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Fulbright Korea Infusion: Volume 10, Issue 1

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FULBRIGHT KOREA

I N F U S ION VOLUME 10.1


Infusion aims to capture the diversity of the Fulbright Korea experience by publishing work from Fulbright Korea Senior Scholars, Junior Researchers, English Teaching Assistants and program alumni. We support artists in the creation of work which honestly engages with their grant year and their craft. The Fulbright Program aims to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries through cultural and educational exchanges.


STAFF PUBLISHING ADVISOR Jai Ok Shim

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Matthew Walters

MANAGING EDITORS

MONITORS

Rachel Fauth Helen Packer

Heidi M. Little Tessa L. Sydnor

DESIGN EDITOR

ASSISTANT DESIGN EDITOR

PHOTO EDITOR

WEB EDITOR

Paige Aniyah Morris

Mara Guevarra

Eugene Lee

Talia M. Cowen

STAFF EDITORS

SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR

Lisa Chang Gabrielle Goodloe Arya U. Mohanka Katherine Moncure Sarah Muscutt Annie Schaeffer Susan Skaza Jared Thompson Kendra Van Nyhuis

Taylor Kuramoto

OPEN WINDOW TEAM

Hattie Blair Shannon Coombs Alex Ford Christopher W. Hoffman

PUBLISHING COORDINATOR John Kaleekal


Fall Threshold, Bryan Betts, Jeongeup.


CONTENTS 2

Letters

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Foreword

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Scenes from the Kitchen

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Nights at the 노래방

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I Became Food on a Train, Wandering: Five Poems

Jai Ok Shim + Marc Knapper

Matthew Walters Eugene Lee

Paige Aniyah Morris

Dawn Angelicca Barcelona 33

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41

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5, 14, 30, 50

Losing Face Rachel Fauth

Open Window Various Students

Sting of a Hard Serve Rebecca Brower

Of Near Silence Josh Brandon

Konglish: A Korean-American Phenomenon (excerpts) Zack Horne


LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Jai Ok Shim, Executive Director of Fulbright Korea Dear Readers, It is my distinct honor and pride to present Volume 10, Issue 1 of The Fulbright Korea Infusion. I am impressed with how the magazine continues to shape its identity, from its humble origins in 2008 as an annual feature to its present form as a biannual publication with a multifaceted online platform. Grantees and alumni have developed this production in order to share about the Fulbright experience in South Korea and beyond. I would like to extend my thanks to the Infusion staff as they have worked tirelessly to create this beautifully reflective and poignant issue. Over the past 10 volumes, I have witnessed the publication grow to include the voices of current grantees, alumni and now even Korean students through Open Window. It is delightful to see how Infusion furthers Senator Fulbright’s mission of increasing mutual understanding by creating space for

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various voices from both nations. It is my hope that Volume 10, while only a brief glimpse into each contributor’s life, will paint a textured picture for readers about life in South Korea and the States. The Korean-American Educational Commission was established under a binational agreement in 1950. Now, boasting a community of over 5,000 Korean and American alumni, the commission is more than proud of our grantees’ accomplishments, the impacts of which can be felt in both countries. As with every issue of Infusion, I hope we can each take away something to further this legacy of exchange. Warmest Regards,

Jai Ok Shim Executive Director Korean-American Educational Commission


LETTER FROM THE CHARGÉ D’AFFAIRES Marc Knapper, Chargé d’Affaires Ad Interim Congratulations to Fulbright Korea on the publication of the 10th volume of Infusion. This publication stands as a testament to the diversity of the Fulbright program in Korea, as well as the talent and creativity of its contributors. The stories, poems and vignettes shared within the pages of Infusion reflect the continued importance of the Fulbright mission. In the words of Senator Fulbright, “Educational exchange can turn nations into people, contributing as no other form of communication can to the humanizing of international relations.”

Thank you for representing your nation abroad, and for forging memorable relationships that will have a lasting impact upon the U.S.-Korea alliance. I am convinced that Fulbrighters will continue to play an important role in strengthening the bilateral relationship long after your grant years have concluded. Sincerely,

Marc Knapper Chargé d’Affaires ad interim

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FOREWORD Matthew Walters Now in its 10th volume, Infusion continues to immortalize the stories and memories of an ever-growing Fulbright Korea. Volume 10 marks an important milestone for the magazine and speaks to the prevailing importance of reflection in the Fulbright Korea experience. Even halfway through the grant year, our cohort has amassed innumerable experiences that deserve to be shared. Having worked on three issues of Infusion thus far, I began to think about how the magazine is sustained. As busy as we all are, we still take time out of our days to create—to draw, to write, to photograph. We do this to meditate on the changes in our lives, and 2016 was as much a year of change as any. Some of us arrived in Korea for the very first time, tasked with tackling a new language and culture. Others have taken on new adventures, from graduate school to a different career path. Every year of our lives challenges us with change.

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The work featured in this issue of Infusion demonstrates a key way in which we process change: by finding a place of belonging. All of us have different places we hold dear, whether in Korea, the U.S. or anywhere across the globe. From the volleyball court in Rebecca Brower’s “Sting of a Hard Serve” to the singing room in Paige Morris’s “Nights at the 노래방”; from the dinner table in Eugene Lee’s “Scenes from the Kitchen” to the subway train in Dawn Angelicca Barcelona’s set of poems; we all latch onto places of familiarity in the face of newness. Wherever in the world you are, reading this, I hope this issue of Infusion helps you to think of your favorite place. If you are currently carving out your own place in Korea—amid, for many of us, an unfamiliar language and culture—I wish you continued success in doing so. Especially when life seems anything but consistent, we owe it to ourselves to stop and reflect. The pieces and photographs in this issue will doubtless serve as a reminder to do just that. Please enjoy Infusion, Volume 10, Issue 1.


Winding Down, Katherine Moncure, Eumseong.

1.2 DEFINITIONS

It will be beneficial to define some key terms that relate to the topic of bilingualism and shared and mixed languages, as the specifics can be a bit confusing… According to various definitions cited by Kim (2006: 45), codemixing is the intrasentential mixing of lexical items, grammatical features, and various linguistic units from two languages. Borrowing is similar to mixing, and Kim (2006: 46) defines it as “the insertion of an alien lexical or phrasal category into a given structure.”

Excerpts from Zack Horne’s “Konglish: A Korean-American Phenomenon” are featured throughout the issue. 5


Digital Age, Eugene Lee, Itaewon.

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Under the Sea, Bridget Harding, Jeju.

