried sweet potato slices, green gochu peppers, dwenjang paste, and pears.

Gochu peppers are known for being spicy; after all, it's these peppers that are dried, ground, and made into gochujang--the staple of Korean cooking.  They are what we would call chili peppers at home.  But these particular green gochu peppers are special in that they aren't as spicy as their tinier red counterparts.  Meaning, they are quite palatable with a dollop of dwenjang (soybean paste) on top.

chili peppers (Photo credit: marzbars)

My coworker and I each loaded our trays with a healthy serving of gochu and dwenjang and sat down next to a few of our Korean coworkers to enjoy.  Our coworkers were surprised by the amount of peppers we had on our plates, and remarked, "Are those peppers too spicy?"

We replied with a shake of our heads and the crunch of a pepper, "no."  And they weren't.  In fact, it was almost akin to eating carrot sticks with ranch dressing back home, just that comforting of a feeling.

You know you've adapted well to being in Korea when you eat your veggies with dwenjang like you'd eat them with ranch dressing back home.

Goals for 2012

Now that I've decided that this year will be my last in Korea, I've started a list of goals that I want to accomplish during this year before I leave and head home.  Some are career-related, some having to do with travel, while others are more geared towards personal achievement.  I won't call them resolutions, but rather guidelines for a productive year.

One of the main things I want to accomplish this year is to get into graduate school or to start work in NC public schools through a lateral-entry program.  It all depends on my application, resume, and experience--and how that will weigh into an admissions decision.  There are two universities in NC that offer lateral entry jobs through the NC Teach program:  Western Carolina and Eastern Carolina.  They are about as far apart as you can get geographically and socially, as each campus has a different atmosphere.

There is also a possibility of going through another teacher program called The New Teacher Project, which places teachers in high-need areas.  You go through a summer training program first, and then you start teaching in the fall.  In a way, it is similar to Teach for America.  I'll be applying for that as well.

In order to prepare for all of this, I'll have to start studying for my teacher licensing exam, the PRAXIS test.  Regardless of what route I take to get started teaching in NC, I'll have to take this test.  The PRAXIS I is the general teaching exam, while the PRAXIS II is a subject test suited to potential high school teachers.  From what I've heard from other teaching friends, the PRAXIS I should be nothing to worry about.  Of course, it's been about 5 years since I took any kind of standardized test, so I feel like I need to at least do a little prep to make sure I still know basic concepts.  The more time I've spent in Korea, the more I feel like I'm losing bits and pieces of my advanced English ability, and that doesn't sit well with me!

Another goal for this year is to travel to a few more places that I haven't gotten to go to yet in Asia.  I'm hoping to get to Thailand, Singapore, and Hong Kong by the time I leave next year.  I went to Australia this past year and loved every minute of it.  And I got the chance to go camping on a small Korean island with friends, not to mention explore more of the province where I live.  Money and time providing, more traveling will happen this year!

I also want to keep up with exercising and eating right.  It was a big accomplishment last year for me personally, losing 10 kilograms (22lbs) and feeling better about how I looked in clothes.  Buying smaller clothes and being a different size was a big confidence booster.  Even better was being able to finally buy clothes in Korea, where sizes run in small, extra-small, and impossibly tiny.  "Free" size didn't seem to be any freer than its minuscule counterparts, sadly enough.

I started out strong with my blog last year and kept it going through most of the year, but towards the end it was more difficult to stay focused with everything else going on in life.  This year I want to continue writing and bringing life in Korea to you all, even though other things might get in the way.  And although I might be leaving Korea in the next year, I'd like to transition this blog from my life overseas to my life back home.  It won't be saying goodbye, but rather starting a new chapter in my life.  Who knows what the next chronicle may be?

Real Life

Real life has gotten in the way of blogging, much to my disappointment.  I apologize for anyone who has been wondering where I've gone to and when I would be back again with a new post.  Here I am.

I feel like I've been in a state of flux since November, with school stuff, friends, extracurricular activities, and every day life.

The hardest part of it all has been school.  Imagine my surprise when my school chose not renew my contract for another year, as well as the contracts of a few other female teachers.  The principal had chosen instead to hire several new male teachers, even though the current teachers now had experience working with the school. The decision left some of the other teachers baffled and confused as to the reasoning behind it, and it left me reeling.  To me, it felt like a slap in the face.  Had my teaching not been good enough?  Was I not a good enough teacher to warrant a renewal after all?  Was my desire for teaching and my appreciation for my students not enough?

