Cultural Experience! 찜질방 (Jjimjilbang)

NEWS FLASH: The cafeteria had spaghetti with meat sauce for lunch yesterday! (The sauce was Koreanized; it had the infamous red chili paste. But still good.)

찜질방 is a public bath/spa house. Out of respect for myself and the other ETAs who went, no pictures. (No cameras at the 찜질방!)

Besides the Camp Fulbright (see end of post) activity we had to run, we had the weekend to ourselves. For studying, for shopping, for going out, for.......cultural activities. The OCs organized a trip to a jjimjilbang on Sunday. We've heard some things from the former ETAs, mostly they went with their homestay families, and it was awkward, due to the nakedness. Yes, nakedness. Everyone baths together in same-sex baths. Naturally, being American, we were apprehensive. My logic was that I'd rather be uncomforatable with my also uncomfortable friends rather than my homestay family. Besides, if it was super-awkward and charring, I don't have to see them again after orientation.

So I went.

And I would go again.

There isn't as much nudity as you (or as I first) would imagine. We arrived, we paid and received the jjimjilbang garments (loose shirt and shorts), we changed, we altered hot and cold rooms, we tossed our clothes to go to the bath room, we altered cold and hot tubs, we showered, we got dressed in our original clothes, and we left. We were only fully exposed when changing, walking into the bathroom, changing tubs, and showering. Not even for that long.

For 7,000won, you get access to the jjimjilbang and sauna garments (loose shirt & knee-length shorts). The jjimjilbang has two same-sex floors, women on third and men on sixth. These floors have clothes lockers and the bath room. This is where all the nakedness occurs, but it's a locker room atmosphere (not as culturally different as we expected). We changed into our garments and headed to the main floor.

The main floor is co-ed and has hot, hot hot, and cold rooms. The idea is to open and close your pores. We first went in the hot room (very hot and humid), where you sit or lay down and sweat. This first hot room is 75 degress..........degrees Celsius (=167ºF!), then the cold room (10ºC=50ºF), then repeat at your leisure. Besides the hot room, there's also a human kiln at 85ºC. The main room is to relax, to chat, to sleep, to whatever in between the hot/cold rooms. There's also a snack bar available, which sells smoked eggs and sweet drinks (Important for staying hydrated!) After all the sweating, we relaxed in the baths, showered off, and left. Quite relaxing.

(from the top) This weekend we were also responsible for running an activity for Camp Fulbright, an English camp for Korean students. I joined Team Superbowl for 3hrs of sports with the campers. Look how Korean we've all become!

Placement Preference Form

The weather in Chuncheon is beautiful right now...clear skies, sun, and 70ºF. Perfect for ultimate. The mountians surrounding Chuncheon are actually visible.

Orientation is already half over--three weeks already! In another three weeks, I'll be moving to my placement. Placement Preference forms were due yesterday. I thought I'd post my preferences now and then compare them to my actual placement (announced Aug. 5th). This is a ranking (1 being the highest) form for aspects like location size, student gender, school size, etc. I can simply voice my preferences and what's important to me; I have no control over my placement. The Fulbright office takes my form and decides the rest.


School size: 1) 100-500; 2) 501-1000; 3) greater than 1000; 4) less than 100
The less students the better.

School type: 1) middle school; 2) high school
I don't want stressed out students. High school students study/are in school up to 15 hrs a day. I'd prefer the more relaxed, younger middle schoolers. Side note: the most common operation in Korea is for hemorroids, because they're sitting in class so much.

Student gender: 1) co-ed; no preference for male or female
I'd prefer to teach both boys and girls, but that might not happen. Co-ed means that the school is co-ed, classes still maybe single sex.

Religious Affiliation: (willing to work at...) Buddhist-affiliated school-Yes, Catholic or Protestant-affiliated school-No
Self-explanatory.

Location Size: 1) Suburban = 100,000-500,000; 2) Rural = less than 100,000; 3) Urban = greather the 500,000
Korea's extremely dense, so suburban to me (or the average American) could easily seem urban. I'm okay with a 500,000 population max.