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Autumn Reflections, Mika Sasaki, Gyeongju. 8


Scenes from the Kitchen Eugene Lee

I’m crying. The feeling is at once gripping and unfamiliar. I’m crying. I’m crying. Repetition does not pull me closer to this fact, as I try to stop by sheer force of will. My snot-soaked sleeves are punctuated with the timeline of the flood’s unknowable duration. Quietly, I set my knife down and wait—I am careful not to rub my eyes. I cry every Friday. I cry every Friday after school and yet the feeling is always unfamiliar, arriving without notice. Eventually, I emerge from my tears and can see clearly again, but only to see the object that has become both the beginning and end of my Friday afternoons: an ordinary, benign household onion. *

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He averts his gaze for a moment, looking out into nothing. My native language swims in his mind elusively in a way I will never quite understand. I have come to see this gesture is a habit as he prepares a question. I pick up another onion from the wide, blue basket and savor the way it halves effortlessly under the weight of my knife. My left hand is rounded as if holding an egg, just as I was taught, and my index finger guides my knife as I make my way across one half of the onion. I am swiping the newly cut crescents into a second basket on the floor when my host father finally speaks: “My personality…it is…so positive?” I nod. “이게 맞니?”1 I nod again. “My personality! It is so positive…I always want learn everything.” “I always want to learn everything.” “I always want to learn everything! Many old people don’t…want to learn…but I always want to learn. I always like to learn.”

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Ige matni? Is this correct?

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I have always wanted to learn how to cook. But catching up on years of missed cooking experience means making lots of food, and food is typically limited to three meals a day. It has been less than a month since I began learning how to cook at my host family’s Chinese restaurant on Fridays, and yet I have already gained years of experience because of the sheer amount of onions necessary for 짬뽕 and 짜장면.2

“Me too,” I reply. “Me too.” *

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Fluency is this: noodles grabbed from behind precisely at the moment they come out of the machine, thrown into the boiler without so much as a second glance; crumbs from the fryer peeled off the oil’s surface with a strainer and flicked into a bin in such a way that each glistening, golden crunch flies as if held together by an invisible thread; cucumber slivers cascading into a bowl under a slicer, the cucumber then flipped in the air and caught precisely with the other side down as if handled by a bartender. Fluency is anticipation born out of persistent repetition and calculation dissolved into the subconscious in such a way that work becomes breathing. For the non-fluent, it is a subtle mastery that is both mysterious and beautiful to witness.

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Jjambbong and jjajangmyeon, spicy seafood noodle soup and black soybean noodle soup, respectively


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I have always been told my hands are pretty. My fingers are long and slender and there are no visible cuts or bruises. Each crush into the bitingly harsh heat of a piece of fried pork brings me face to face with the fact that my hands tell a comfortable history of privilege. I break apart the Siamese pieces of freshly fried pork—conjoined in twos, threes and fours, in splitsecond intervals. Time is precious—each point of contact sears redness into my fingers, and it takes pure willpower to push on. I glance at my host father’s fists. A white bandage is wrapped around his left index finger and there are multiple dark spots marking the backs of his hands. Before we started frying he pointed them out like constellations, urging me to heed the cautions etched in their stories. His hands are heavily muscled, with huge veins forming great valleys and canyons. They are worn like the white, slightly yellowed poster tacked onto the kitchen fridge, lined with scribbles of various phrases in English filled with hope of remembrance. I have no such poster but instead have decades of memories written in English, some painful, embarrassing bruises and some callouses that mark pivotal moments like the time I first read “Othello.” And though he cannot see this palimpsest, I wonder if he overhears conversations with my friends and sees them the way I see his hands—like artifacts that, by charting the past, look forward to tougher palms and longer sentences. *

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“Half spoon of soybean sauce.” “Just soy sauce; not soybean sauce.” He laughs. “Okay, half a spoon of soy sauce!” I take the ladle and scoop—clumsily. I can sense that his nod is caught in that odd space between a pledge to exactness and an indulgence of laissez faire. I toss the sauce into the pan and hear a sizzle. Time passes and the stir-fry in the pan is splashed with shades of black, brown and red that belie their disparate places on the spectrum of taste. “한번 먹어 봐.”3 “‘Try it?’ No, that doesn’t sound right… Ah! ‘Have a taste?’” “Have a taste!” He teaches me to sample the sauce from the piping hot ladle, which fogs as I bring it closer to my mouth. I’ve had this stir-fry many times since arriving at my homestay, but this time the flavor is cosmic—it explodes in my mouth in every direction, as I at once perceive the various seasonings that compose a certain flavor and simply enjoy the taste for what it is. Ah, so that’s been garlic this whole time. I hope that learning English, though a more gradual endeavor, will one day also make the ordinary beautiful again. All of those unheard conversations and words flickering past here and there will hopefully one day start to take on some kind of meaning. I nod in approval and I turn to my host father, who spends a moment in thought. Finally he smiles, and though his cheeks are worn with constant smiling, I know that he means approval—maybe not for taste but for effort. * * * Just as the blemishes of an amateur chef’s poorly cooked meal can highlight the care put in, so too can the pauses between correct and incorrect grammar showcase the herculean efforts of a language learner. But beyond the glorification of effort is the simple reality that, even for fluent speakers, language is hardly ever perfect. Like cooking, it is usually a pastiche born, for the most part, out of necessity. My host father helps me pour the stir-fry onto a plate, my forearms unaccustomed to wielding a restaurant-sized pan holding dinner for six. My arm trembles from both the weight and the heat. He smiles and gestures me to bring it out to the table, where my host siblings are waiting, hungry from the long school day. 3

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Hanbeon meogeo bwa, “Have a taste.”


The dish may not be perfect, but for us, the makers, parts of it are more memorable than others. And maybe for my host father, particular words or phrases in the conversations we will have at the dinner table will be infused with a little more significance. Every Friday is a chance to teach while being humbled by the mistakes that lie between the nascent and the refined. Every Friday we become two souls in a kitchen that, above all inhibiting factors, speak by tacitly recognizing the other’s desire to share. “잘 먹겠습니다!”4

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Jal meokkesseumnida, I will eat well, or an etiquette phrase one says before partaking in a meal

Eugene Lee is a 2016-2017 ETA at Baeyeong High School in Jeongeup, Jeollabuk-do.

Fire Friday, Eugene Lee, Seoul. 13


4.2.1 IDENTITY

Kroskrity (1999: 112) further mentions that “individuals, as social actors, experience the multiplicity and interactivity of these [identity] levels, in their repertoires of identity.” Rather than choosing a singular identity to portray, a Korean American can never escape entirely their Korean or their American identity. Thus the two end up commingling and interacting in a way that forms an entirely new identity. This occurs with all sorts of identities and these interactions and combinations are what make us unique.

No Running Water in the Hostel, Rachel Fauth, Seoul.

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Lost, Bridget Harding, Jeju.

