Busan Part 2

I had thought about calling the posts Busan part 1,  Busan part 2, and Busan part 3 for awhile before deciding that it worked. I am going to be living in Busan for a year, so in a way everything is going to be about Busan, and I can’t just number all my post so that a few months down the line I’m at Busan part 12, or whatever. That would be boring. But I think calling the first few posts from Busan, Busan part 1,  Busan part 2 and Busan part 3, works because I still feel like a visitor here. Like a tourist. As I am getting into my routine, that feeling has become less and less and is changing into something else, so by the blog post after the next, I feel like I can start talking about my life here, rather than just what it is like. But for now, I’m still settling in, so this blog post and the next will be about me visiting Busan, even though I live here.

I had left you all off with my co-teacher driving me towards my apartment, me feeling nervous and surreal in the back seat. We drove through a lot of the city and the traffic was frightening. At first I was feeling nervous in the back seat because of meeting my coteacher for the first time, but halfway through the ride I was nervous because I was fearing for my life. The name of the game for driving for Korea is aggression. Such petty things as using turn signals, or waiting for someone to let you in when changing lines, or not tailgating, or waiting your turn to go, have no place in Korean driving. Sidewalks are more like a theory than an actual practice. People park on them all the time. Motorcyclists and scooter drivers delivering food or whatever else use the side walk as a secondary road. In a way I can’t blame them, if I were on a scooter, I wouldn’t want to drive on those roads either.

In the moments that I wasn’t watching the road and gripping my seat in terror, I looked out the window in fascination. It looked how you imagine a modern Asian city to look. Tall concrete buildings made colorful with endless signs and people, giving everything an oddly cramped feel. Everything here feels both big and small at the same time. There are huge buildings, apartment blocks that are like sky scrapers, new business buildings and hotels and malls made of glass that seem too big to be where they are, a rectangle shape somehow fitting into a square hole. But the huge buildings are made of tiny shops and apartments. Shops that can only fit a few tables, or clothing stores with only a few racks of clothing, because the space is so small. But however small a space is, or how gray and concrete the building look, or how dank and vaguely smelly a stairwell is, the interior of the restaurant or clothing store is going to be adorable. It is amazing. The Koreans have interior design down pat. Sure, sometimes you might come across a groady looking place, but on the whole most stores here are trying for a calm oasis from the city feel, and most of them succeed. But seriously, if you like modern interior design, this is the place to be. 

  

So we are driving through the city and we go further and further away from the center, but before I could start to worry about actually being far away from everything, we pulled up to my apartment. It is in a high-rise apartment complex with businesses at the bottom, known as an officetel here. We got my luggage out and started inside and up a nice elevator and I was starting to get nervous. Sure, so far it looked nice, but I had heard horror stories. People with mold, people with hard beds with mystery stains. People with no wifi.

So we made our way up to my floor and I was just hoping for sanitary.  But as we walked in, it was more than sanitary, it was pretty nice. The first thing I saw after entering the password protected door was a row of tall dark wooden armoires that had plenty of storage for all my things and a bathroom with a nice big separate shower stall. In Korea, a lot of these small studio apartment’s bathrooms don’t have a separate place to shower, the bathroom itself serves as the shower stall. People have to hold the shower head above their head as they awkwardly crutch over the sink, trying not to get the toilet paper wet. So I saw the bathroom and was sold. Here’s what it looks like. 

After that, we headed over to my school, one subway stop away, but on the other side of a mountain, so I can’t walk there. And the good news is that I am right next to a subway stop. It is literally right out side of my apartment. The rest of the city is at my doorstep, so that put to rest any worries of my location. The school is at the foot of the mountains, and has a great view from the back of it.

All the doors were open, letting in a nice breeze. In the distance, maybe a floor up or down the hall, I could hear a kid practicing the saxophone. It was a pleasant and serene sort of atmosphere. I was shown my shared office space with the other special subjects teachers, and around the rest of the school swiftly.  There was still more to do. But first, I had to meet the vice principal. I was, once again, nervous.