Environment: 1) Island (Jeju-do); no preference coastal, inland, or mountainous
I've talked to some former ETAs about Jeju-do, Korea's Hawaii. The island is beautiful, culturally relaxed from Korea, and is complementary to an active lifestyle.

Resource Availability: 1) Ease of transportation; 2) near other ETAs; 3) traditional/historical area

Placements announced Aug 5th--stayed tooned!

Korean food (음식) part 1

Solar eclipse: I saw pictures of it after it happened from the NYTimes, but didn't get to see it myself. None of the ETAs knew about it, the OCs didn't mention it, and we in Korean class and didn't have a chance to see it. Not happy.

Food-->It's been 2 1/2 weeks in Korea, and I've had approximately 45 Korean meals, 80% of them being from the cafeteria. This has been only a mild introduction in Korean food; however, there's lots to blog about. In terms of quality, Korean cafeteria food is just as good as American cafeteria food. The consolation: Korean food will be infinitely better once we're in our homestays eating homecooked food.

The cafeteria routine:
1. Sterilize hands with ethanol sprayer
2. Take tray and bowl (both tin)
3. Be served rationed dish(es), usually meat and fruits
4. Serve self unrationed dishes: rice, kimchi, cooked vegetables, and soup
5. Grab spoon and chopsticks
6. Eat

Meals in the cafeteria are pretty consistent. I've taken a particular liking to kimchi (김치) and variations thereof (pickled cucumbers or radishes instead of cabbage); the spice tends to freshen/cleanse my palette, so I eat the kimchi first. Then the meat dish, then rice, and, on a good day, a slice of fruit (spicy --> not spicy --> sweet). I tend to skip the soup; I don't like the taste. How spicy is Korean food? Nothing that I can't handle, even though I usually unadverturous when it comes to spicy foods (back home). The Korean spicy is less burning than Mexican or Indian spicy.

Notable experiences: baby octopus (intact), fish eggs (in soup), tentacles (octopus, squid)

What I will not eat/don't like: tentacles (don't like the texture), tofu, egg, rice cakes, overcooked vegetables, black noodles
And I will probably straight up refuse sannakji (wiki read why) if ever served.

What I eat a lot of: rice

Tuesday breakfasts are the most anticipated meal of the week, Westen breakfast day. It may not be the typical Western breakfast, but at least it's familar foods. There's usually fruit, bread, a small cold salad, and cream of something soup. The breakfast entrees were spam and an American Single (1st Tuesday), cereal (2nd), and a breakfast casserole. Korean breakfasts aren't different from lunch or dinner: rice, kimchi, meat, soup, and vegetables.

I've eaten out a few times a in Cuncheon. The first time featured dumplings (만두) stuffed with kimchi or vegetables with meat. My favorite so far is patbingsu (팥빙수), but I'm going to save that for another blog. Chuncheon is famous for its dakgalbi (닭갈비), a spicy chicken dish. Besides the chicken, there's also cabbage, sweet potato, scallions, onions, and rice cakes in a chili pepper based sauce. I went with current (09-10) ETAs and a group of former ETAs (08-09). The preparation is sort of a tease. The server plops a bowl of ingredients on the frying pan at your table. Then, over a period of 15-20 minutes, he occasionally stirs it while you wait. Like what's typical at Korean restuarants, everyone eats directly from the center bowl or dish--just grab what you want with your chopsticks (this is a reflection of Korea as a group/sharing culture).

The food during our weekend at Songnisan, since we were mostly eating out, was much better and more traditional than the usual. We met Ms. Shim at a restaurant when we first arrived in Songnisan for lunch. Everyone greeted her, took off their shoes (socks were obligatory), than sat (on the floor) at our table. Everyone had a small bowl of rice and another small bowl, but otherwise an assortment of dishes covered the table. Most were spices and vegetables specific to the Songnisan mountain area, like leaves dipped in a rice batter. No one eats a lot of any one thing, rather a little of everything. Some seafood looks intimidating because its left intact (like the fried fish below), but is actually ok....