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Nights at the 노래방 Paige Aniyah Morris

I see the notification while I’m at work, arranging a stack of handouts for my first class. The message says: I have some news. Let me know if you have a chance to call some time today. For a rare moment, my best friend and I are both online. I check the time—it’s nearing 8:30 a.m. in Masan, early evening in Providence, Rhode Island. I want to make the call now, but I type a rushed reply instead: Are you all right?? The answer says, It’s fine. It can wait. All day, I try to guess the news. I imagine new relationships forming as I eat tasteless rice in the school cafeteria, perhaps a marriage proposal taking place at the exact moment I am peeling the skin off a tangerine with my fingernails. When the day ends, I rush through dinner and up to my room, cradling my phone in my hands until the call comes around 10 p.m.

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The news is this: our friend died. When I hear his name, I don’t need to ask how. “It was a suicide,” comes the answer anyway, and the guilt of having already known is sharper than the shock of hearing it said aloud. “He sent some of us a text to tip us off, but we didn’t see it until the next morning. Couldn’t do anything until it was too late.” “Oh my God,” I say. “Oh my God.” I’m not religious anymore, haven’t talked to any gods since my last Mass in Catholic high school, but that night, my head hums with a litany of thoughts that feel a lot like prayers. Please don’t let it be real. Please not him. Please not this. Please.

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Noraebang, singing room

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I watch as you get farther and farther away, becoming a small dot and then disappearing. Will all of this fade after some time? I think about the old days. I think about you. — “If You,” Big Bang Low score: 63 points. My high school girls are learning about American geography and slang this week. When I pull up a big, colorful map of the U.S. on the TV screen, the hurt hits me all over again. None of my classes notice. For that, I feel both sullen and grateful. I think about maps a lot, about how I must be a cartographic error. I shouldn’t be here. I should be in Providence, mourning with my friends. I should be in California at the funeral. In the days that follow, I often find I don’t know where I should be. So I end up going to the one place that feels familiar. The CoinSinger singing room sits on the top floor of Changwon’s City7 Mall. Once I’ve made the trek up two mall escalators, a flashing sign with the singing room franchise’s name in 한글2 ushers me in through the automatic doors. When I step inside, there are no questions asked. I already know what to do. I take a package of shrink-wrapped microphone covers from the front desk and find an empty room. I peel a single ₩1,000 bill from my wallet and insert it into the singing room machine to start. This is how the ritual begins. I first discovered singing rooms in New York City’s Koreatown, a tiny patch of imitation Seoul in midtown Manhattan. Growing up adjacent to the city, I had always seen New York as a shiny escape. Within that escape came another getaway in the form of the $10-per-hour karaoke room shared with friends. We made our first pilgrimages to the singing rooms as middle schoolers, when 2

Hangeul, the Korean writing system

we grew restless but found ourselves too old for arcades and playgrounds. We would catch a subway into the city, get off at 33rd Street and just start walking until we found one—a nameless 노래방 sandwiched between restaurants and discount stores. For an hour or two we’d pass around the thick tome of song selections, queuing our favorites. When we gathered there, all four or six or eight of us clamoring for the sticky remote control pad, we lined up a playlist featuring everyone from Beyoncé to Big Bang, Selena to Utada, songs in all the languages we’d grown up with. We sang solos and duets, main parts and backing vocals. We sang beautifully and horribly with total abandon, like we had no troubles in the world. Most rooms at the CoinSinger in City7 are tiny, intimate spaces, designed for a maximum of two singers. Stepping inside one now, I feel like I’m entering a confessional booth where I become anonymous—or as anonymous as one can be in a semi-soundproof box with a large, glass window on the door. For me, though, after the unrelenting show I’ve made of smiling and laughing and holding light conversation with hundreds of students and co-workers, even this amount of solitude is a dream. With a steady stream of ₩1,000 bills I have saved up for this moment, I lay claim to an hour, two hours, three. I take my time choosing. I make sure each song counts.

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* * * My co-workers say I seem to be shrinking, losing weight and talking less in the weeks after. I try to explain it as simply as I can. “My friend died. And I miss home a little these days.” But none of this seems to translate the way I need it to. “I lost my mom a few years ago,” my co-teacher replies easily. “It’s even harder to lose a parent than a friend. You just have to keep going.” Another teacher adds, “If you look sad, people will think you’re not trying to enjoy your life in Korea. You have to stop looking so sad.” I start to wonder if something is wrong with me, start to think myself a riddle with box braids and brown skin that no one in Changwon can decipher. When I try to open up to anyone, I feel the words jamming my throat, the way sheets of paper get caught and crumpled in the big printer in our 교무실,3 shutting the whole machine down. At first, conversation seems to come most easily when I talk with Da Bin,4 another teacher in the English Wing. She studied abroad in the U.S. for nine years and practiced her English by watching reality shows. It shows in the way she speaks, casual but with a kind of intensity, like every word of the language is a savory piece of insider information. Da Bin and I sit in an empty classroom one Wednesday afternoon, both in our winter coats even though it’s only October. I’d printed out copies of an article about Korean dating culture for our weekly English workshop, but just as I start to introduce the topic, Da Bin cuts in. “Can I talk to you about something else today instead?”

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“Oh—sure!” I push the papers aside. “What did you want to talk about?” She leans in like someone might be listening, despite the room’s door being shut and the hallways being emptied of students, all now in their sixth period classes. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” she says, “but are you depressed?” I blink. Hope flutters in my chest. Maybe I will finally be able to talk with someone about the feelings I have been managing alone for weeks. “What do you mean?” “It’s just,” Da Bin lowers her voice, “some of the other teachers said you’ve been really quiet these days. They watch you eat at lunch and they say you eat too little, you don’t put a lot of rice on your tray and you don’t smile when you eat. They think you have a problem. With food. You know—an eating disorder.”


She watches my face and quickly adds, “I don’t eat lunch with you, so I wouldn’t know. I’m just telling you what I heard.” “What you heard,” I repeat, to be clear. She nods. “Everyone’s talking about it. So I said I would ask you.” Everyone’s talking about it. Everyone. Watching and dissecting my lunch habits, inventing rumors to explain to each other what I had already tried to explain. I try not to get upset. In a culture centered on shared meals, of course my co-workers would pay attention to the way I ate. “Why didn’t anyone talk to me about it themselves, if they were worried?” I ask. Da Bin shrugs, frowning like the idea hadn’t even occurred to her. I wonder, then, if I’m not the only one who struggles to communicate. If everyone around me is a jammed printer, too.