I remembered different etiquette all at once. Bow, shake hands, as a women subordinate I shouldn’t initiate the handshake. Or was it the opposite? I thought I had read somewhere that I should actually initiate the handshake, because it was awkward for men to initiate a handshake with a woman, particularly a younger one.  Now I’m not sure. How much of my practiced Korean introduction do I say? Before I could think any longer we had reached the end of the hallway, and to my surprise it was the vice principal who was playing the saxophone, not a kid. He stopped playing, looked up at us approaching, said hold on a second in Korean, put down the saxophone, and wandered over to us. All my preparation went out the window because he just gave me a cherry wave, said hello, and started talking to my co-teacher in Korean before we wandered away. It was wonderfully casual.

The rest of the day and the next were spent doing a lot of boring documentation work, buying stuff, and trying to adjust. It wasn’t until the following Monday (I got in on a Wednesday) that I actually taught.

So next time, I will talk what it is like teaching Korean 5th graders and what it is like being a tourist in a place you live in, going around in a large group of foreigners.

 

Orientation Part 2, Busan Part 1

The rest of orientation went very quickly. We figured out where the wifi was, stuttered our way through ordering food in Korea for the first time, and figured out how to get into town.

We went on a “cultural excursion” as EPIK called it, where saw other people, Koreans, and Korean things in any large amount for the first time.  We saw the Jeonju Hanok village, which is a historical village, with a lot of older style houses, and a lot of tourism. We made fans and played drums. We ate bibimbap and oddly shaped ice cream…things and visited museums and generally had a good time.

 

We also had to come up with a lesson plan and present it with two of our other group mates to the rest of our group and a judge, who would tell us what we needed to fix afterward. It was a mix of group word, public presentation, and time management, while most of us were still shaking off the jet lag, so it was an oddly stressful addition to the oddly stressful environment of orientation. But the slight nerves surrounding the orientation presentation were nothing compared to the nerves of what followed directly afterward.

We were finally, finally, after months of waiting, of planning and researching and wondering, were getting our final placements. We were going to learn about what school we were teaching in, in what part of the city. We were going to get our school contracts and packets of information that would be it. After that we would have the goodbye dinner, pack our luggage, leave it downstairs and prepare for another big change.

After the presentation, which went smoothly enough and was not really a big deal, I sat in a room with the rest of the people going to Busan, and learned I was going to an Elementary School, in Bokbu, Busan, South Korea. After that, I waited impatiently for the meeting to finish so I could google it.

 

I googled it and was worried. It seemed to be on the very outskirts of the city, it what looked like an isolated little cluster of buildings away from the rest of the city. With the spotty wifi and only my ipod to work off of, I couldn’t figure out if there was a subway stop next to the school or not.

I imaged being stuck in some small town on the outskirts of the city, away from everything I wanted when I decided to move to Busan. I wanted the sea, I wanted to live in a big city, and this school was apparently far away from both. My heart sunk and for a moment I just started at google maps feeling dissapointed, then trying not to.

But after a few minutes, I just kind of laughed at myself. First, maps are deceiving, and Korea is a small country, it probably wasn’t as far away from everything as I thought. Second, I asked myself if it really mattered, and decided it didn’t. I was here, I was finally here, and I was going to teach and everything else was just gravy.

So feeling lighter, I packed up my stuff and the the next day, all of the Busan teachers got on two buses and left.

We drove a few hours to Busan, seeing interesting and beautiful scenery and mountains on the way there. We also got a view of the city as we drove in. It looked like white concrete and glass buildings scattered endlessly in between hills and mountains and rivers. It looked huge and amazing and overwhelming.

 

 

We were dropped off at a middle school in the middle of Busan, where we waited with our luggage to meet our co-teachers. Our faces were set in nervous smiles. I couldn’t stop moving my hands, shuffling from one foot to another. We felt like kids getting picked up from summer camp by our parents. As the co-teachers showed up, we were one by one lifted away to our new lives, full of hope and fear.

My co-teacher showed up with a male co-worker, who was driving. Before saying hello, or anything else after seeing if I was the right person, they put my things in the car, directed me to the back seat, and started driving.

My co-teacher turned in her seat and looked at me with a small smile on her face and said, “You look very young.”  I let out a nervous laugh and nodded saying that that was true, people tell me that all the time.  She turned around and talked to her co-worker, and I guessed my co-worker too, and started talking in Korean with him. I sat in the back, vaguely realizing how surreal everything felt.

In a world wind of action, we went to my apartment, saw my school, and started on all the documentation that had to get down for me to live there. After that, I saw more of the city, taught some kids, and had some fun, but I will talk all about that next time.