Breakfasts at Songnisan were a treat. After two weeks of rice three times a day, even cereal is a treat. We had a small breakfast buffet with cereal, toast, eggs, sausage, toast, mini croissants, and, most importantly, a fruit tray. Of all my meals so far, this is when I definitely overate--enough to last me till 3pm even after a 5hr hike. So far, breakfast foods are what I miss the most: especially the cereal, fruit, yogurt, and bread. The cafeteria doesn't serve enough fruit to satisfy me and there's a serious lack of diary in my new diet. I'm mostly ok, but the vegetarian ETAs aren't doing so well.

There's still so much to write about: life a Kangwon, Korean classes, cultural workshops, food prt 2,...

Songnisan (속리산)

Songnisan means "leaving the mundane chores", which was the purpose of this past weekend (July 17-19). No studying, just relaxing. From Chuncheon, Songisan is a 4hr bus drive. We arrived around 1pm, had lunch with Ms. Shim and the KAEC Office staff, then began our weekend in Songnisan. We all stayed in Lake Hill, a tourist hotel; some of us had Western accomodations (beds and shower curtains), while other (i.e. me) had Korean accomodations (mats on the floor and no shower curtain).

Ms Shim: One test this weekend was using correct Korean etiquette. Ms. Shim is the KAEC (Korean American Education Commission) Fulbright director, our ultimate authority. Correct etiqutte includes insa (the bowing greeting) at every meeting, lots of thank yous, 잘 먹겠습니다 (chal mawk-kuess-seb-ni-da='I will eat well') before all meals, and 잘 먹었습니다 (chal maw-kawss-seb-ni-da='I ate well') after all meals. The OCs (orientation counselors) continually stressed that we show our respect to Ms Shim and the office staff. As one out of 70 ETAs, Ms Shim knows me as 'the first one in the [Fulbright] facebook ("Easy to remember!")' and "double A number 1" (there's three AAs); she also instructed me on correct chopstick hand positioning.

Friday-Bebjusa Temple: After lunch, we were given a loooonng and disjointed talk about some aspects of Buddhism by an American monk who has spent the last twenty years practicing in Korea. What I enjoyed more was the brief tour he gave us of Bebjusa, an ancient but still operating Buddhist temple. The temple was built in the 7th century AD, rebuilt in the 17th century, and once housed 3,000 monks (compared to 60-80 monks currently. The temple is home to Korea's largest rice pot cooker, which was used to cook lotsa-lotsa rice to feed those 3,000 monks. The temple is also known for the large 33m high, 160 ton Buddha statue and its wooden pagoda. At 6:30pm, we got to watch the evening prayers, during which 4 instruments are played, to 'calm and soothe' sentient beings: a large drum for landwellers, a hollow wooden fish for ocean dwellers, a cloud shaped ironboard for the heavens and winged animals, and a large bell for all those suffering and/or in hell.

Saturday-hiking in Songnisan National Park: Saturday was our free day to relax, which for me meant a 16km hike. With two other ETAs, I hiked to Manjangdae Rock (1054m), then across the ridge to Cheonhwangbong Peak (1057.7m), then back down. Koreans take their hiking seriously! While, we wer outfitted with the basic shorts, shirt, tennis shoes, and water bottle, the other hikers we came across had boots, walking poles, hats, proper hiking apparel, lots of water, food, etc. To give them credit though, the hike was pretty strenuous; some parts of the trail were almost straight up. We were hidden in the trees until we reached the first peak at Manjangdae Rock, where we had a great view of the mountains, which are covered with vegetation. Both peaks were incredibly windy, enough to make you nervous about the height. In total, we covered 16km in 5hours--quite relaxing! ;)

Sunday-back to Chuncheon: And we're back to the dormitories and cafeteria food! These coming two weeks are going to be much more busy than the first two. Camp Fulbright, an English camp for us to practice teaching, has started. In addition to Korean language class, TKD, and cultural workshops, we're lesson planning, observing, teaching, and playing with the kids. We're being kept to busy to get homesick....