Like the two hands on the clock inside my heart, I keep lingering in this same place. — “11:11,” Taeyeon Average Score: 89 points. Unlike the upbeat playlists of my adolescence, I find myself mostly singing ballads these days. Maybe this is because I still struggle to read Korean quickly enough to rap along to Suga, J-hope and Rap Monster’s verses in BTS’s “Dope,” or because most days I don’t have the vocal range needed to trill Twice’s cutely-sung “TT.” But I like to think my song selection in the privacy of the CoinSinger booth also reflects the state in which I enter that hallowed space. I come to the singing room vulnerable, voice scratchy with the beginnings of a cold. I come full of feelings I couldn’t say aloud prior to this visit, either for lack of courage or the inability to translate. Sometimes, I give a song everything I have, adding in extra runs and ad-libs in exchange for an average score. Some days, I stumble on the lyrics, voice teetering off-key, and the machine gives me a perfect 100 points. With each visit, I learn both humility and empathy. When I make mistakes—and I always make mistakes—at least here, I am forgiven. Outside the door of my booth, a small crowd inevitably gathers, an audience for me and all my unfamiliarity, peering through the glass. I know they are wondering why I’m here, what the mall’s CoinSinger could possibly do for me: a foreigner who can’t sing and can’t speak. In these moments, I also reflect on why I come to the singing room. Why I offer tithes to the song selection machine. 3 4

Blue 55, Eugene Lee, Itaewon.

Gyomushil, teacher’s room Her name has been changed.

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Why I sing psalms with titles like As One’s “Do I Have to Be Sorry?” or T-Max’s “Fight the Bad Feeling.” Why I queue up the BTS songs and the Twice songs with unwarranted faith anyway, even when I can’t hit all the notes. It’s because there’s something healing about the singing room. Its expectations don’t exist. Its evaluations are arbitrary. But more than that, it’s a space where I can release something. If it can’t be the exact sentiments I want to express, then it can at least be the lyrics to a love song. A drama OST. Whatever catchy bop is inching its way up the Gaon charts. Here, with a quick search and a press of the “예약”5 button, I can say anything I want.

Yeyak, reserve, the button used to queue a song on the singing machine 5

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These are the words I never said, not even once. These are the words I might never be able to say again. — “Good Day,” IU High Score: 100 points. November comes, and each day brings new anxieties as the American election unfolds overseas. December comes, and as the holiday lattes appear on all the Starbucks menus in Changwon, I write a silent Christmas list, some days wishing more than anything that I could go home. On these days, I settle for CoinSinger. The teachers at school always look scandalized when I tell them how I spend my weekends. “You go to 노래방…alone?” they ask, eyes round as ₩500 coins. They click their tongues in pity. This is yet another thing I can’t quite explain—that it would feel wrong now, even sacrilegious, to go to the singing room with anybody else. There’s an evening at CoinSinger when I request Zion.T’s R&B ode to his workingclass upbringing, “Yanghwa Bridge,” exactly three times. Each time I listen to the song, I cry.


When the music shifts into the second chorus and Zion.T croons, “엄마-아-아-아, 행복하자,”6 I think about calling home more. I think of the moments I’m missing—the last days of my friend’s life. The fluctuations in my father’s health. Those first post-graduation job offers I couldn’t celebrate in person. The breakup through which I couldn’t console a friend. When Zion.T sings, “이제 난 서 있네, 그 다리 위에,”7 I remember how many dashed study abroad plans, Fulbright application revisions and years in the making this moment has been. I remember that even when it is lonely, it is still a privilege and a dream. There are always feelings I will struggle to explain. Some things are bound to be lost in translation. But there are those nights in my booth at the coin singing room, in the small space I’ve carved out as my own in this city, when I find the words I need right there, in bright letters on the big screen: “행복하자. 아프지 말고. 그래. 그래.”8 Let’s be happy. Let’s not be hurt. That’s right. That’s right.

Eomma-a-a-a, haengbokhaja. Mom, let’s be happy. Ije nan seo itne, geu dari wi-e, Now, I’m standing there, on that bridge. 8 Haengbokhaja. Apeuji malgo. Geurae. Geurae. 6 7

Paige Aniyah Morris is a 2016-2017 ETA at Masan Girls’ High School in Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do.

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Cozy Cat in Café MayB, Bridget Harding, Jeju.

I Became Food on a Train, Wandering: Five Poems Dawn Angelicca Barcelona

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Cake we grilled our own meat at restaurant 108 and drank beers and soju,1 sitting Korean-style. we spent too much time teaching our language to learn the language of this new country. we leaned on each other to pick from the few words sown inside our mouths. we were just kids wondering how to eat. 어떻게?2 we planted a new alphabet to help us sprout through the soil of Sejong, in our new little neighborhood. with soft-spoken syllables, our courage boils up: 맞아요?3 back at home, we said “fork” and “spoon” or “please” and “thank you” now we only point and say “여기요, 이거 더 주세요”4 our tongues burn, digging for more words when we see a kitchen. we set the cake down next to our grill. here we sing 생일 축하합니다5 instead of happy birthday. the song tastes like an expiration date another birthday I wish I could be home for, hoping after a year it will still be waiting for me in the fridge.

Korean rice liquor Otteoke, How? 3 Majayo, Is it right? 4 Yogiyo, igeo deo juseyo. Over here, more of this, please 5 Saengil chukhahamnida, Happy birthday 1 2

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Microaggressions I don’t like rice. It’s the core of what my mom and dad love. They eat it plainly, sometimes with their hands. It’s the food of their homeland. I wish I knew how to use my hands the way they do. When we go out for dinner, we eat with forks and knives. They leave behind traditional ways for dinner time. I’m not who my parents were at 23. They flew away from a familiar life to make a better one for me. I flew away to forget about New Jersey. In this second home I’ve come to know, I am asked why I am a teacher. Why I didn’t become a nurse. Why I’d rather write poems. Why my hometown isn’t Metro Manila or Cebu City, two places that didn’t raise me. I go to church to pray but instead get distracted. I hear people say, “America isn’t your real home.” In the winter, I flew away from Korea to feel less like a question and more like an answer. To be something definite, that ends. Yet a tourist shop cashier says, “you must be one of my people” and a hostel owner speaks in English to everyone else but never to me. In countries so foreign, I’m seen as familiar. Wherever I go, there are always assumptions to erode. It never fails to come: “So really, where are you from?”

Upon Arrival The morning I landed in NYC I just wanted to curl up and crawl into a huge black bowl and burn. From one home to another in 14 hours. I am mixed up inside over what I didn’t say goodbye to enough times. I suggest Korean food for lunch. I miss being so goodmannered: tilting my bowl to have the last of my hot soup, using two hands to pass the communal kimchi dish and keeping my chopsticks out of the hardened rice I tried not to eat. I wish I could drink myself out of this bowl while I’m still scalding hot so I don’t feel me on the way down. I miss my tongue. How swollen it got from a soup burn.