All these questions and more went through my brain, and in some way, still do.  In the States, there are laws that prevent this kind of thing from happening, but in Korea, traditional mindsets rule.  I'm uncertain if this had anything to do with the principal's decision but whatever the reason, I've been trying to move past it and see what is next.  Easier said than done, of course, and not without struggle or feeling depressed.

As a result, I've been questioning what exactly I want to do with my time in Korea.  Do I want to stay longer?  Is it time to go home?  Have I learned what I can from my experiences?  Am I ready to start the next chapter of my life?  If so, what is the next chapter?

This year I turned 28.  I arrived in Korea in 2008, when I was 24.  At that time, I had been out of college for almost 2 years, working as a teacher assistant/tutor in a local elementary school but not making a lot of money doing it.  After several unsuccessful applications to graduate programs for a master's in English Education, I wasn't sure if teaching was something I really wanted to do anymore.  Cue an email about teaching in Korea.  It seemed so far-fetched and foreign at the time.  However, a little part of me started thinking...what would be so bad about living in another country for a year, making/saving money, not paying for an apartment or car, and learning about teaching ESL?  It would definitely help me decide if teaching was what I really wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Not knowing much about Korea or teaching, I took a leap of faith and jumped right into a new adventure.  I was determined to learn what I could as I went along, and take things as they came.  Some people might have thought I was crazy doing it, but the time I've had here has taught me more about living than what I would have gained at home.  Living in a foreign country gave me a kind of independence that I hadn't felt before, making all my own decisions about how I wanted to do things.  I called all my own shots about grocery shopping, travel, even what I would do outside of work in my free time.

I thought it would only a be a year.  One year of my time and I would return to NC ready to see what my life had in store for me next.  Little did I know that year would pass quickly and lead to another.

Now after 4 years in Korea I'm on the fence regarding what to do next.  My plan was to stay for another year with my current school and then head home in 2012, but recent events have made me reconsider.  After much debating and thinking, I decided to stay one more year, but go into the public school system.  This would be similar to teaching back home, and with the benefits of vacation and higher pay, more enjoyable.

My plan after that is to head back to NC to get my teaching license.  Originally I wanted to be a high school English teacher, but teaching here has changed my perspective on younger students.  All my experience in Korea has been with elementary and middle school students, and I feel like this will help me in teaching these age groups in the States.  This year will be spent preparing to return to NC, studying for my PRAXIS exam(s), applying to grad school and lateral entry programs, and wrapping up my time in Korea.  It's been a good few years in the land of morning calm but I feel in my heart that it's time to bid farewell to this country that's been my adopted home.  There's so much more I want to do, and I can't do it all here.  I've been putting my career and life on hold while living 7000 miles from home, watching friends marry, move away, have babies, start jobs, and live their everyday lives--experiencing these changes through phone calls, emails, and Facebook posts.  Even being in the "future" I still feel stuck backwards in time, finding out about things long after they happened.  I want things to happen in real time.  I want to go back to the place that is calling me home.  I want to go back to the land of the long-leaf pines, Outer Banks, the Appalachian Mountains, Chapel Hill, crisp autumn nights and summer thunderstorms, sweet tea, barbecue, WalMart, Target, shopping malls, family, friends, my house....the list goes on and on.

This post is long in coming, but sometimes real life gets in the way.  Sometimes our lives get in the way of other things we should be doing, but just don't know it yet.

It's time I stopped living on pause and started living on go again.

Amazing Time Lapse of Seoul

This video was brought to my attention by Danver, a friend and coworker.  I'm glad she shared it on Facebook so I could share it with you.  Enjoy!

 

Seoul Time Lapse 2011 from Oh Choong Young on Vimeo.

One Test for the Rest of Your Life

Today is the annual Suneung, or university entrance exam in Korea. It's similar to the SAT, but incorporates so much more than any college test I ever took!

All high school students arrived at school (hopefully early) to take an 8-hour test that will determine what university they will enter after graduation in the spring. Over the past year, they've logged countless hours studying with little sleep (less than they were used to getting before high school) to prepare for this exam. 

Parents place all their hopes on their sons and daughters getting into one of the SKY universities (Seoul National, Kyeonggi, and Yonsei) so that a good job may be secured. It's such a serious test that other schools in the area will close or delay their start times, as well as local offices and businesses--just so the testing seniors can get to school on time. Extra transportation runs to ferry students to school, and the police make sure that the roads are less crazy than usual, even. Underclassmen arrive early to cheer on their senior classmates, and some friends and family will remain camped outside the school until their student is done testing. Stores stock up on special foods and drinks promising good test results and increased concentration, while family members are cautious not to affect the mood of their student whilst he or she is studying.