If you click on the pictures, a new tab/window should come up with the larger/actual size picture.

topics to come: food, living in Chuncheon and Kangwang Univeristy, laundry, Korean language/etiquette culture...

Taekwondo 태권도

Or simply TKD. During orientation, we have the option of participating in different cultural activities: calligraphy lessons, a traditional tea ceremony, salmulnori (drumming), cooking, hanji (art of paper folding), or, what I signed up for, TKD. A deal was worked out with the 'master of Chuncheon' for a month of lessons (Mon-Thrus, 1hr/day) and a dobok (도복) unifrom. We meet the master last week for our unifrom fitting; he is such the master that all we had to do was stand up, even from across the room, for him to determine the correct size.

Before I go into what happened at yesterday's first lesson, let's go back to the Chuncheon Taekwondo tournament. We've been sharing our dormitroy with youth taekwondo teams from China and Russia and seen other teams (Iraq, Hong Kong, China) around campus. To get pumped for our first TKD lesson, a group of us went to Hobang gymnasium to watch some matches.

We didn't know the rules, so nothing really made sense. Points are awarded for 'good' hits to the opponents target areas: 1pt for the chest, 2 pts the head (but not the face), and an extra point if the opponent is knocked down. That's why some kicks are higher--double the points!

Yesterday was our first lesson. Right after Korean class, we changed into our doboks to go directly to the gym. As Americans, we're already a spectacle; 40 of us dressed all in doboks, even more so! We didn't even know how to correctly tie our belts, which was the first lesson.
The first lesson, especially considering we're all straight-up beginners, was more physically challenging than I expected: 20 laps around the gym (not so hard, but really sweaty), stretching, jumping (over a partner touching their toes, over partner who's on 'praying' on the ground, touching our toes, etc), and basic commands. Generally, I'm excited--it'll be a great workout. For some of the group, TKD is a lot more exercise than they expected. It'll be interesting to see what they do; the fee for a month of classes a bit expensive (100,000 won, ~$80).

tae = 태 = 'feet'
kwon = 권 = 'fist'
do = 도 = 'way'/'method'

taekwondo = 'way of the feet and fist'

According to the master, taekwondo requires endurance, agility, strength (=physical training),etc. And supposedly, everything will become easier, and each day we'll be less sore. We'll see!

Korea (한뭄) Week 1

It's already been a week and this is my first post! The hold-up was the blog name; I want something cathcy, witty, and original. Hangul Howdy is the temp, until I find a better name. If you have any suggestions, feel free!

Things are different here! I've experienced so much in one week that there's no way I'll fit it into this post. Instead, I'll give a skeleton of information today and dedicate later posts to specific topics (food, language classes, Korean etiquette, weather, etc) to fill in details. Again, feel free to to do requests or ask questions.

Right now, I'm at Kangwon National University in Chuncheon (춘천) for orientation. There's 70 Fulbright ETAs (English Teaching Assistants), but I'm the only one from the lonestar state. We're all in a dormitory together, sharing the toilets and showers and eating cafeteria food. Our usual schedule is Korean Language class in the morning (4hrs), lunch, cultural and teaching workshops till 4:30pm, taekwondo 5-6pm, then straight to dinner, lots of studying, and bed---very busy! We get a short break next weekend when we go to Songnisan, a Korean National Park. The schedule gets even busier after that because Camp Fulbright starts. The camp brings in children from schools where past ETAs have been posted to give us the opportunity to practice teaching. And I need the practice!

Today, we're going to see the International Taekwondo Open Championships, which are being held here in Chuncheon, then a teaching workshop in the afternoon, and lots of studying for our Korean test tomorrow. I'm on skype (allen.alicia) if you ever want to talk, just remember I'm 14hrs ahead of central time (GT +8).

Next: TKD or food...

Sunset from my dorm window.