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Re:

Last night I dreamt of a poem I wrote to you on a plane a year ago

Last January in Gangnam, at Oz board game cafe, we built train lines by playing Ticket to Ride until the owner said you’ve been playing the wrong way Before you my weekends were perfect successions of Americanos You said I had always wanted to travel I said I never wanted to leave America You asked me why do you work so hard I said I don’t know, I’m in love with being tired After you I bought fewer groceries we traded poems over dinner You wrote of every favor, I ask but one don’t forget me while you’re gone I wrote though I’m miles away I’m not really gone you’ll see me every day, in each rising sun Twelve months later I moved across America Upon landing I hit send I wonder what you’re doing now

You replied steady and smooth I miss you.

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Guro Station, Line 1 In another dream, I’m bundled up in the warmth of fish-shaped bread. A treat in the winter. The smoke from a chestnut stand beckons me back to my apartment. I choose the subway instead. The ten-minute walk rings in my eardrum. It always sounds like this: “Teacher, where are you going? Where is your home?” 출입문 닫겠습니다.1 Track two sends me uptown to Gwanghwamun, where I walk journal-in-hand past palaces and stop to eat street food. I’ve had every taste in every season. I try to hold them all in my too-small palms. Track three drags me downtown with the sunset. After two years: two placements, a different alphabet, hundreds of students’ faces I wonder if it is possible to love another city or two different countries so tightly. 이 역은 타는 곳과 전동차 사이가 넓습니다.2 Guro held nine roads, all leading me home. I tried to pick out the words I knew in the poems painted on the glass doors, feeling the breath of each train car’s mouth swallowing me and the rest of the crowd. I would do anything to go back. 내리실 때 조심하시기 바랍니다.3 I still use the same alarm. I wake up on time, after the subway car halts in my sleep. I miss the way I became food on the trains entering Guro Station, leaving crumbs in my splintering.

Chulipmun datgesseumnida, The doors are closing. Ee yeokeun taneun gotghwa jeondongcha saiga neolbseumnida. In this station, it is wide between the platform and the train (or “At this station, there is a wide gap between the platform and the train”). 3 Naerishil ddae joshimhashigi baramnida, Please be careful when exiting. 1 2

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Train to Busan, Jenna Gibson, KTX near Daejeon.

Dawn Angelicca Barcelona was a 2014-2016 ETA at Yangji Elementary School in Sejong City and Sinmirim Elementary School in Seoul. She currently works on the talent and recruitment team at MuleSoft in San Francisco, CA. 27


Uniformity, Eugene Lee, Seoul.


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Additionally, Zerubavel (2006: 17-23) says that we as humans are socialized about what to notice and what to ignore.

Running the Gauntlet, Bryan Betts, Gochang-gun. 30

4.2.2 FACE


Losing Face Rachel Fauth I am at the three-quarter mark of a lesson on the past tense “used to.” The phrase can be used in three ways, according to my handwriting, which has suddenly become law: to utilize; to be accustomed to; to talk about a past action or behavior. The students chant the bullet points. Chanting doesn’t teach them anything other than the fact that they’re in class, but repetition is a mystifying and alluring thing. The rhythm reinforces our relationship—my voice solo, theirs in unison, repeating me, repeating the sounds and the shape of my mouth. I feel the excess chaos of the classroom—shuffling paper, scrapings of leftover side conversations—get all swept up into a sort of wind tunnel, swirl up and disappear as their voices get progressively more pointed. “Totalk-about-the-past,” they say. “Totalk-about-the-past.” It’s unfortunate because chanting is no indication of anyone’s success despite how oddly good it feels. I gesture at the TV monitor, humming at me with static. A photo of a green-eyed, curly-haired man from the waist up flashes on screen. This is a famous Australian singer. I’ve started using the word “famous” in my presentations more often; it grabs their attention immediately, like proof that other Americans unanimously agree my class material is important.

“And what is his most famous song called?” They read aloud from the TV: “Somebody that I Used to Know.” “So does he still know this person?” “No!” “When did he know them?” “In the past!” “Is this possible?”” “…No? Yes, no?” “Why or why not?” One student in the front answers with confidence, “Because when you know someone, you always know them. Because, memory.” “Thank you. That’s good.” *

* * Thirty-one girl-students in identical uniforms tossing my inflatable watermelon ball around class, asking each other the given prompt: “What-did-you-used-todo-when-you-were-12?” A lot of squealing, some screaming laughter. In this moment there’s a quick and total wave of relief that spreads out from the epicenter of my chest. Loud is better than quiet. I think a quiet class is learning nothing, thinking nothing, retaining nothing, wishing me away. One student answers, “When I was 12, I used to play piano,” tentative and smiling, “but now I don’t because no pianos here.” Faint giggle, throw, ask, catch, answer, repeat.

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While the game goes on there’s one girl in the back row who’s turning all sorts of colors. Her cheeks yellow and pink at the same time, as if they’re actively bruising. She’s blushing like a chameleon and staring at the floor, then the ceiling, then the floor. Her mouth is just a line. From my vantage point at the front of the room I could see her while other students couldn’t, and in this moment I become aware of how different the perspective of student and teacher really is. How singular it it is, expansive and sweeping—I could see all 31 of them at once, I could measure their expressions in my peripheral view, I could compare them, survey them; if I’d opened my arms all the way, it would look like I was reaching across every desk at once though I absolutely wasn’t. * * * “Music video!” The lyrics start rolling. Dictation exercise in palatable form. Listen closely to the song, watch the video (has minor nudity!) and try to fill in the missing words. Her face looks broken now, succumbing to gravity. How many of my classmates, when I was in high school, wore faces like hers, and I couldn’t see it from where my desk was? But the teacher could? Could my teachers tell when my face fell like hers? The lyrics are singing, Now and then I think of when we were together. / Like when you said you felt so happy you could die. Girl-students are distracted by the man-nipple that appears fleetingly on screen. Squealing, some screaming with laughter. I float over to her in a way I hope is inconspicuous and ask her, “Gwaenchanayo?1 Okay?” Extremely limited Korean to offer. “Yes,” and she begins sobbing. I have to ask more than once for her to leave the classroom; it’s like she’s glued to the chair. 1

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Are you okay?