All the prep for a good college doesn't come without negative consequences, however.  The stress levels of high school seniors is sometimes so much that it drives them to suicide.  Suicide rates among high school students numbers in the few hundreds every year.  It has been such a problem that President Lee Myeong-bak passed a law limiting the operating hours of private cram schools (hagwons) to stay open only until 10 pm.  These days, officials patrol and routinely crack down on schools who violate this rule.  They are trying to ensure that students don't overstretch themselves studying to the point of exhaustion, illness, depression and suicide.

Best wishes to all the students who took their suneungs today!

Sometimes all you need is some catchy KPop

Catchy KPop tunes help shoo away the doldrums, and if you're lucky, get your foot tapping and body moving (also good for the gym!).  Luckily, the latest music from Wonder Girls and Girls Generation does just that.


The Wonder Girls' new single is titled "Be My Baby" and to me, the choreography carries a lot of elements over from Beyonce's popular "Single Ladies."  The tune itself reminds me of another song I can't quite put my finger on, however.




I have been hearing Girls Generation's "The Boys" everywhere in the stores these days, having been out for a few weeks now. It won't be long before the same is true of the Wonder Girls, and then there will be some stiff competition for airplay.



While searching for the latest Wonder Girls' single on YouTube, I found this cool video from a live cover performance they did of "Nothin' on You" by B.O.B. for Billboard Studio Sessions.

The last few weeks...

The past few weeks have been filled with all kinds of activities that have kept me busy, and thus, not able to update as often as I would like!

At the beginning of October our school held an art festival where all the classes put on performances for their parents and peers.  Some classes played instruments, some danced ballet, and some sang songs with accompanying dance routines.  Even a few of the teachers got involved with the students, including myself.  The 4 Hope class Korean teacher dropped out of a performance of "Summer Nights" from Grease, so I stepped in to help out my friend.  After a few days of rehearsal, we had put together some dance moves to go with our song, and hoped that it would be good enough to impress the parents and students.  Well, it turned out to be pretty good, generating a round of applause and a standing ovation, even.  (Let's just hope we won't be asked for a repeat performance for next year's festival.)

Next was a trip outside of Gwangju with Pedro's Lonely Korea group to see a cool Buddha carved in the side of a mountain.  I did a little post on that previously, which you can check out here.  The weekend afterwards brought my first-ever paintball experience.  That was awesome and exhilarating and confusing, all at the same time.  A large group of my friends and I went to a wooded area to the northeast of the city and donned full body gear just to shoot each other.  It would definitely be a good way to get out any aggression towards someone if you had any!  The rest of that weekend was dedicated to a girls' weekend in, where we drank wine, painted our nails, talked about girly things, and watched a movie.  And it was made complete with an awesome Sunday breakfast of peanut butter banana pancakes with brown sugar butter and maple syrup.

Everyone came together again as a group a weekend later to celebrate our friends Alushia and Misub's birthdays with a big potluck barbecue at his shop.  After we stuffed ourselves with delicious food and Gail's pumpkin spice cake, we headed to the noraebang rooms we had rented to sing our hearts out.  Giving out sparklers to random Koreans in the street made the evening even more fun once we left the noraebang and canvassed our usual spots.

And then there was the BIG weekend, this past weekend.  Friday was Alushia's actual birthday, so we took her out for a nice Italian dinner and to hang out for a little while.  The evening was pretty tame, because we all knew that the next night would bring almost sure insanity.  (It was Halloween weekend, after all.)

We met up after the Gwangju International Day to put the finishing touches on our costumes and then headed downtown in groups to join all the other Halloween revelers.  Feed the Boats was playing a show at Speakeasy, so that was the place to be to catch good music and check out everyone else's costumes.  I saw a lot of very unique outfits, some of which I still can't be sure what they were supposed to be.  I myself dressed up as "Bad" Sandy from "Grease," which involved lots of leather, red lipstick, and teased, curly hair.  That night, I found myself in the company of a zombie hoard, Mr. Potato Head, RoboCop, Kim Jong Il, a Japanese cartoon character, Bananas in Pajamas, gay Hitler, pirates, assorted animals, and the Bermuda Triangle among others.  (See, I told you Halloween was going to be insanity.)  Koreans would walk by our large group of costumed folk outside Speaks listening to the music, and quickly walk past hoping to remain unseen.  Most of the time, however, they were chased down by the zombie hoard, scared silly, and photographed.

Now it's November, and more adventures and fun are unfolding before me.  It doesn't quite feel like fall here at the moment, with temperatures hovering around 70 degrees this week.  But I hope that the chill of fall will return, and then soon after, winter should be here.

In Korea, sometimes it's possible to get so busy with everything you almost forget to breathe.  But this is why I love my life.