* * * In the hallway: “Is it...your studies?” First guess. “Stressed out?” “No,” she says, the waterline to her eyes doing its job, brimming. “Gajok?” Family. A male teacher—red polo tucked into his pants, hair parted neatly to one side, black leather belt, nods to me and strides past us down the stairwell. He disappears in a wind-tunnel and the situation settles around me like dust. I feel empty-handed, ill-equipped, vacant arsenal of Korean vocabulary ready to fail me at a time when English will most certainly be abrasive. “Yes, my mother, dead.” “When? Eonje?” I think about processing—what it means to process, the verb. “Today.” Her small hands and small face, the perfect size for each other. I want my arms to be long enough, longer. Other teachers know her mother died today and still she’s sitting in my class, in other classes. Tonight she’ll go to Seoul, to the hospital, but not until after the school day’s over and she’s cleaned her assigned corner of the school. Behind her there’s a row of different colored metallic mops leaned up against the wall and for a moment they look expectant. The girl goes on to apologize to me, to me, “I’m sorry, Teacher,” and motions to go back to class. I say, “No, I am sorry,” but the expression doesn’t work that way in Korean. The air around her crumples like a sheet of thick gray paper. * * * At dinner last night, my host father started choking on a duck bone, briefly. He turned his head and swiveled away from the table towards the far wall of the


restaurant and faced backwards. He sat there coughing, not exactly “up a lung” but for a considerable length of time, an uncomfortable length of time, while his wife and daughter volleyed conversation in a different direction. And I watched. There wasn’t a mention of “Are you okay?” or “Gwaenchanayo?” In more places than this one, it seems culturally inappropriate and straight rude to call attention to someone’s struggle, but especially if it’s turned physically ugly, like coughing or choking or heart-breaking what have you. “Losing face.” Try not to make someone lose face by embarrassing them and asking if they need help. And yet I cannot help but beg the question, who will ask my student if she needs help? Who will take her up to the hospital in Seoul? Who will give her a place to sit when she walks out and away from my class? Who? And admittedly, judgmentally, naturally I find myself asking who did nothing; which of her instructors ignored all the shades of grief

that bloomed in the back of class while she visibly swayed in and out of thought? * * * I resume my place at the podium. Thirty girl-students arranged in an immovable grid before me as I turn my back, the greasy chalk easily making a mark. I start talking, and the words coming out don’t match the words in my head. I feel two separate trains of thought taking off from the same station, going in opposite directions. She’s still standing outside where I had to leave her. Eventually her blurred black hair goes past the windows, towards the thirdfloor staircase that punctuates the end of a long, white hallway and she goes out. Out through the swinging doors of a big white building so not built for emotion. Her face cradled in her hands.

Rachel Fauth is a 2016-2017 ETA at Changpyeong High School in Damyang, Jeollanam-do. Door to the Roof, Rachel Fauth, Damyang.

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OPEN WINDOW Open Window is a creative publication showcasing the English and artistic work of Korean students. We are currently accepting submissions for publication on our webpage. For more information, please see Open Window’s Facebook page or contact the team through fulbright.openwindow@gmail.com.

Into My Head, Ji Eun Baek Jeonju Jungang Girls’ High School, Jeonju, Jeollabuk-do Submitted by Emma Ropski, ETA 2016-17


A Love Letter from a Notebook to a Pen Ju Hye Park Masan Girls’ High School, Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do Submitted by Paige Aniyah Morris, ETA 2016-17 With you, I can be everything. You draw pictures on me And I can be a sketchbook. You write down something you hope on me And I can be a future. You make some lyrics on me And I can be a score. You note your schedules on me And I can be your manager. You jot down your number for your love And I can be Cupid. With you, I can be everything. You make me do everything.

Whale art piece, Ji Yoon Ha Chungbuk National University Attached Middle School Cheongju, Chungcheongbuk-do Submitted by Talia Cowen, ETA 2016-17

Weekend Yoo Eun Kim Yeongheung Middle School Mokpo, Jeollanam-do Submitted by Allie Sethares, ETA 2015-17

Week’s over and in the Early morning Even my mom is sleeping. Kindergarteners and Elementary students Never wake up. I wish Dreadful Monday will never come.

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An Apology Letter from Me to King Sejong Ga Hyeon Kang Masan Girls’ High School, Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do Submitted by Paige Aniyah Morris, ETA 2016-17 Before I was inspired by “Infinite Challenge” and Korean class, I didn’t know hangeul’s1 creating purpose. When I studied how and why did you create hangeul, I made my mind write correct hangeul expressions. When I was a middle school student, I went to Gwanghwamun and saw your statue. I felt nothing because I didn’t know exactly what you did. But now, I want to go there one more time And feel touched and moved. I remember your love for members of our nation. Thank you. I will tell your love to my friends and family.

1

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Korean writing system

Windows Galaxy, Song Hwan Kim Yeongheung Middle School Mokpo, Jeollanam-do Submitted by Allie Sethares, ETA 2015-17


High Tide, Cara Mooney, Mokpo.

From Another Time, Cara Mooney, Gwangju. 38


Sting of a Hard Serve Rebecca Brower May 23, 2016 I winced and drew a sharp breath as another fiery jolt of pain ripped into the middle of my back. I was paralyzed, bent at a 90-degree angle with my hands braced against the wall. The pain tore through and traveled down the back of my right leg. When it subsided, I took another shuffle-step sideways and continued to inch towards the bathroom—I had only minutes to complete my mission and return to my bed. It was shortly after midnight. My homestay family was asleep. I had been up for just a couple minutes, but I could feel the nausea settling into the pit of my stomach already. The nausea and dizziness were new, probably from the muscle relaxers I had been prescribed at the clinic. By the time I stepped out of the bathroom, I was in a cold sweat and my ears were ringing. I stumbled through the now blurry darkness; all I had left was survival instinct to carry me into my room where I collapsed onto my bed. As things gradually returned to normal, I felt an immense feeling of helplessness wash over me. I couldn’t even make it to the bathroom on my own. As I fought back tears, I looked down at my feet and saw that I had brought the bathroom slippers with me. I kicked them off onto the floor. I was going to have to explain that in the morning.

* * * Early March 2016 “Can Becky practice with you? She’s a volleyball player…” At my co-teacher’s request, two of our coworkers paused from their warm-up and turned to look our way, each with a sliver of speculation written on their faces. Outside of the English office, the teachers at school were largely afraid to talk to me, despite any efforts I made to engage first. Often, I was lucky just to receive a polite “annyeonghaseyo”1 with a bow, and maybe even a shy smile. After a moment, Junho, one of the fifth grade teachers, nodded and passed the ball my way. * * * Midnight crept on to 4:00 a.m., and then on to 6:00 a.m. I slept for little bits at a time, but with great difficulty; staying still hurt…rolling over hurt…and sitting up was just impossible. During the early morning, Kakao messages with my mom in New York occupied my time while I waited for Nancy to wake. I told my mom that I had gone to my host uncles’ garlic farm over the weekend to help pull shoots out of the middle of the plants. There had been no pain while I was working, but it appeared suddenly when I woke up for school on Monday. At first, there was only minor pain when bending over, but it had gotten progressively worse during the day, forcing me to go to the clinic after school with Nancy. 1

Hello.

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* * * Late March 2016 “You, main attacker. Me, English major. I hate English.” Junho was standing on the other side of the net as he joked over his own fear of English; it was one of the first times he had spoken to me out of his own volition. After proving myself capable in the staff game, I had been invited to join the teachers’ volleyball club on Mondays, and those that attended were quickly becoming more enthusiastic about trying to connect with me. In a matter of weeks, one sport had broken down a barrier that I had been struggling to get over for an entire semester and it felt great. * * * Nancy entered my room around 7:30, and when I repeatedly succumbed to cringing blasts of pain while demonstrating my inability to get out of bed, we decided it would be best to go to the city. She called and made an appointment for me at a hospital in Daegu, and after a failed attempt to help me out of the house on her own, she then called the EMTs. They arrived a few minutes later and carried me down the stairs of our four-story villa before heaving me into the back seat of the car. The rest of the day at Wooridul Hospital—a place that I found online was world-renowned for spinal care—was filled with x-rays, blood draws, an MRI, CT scan and numerous localized pain shots that allowed me to wobble to and from the bathroom. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, Nancy left to teach her hagwon2 classes, and realizing again how helpless I was, I cried myself to sleep. 2 3

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Cram school Don’t go.

*

*

*

April 2016 “Becky. An ga.3 You stay. Don’t go.” Kiljong, a teacher that worked at another local elementary school, stood in front of me, arms outstretched, blocking me from leaving his team. After rock-paper-scissors had left the three teams uneven, most of the women were being redistributed to balance out the teams. During our first meeting, Kiljong was just another teacher hesitant to talk to me, but months later he would become my closest friend through volleyball, close enough for us to call each other brother and sister. * * * “Becky?” I woke up sometime in the evening when I heard my name being called. I looked to see my homestay aunt, who lived in Daegu, approaching my bedside with a look of concern on her face. She had no doubt heard about my hospitalization from Nancy and had come to check on me. Unlike my homestay mom, my aunt couldn’t speak English, but the kindness and patience that she had when she spoke allowed us to bond and understand each other in Korean. My aunt was there the next day too to wash my hair while Nancy ran down to the third-floor billing department and back again, trying to get things squared away with the insurance company. My assigned doctor had come in first thing in the morning to give me the diagnosis on my back: two herniated discs. Treatment would be an endoscopic laser surgery where a scope would be inserted through a small incision and a laser used to trim the ruptured areas. The doctor said the procedure was a simple one that would take just about 20 minutes, require only local anesthesia and


be relatively painless. He also said that in just a couple of days I would be able to return to a normal daily routine, and I was relieved. I thought about how nice it would be to be able to walk comfortably to the bathroom again and maybe even get back on the volleyball court again. * * * Early May 2016 “I’m staying for a second year!” My three co-teachers just smiled and nodded. They already knew; the Fulbright Office had told them before they told me. I turned back to my computer, smiling and optimistic about the second year that now lay ahead of me. It was finally official: I would have at least one more year of teaching in Uiseong, and one more year of volleyball. * * * Two days later, I was laying on my stomach in an operating room while my doctor donned a surgical gown with help from a nurse. As the nurses drew a giant blue sheet over me, sheltering my body in a translucent blue bubble, I thought about something else the doctor had told me about the surgery. He had told me that I wouldn’t be able to play volleyball for three months.

Three. Months. Pulling me from my thoughts, the doctor announced that he would be starting as he gave me three shots to numb the area around my tailbone. Almost immediately after, he declared that he would be making the incision and pierced my skin with the scalpel. He had said that I wouldn’t be able to feel anything at all, but he was wrong... I felt it all. My screams were like ones you hope to only hear in a horror movie. As I cried out in response to the pain caused by the scalpel, followed by the initial shove of the scope, one of the nurses reached under the sheet and squeezed my hand. I howled and whimpered once more as the scope was hammered further under my skin. My hands balled into tight fists and my face grew warm as the doctor paused to give an order to the nurses. The comforting hand slipped away, my IV wiggled and shortly after the first laser buzzed across the middle of my spine, the blue bubble went black.

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* * * Early June 2016 It had been a little over a week since the surgery. Despite the prescription pain medication, I couldn’t sit for more than 10 or 15 minutes at a time, and walking to school and back took extra time as I couldn’t go any faster than a waddle. The brace cinched around my waist garnered empathetic stares from older folks, and plenty of questioning about how I had hurt my waist. But what hurt more than the scarring hole that had been carved by the path of the scope was the part of my heart that felt like it was missing. I winced as I moved and seated myself on the edge of the stage in the school gymnasium, next to the plastic little flip-scoreboard we used every week for volleyball. I turned the panels of the scoreboard as the game carried on, laughing and smiling at the comical antics that ensued on the court. At times, there were more jokes flying across the net than passes of the ball, and it made me feel thankful that I could enjoy this much, even if I was yearning inside for even one pass, one set…or maybe one serve-receive that I could have for myself.

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*

*

*

August 2016 SLAP! As the ball ricocheted off my arms and straight up into the air, I felt the familiar surge of adrenaline from a spike-receive radiating through my body. Everything before, and everything thereafter too, I felt it; the sting of a hard serve, the soft push on a set, the flattening of my stomach against the ground as I laid out to catch a ball just out of reach. A dull ache in my lower back reminded me every now and again of what had only just recovered, and that it would still be sometime before I could do certain things again—like serving overhand and arcing my torso just right for a backset. Regardless of what I still couldn’t do, just seeing faint red marks left on my forearms once more gave me an uncontrollable feeling of giddy happiness. They were marks, red from where the ball hit, marks that told me I was back, that proved I was no longer confined to the sidelines.

Rebecca “Becky” Brower is an ETA at Uiseong Elementary School and Danchon Elementary School in Uiseong, Gyeongsangbuk-do.


Windows, Jenna Gibson, Seoul.

Seogwipo, Bridget Harding, Jeju. 43


Of Near Silence Josh Brandon

Nuna1 points to fish heads sitting on the curb on a large sheet of paper— “Ghost food.” Pardon? She finds the English to say that ancestors will eat what’s been left over—discarded. I want to see this supposed event unfold— apparitions making themselves known. Translucent sheets fading between here and their new home. And suddenly the fish heads disappear. I wonder how they would conjugate their verbs. •

1

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•

Older sister

•


The school bus passes over flecks of gravel and dirt each pushing its body into the tires, never quite puncturing the rubber. An old woman inches to the side of the road to make way for us. As the bus draws nearer and her side profile is exposed, it’s apparent that she’s pushing a baby stroller, only no baby just a bundle of sticks with presumably peanuts hanging from them. Before the bus passes, she grabs the stick bundle from the stroller and cradles it as she waits from within the blast of tailwind from the bus. •

•

•

A student asks me, “Teacher, what’s the meaning of life?” I burden him with the wait as I form my diplomatic answer, that our purpose is to impact at least one other person’s life. A pause, “I think,” he replies, “life is like smoke. You must eat, drink and sleep to stay, if you don’t, like smoke, you disappear.” Next month, the same student imparts more knowledge: This time, the amount of stray dogs that roam the country (6,000, apparently)

•

•

•

Home feels like a far-off planet right around the corner. I try to bite each consonant as it escapes my mouth make it shorter, crisper but the bites make them crumble instead, each syllable falls to the ground in shatters. I spend seven minutes finding five different ways to say the name of a closed subway station to the taxi driver hoping he clings to one well enough to understand. •

•

•

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I watch as the baby’s mother drowns kimchi1 before feeding it to him, specks of red pepper just grazing his tongue. At times, he’s bubbles and unabashed affection where others may shy away from a minor hello at the sight of my face. Others, he’s inconsolable tears and I ask why always knowing the answer to be incomprehensible even if he spoke my language— even if the red pepper didn’t muddle his own. I watch this child’s eyes glisten as the mart inches closer. His unwavering desire to be the first inside the noraebang.2 His family and I sit patiently around beer poured in small paper cups as he stands in front of the TV. Sugared sounds flow into the microphone as his favorite cartoon penguin tumbles across the screen. I smile, cheer him on. Not out of any sense of obligation, but because there’s a strange comfort in the nonsense— because it’s nonsense to everyone. •

•

•

I find myself massaging my shoulders at times, remembering how I used to give so many hugs when I was younger to friends, family, strangers. The language of affection. The frequency of hugs gradually decreased over time, then, dropped off completely before 23, entering a culture that replaces this custom with a bow. Leaving dinner gatherings with a quick arm around another’s shoulder mumbling goodbyes and I’ll-miss-you’s changed to lights in buildings pouring down into the sidewalk and a cup of mixed coffee in my periphery as I stand parallel to another head in the same 45 degree position.

1 2

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Korean fermented cabbage Singing room


A change I chose, welcomed even, but still I reach to touch the shoulder on the opposite side of my body emulating that familiar warmth. And I don’t feel sadness, just a little chilly sometimes. •

•

•

Suncheon Reeds, Tessa Sydnor, Suncheon Bay.

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A visit to Namji and the same pack of three stray dogs that’s always here on the other side of the street pressing their noses into garbage bags left for pickup. •

•

•

An older neighbor visits. And with her, a bird whose wings scrape the declining blacktop as its neck hangs through a red ribbon, solemnly— a cause to hinder it from escape. A pheasant, as I had to discover by translating its name in Korean. Is this really the first time I’ve seen a pheasant? Two states of being: complacent (perhaps surrender), and (attempted) escape. I can never understand this woman, but want so desperately to in this moment Is this her pet? A giggle. The bird sits still, the baby tries to touch it, it flutters, panics, dreams of escaping into the rice reaching to touch the sky a few kilometers southeast. The next morning, just the ribbon tied to a fence perched over the same rice field the bird so desperately desired, a single feather in its noosed end. •

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•

•


Somewhere along the river in this somewhere where I’ve been dropped like a pin on a map I can’t read, riding between familiar mountains that boast forest greens over perfectly divided rice fields and fire-stone houses and roofs with corners turned up towards the clouds, my bike inclines above the road on its own path look to the other side—a dip of land with a tree. More trees with short, stout trunks my foot slams to the ground and the wheels halt as I witness grass untouched by tanned fingers and wildlands pouring towards the river lurching over the edge, along its surface, and kissing the water where it babbles.

Josh Brandon is a 2016-2017 ETA at Docheon Elementary School in Changnyeong, Gyeongsangnam-do.

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4.1 WRAP-UP

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Another broad trend I discovered through my observations and readings is that bilingual interlocutors codemix in order to build relationships. Kohnert, Yim, Nett, Kan and Duran (2005) call this common codeswitching an “effective communication mode” [...]. Furthermore, Kohnert et al. (2005) suggest that “an alternative view [rather than a lack of proficiency] is to recognize the cultural, social, and communicative validity of the mixing of two traditionally isolated linguistic codes as a third legitimate code.”


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Snapshots

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Photo Credits Page 56, Row 1: Margaret Cleveland, Bridget Harding, Jenna Gibson Page 56, Row 2: Chris Hoffman, Margaret Cleveland Page 56, Row 3: Jenna Gibson, Kyle Hall Page 56, Row 4: Zoe Wolszon, Tiffany Monreal, Rebecca Brower Page 57, Row 1: Kyle Hall, Katherine Moncure, Shamara Battle Page 57, Row 2: Bryan Betts, Jenna Gibson Page 57, Row 3: Chris Hoffman, Mika Sasaki, Shamara Battle Page 57, Row 4: Katherine Moncure, Jenna Gibson

Fly! Let me fly again! Let me fly just one more time. — The Wings, Yi Sang


Works Cited for “Konglish: A Korean-American Phenomenon” Duran, L., Kan, P. F., Kohnert, K., Nett, K., & Yim, D. (2005). Intervention with Linguistically Diverse Preschool Children: A Focus on Developing Home Language(s). Language, Speech & Hearing Services in Schools, 36(3), 251-263. Kim, E. (2006). Reasons and Motivation for Code-Mixing and Code-Switching. EFL. Vol. 4 No. 1. 43-61. Kroskrity, P.V. (1999). Identity. In The Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. Vol. 9, No. 1/2. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. 111-114. Pavlenko, A. (2006). Bilingual Selves. In Bilingual Minds. United Kingdom: Multilingual Matters. Chapter 1. Zerubavel, E. (2006). The Rules of Denial. In The Elephant in the Room: Silence and Denial in Everyday Life. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 17-23.

Cover photo: Swimmer, Jenna Gibson. Gwangalli Beach, Busan. Artwork on previous page: Wings, Mara Guevarra. The Fulbright Korea Infusion EMAIL: fulbright.infusion@gmail.com WEBSITE: infusion.fulbright.or.kr FACEBOOK: facebook.com/fulbrightkoreainfusion INSTAGRAM: fulbrightkoreainfusion TWITTER: @infusion_litmag If you wish to contact Fulbright Korea, please email executive.assistant@fulbright.or.kr or call 82-2-3275-4000. The Korean-American Educational Commission in Seoul, widely known as the Korea Fulbright Commission, is governed by a board consisting of equal numbers of Koreans and Americans representing governmental, educational and private sectors. The board makes decisions on overall policies of the Fulbright Program in Korea. The Fulbright Commission is not responsible for opinions expressed in The Fulbright Korea Infusion by individual contributors nor do these in any way reflect official Fulbright Commission policy. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission from the contributor and from the Korea Fulbright Commission. Published by Asia Korea Printing, Inc.


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