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INFUSION VOLUME 8, ISSUE 2

FULBRIGHT KOREA

INFUSION VOLUME 8, ISSUE 2 JULY 2015

PUBLISHING ADVISOR Jai Ok Shim

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

PHOTO EDITORS

MANAGING EDITORS

WEB MANAGER

Josephine Reece

A. Moriah Jones Dawn Angelicca Barcelona

DESIGN EDITOR Donald Bauer Jr.

Kelsey Hagenah Tiffany Monreal

Hillary Veitch

MONITORS

Phung Nguyen Teresa Baik

STAFF EDITORS

Gabrielle Nygaard Jina Choi Deborah Wood Emmy Mildenberg

Arria Washington Ivan Liang Kristen O’Brien Monica Heilman

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.

Looking In. Donald Bauer Jr. Gyeongbokgung Palace, Seoul

CONTENTS 01 LETTERS

Jai Ok Shim & Robert Ogburn

33 ONLY DAUGHTER GETS A SISTER Zoë Gioja

FOREWORD

38 PHONE CALL

03 Josephine Reece

RUNNING

Gabrielle Nygaard

Teri Bunce

SOMEWHERE ELSE EVERYTHING IS SIGNIFICANT A. Moriah Jones

08 OMMA

Lea Crowley

15 THE UNATHLETE Ben Harris

19 TO MY LOVING GRANDMOTHER Andrea Kang

22 THE WRONG KIND OF AMERICAN Judith Foo & Zerin (Zarin) Tasnim

47 REGRET

Mathew Goldberg

51 HOMEOSTASIS

Diem-Tran (Bijou) Nguyen

56 HEALING

Anonymous

59 SOMEDAY WE WILL MEET AGAIN Various 2011-2012 ETAs

LETTER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FROM THE

Dear Readers, I am pleased to introduce Volume 8, Issue 2 of The Fulbright Korea Infusion. The Infusion staff has once again, through its hard work and dedication, put together a professional magazine that highlights the talents of its contributors. From the fantastic photographs curated by the photo editors to the layout that thematically links each piece, their many hours of work are clearly present on each page. For over eight years, Infusion has showcased the experiences of American Fulbright grantees and alumni as they have reflected on their time in Korea. More than simply a magazine, Infusion provides a time capsule for the grant year in which it is published. The pieces – which range from biographical to scholarly, funny to introspective – provide readers with a glimpse into the lives of its writers as they uncover new elements of South Korea in the classroom, in their research, and most important of all, in the daily person-to-person

interactions upon which the Fulbright Program was founded. As we come to the close of another successful year, I invite you to look to these pages as a testament to both the unique perspectives of our grantees and alumni and the dynamic nature of the Fulbright Program. I believe that it is on account of these strengths that the Fulbright Program will continue to play an important role in Korea for years to come. Sincerely,

Jai Ok Shim Executive Director Korean-American Educational Commission

LETTER MINISTER COUNSELOR FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS FROM THE

Dear Readers, Please accept my heartfelt congratulations on the spring issue of the 8th volume of Infusion magazine. Capturing your insights and experiences in Infusion is a wonderful way for admirers and newcomers to the ETA program to know better just how important a role you have played in promoting mutual understanding between Korea and the U.S. The ETA program was launched in 1992, during my first posting to Korea (1988-1993). I was thrilled by the creativity of the program and the dynamism of the participants whom I met. After having met many of you last year at the ETA gala, I am so happy to be able to say the same thing. You are truly building new bridges between America and the Land of the Morning Calm, whether you are ‘urban

pioneers’ in Sejong City, island explorers on Jeju, or anywhere between! With your passion for communication and your commitment to telling America’s story in Korea, I can easily envision you as leaders in the career paths you choose to take. Fighting! Cordially,

Robert W. Ogburn Minister-Counselor for Public Affairs Member of the KAEC Board

FOREWORD In this issue of Infusion our authors draw attention to moments of transition and revision. As foreigners living, working and teaching in Korea we are constantly faced with situations that require us to reevaluate our perspectives. Mostly these situations are exciting. Yet, with all the little and large things that life throws at us, we all have moments when excitement gives way to exhaustion or annoyance, until something happens which surprises us into joy and compassion again. This cycle of ups and downs is incredibly common when adjusting to a new place — so common that people who study culture shock have names for the various stages: honeymoon, disintegration, independence. These stages don’t just happen once, but repeat themselves throughout time in a foreign country. As such it can be difficult to find a still place from which to take a step back and see where we have been. But during this time of constant movement — ups and downs and interruptions — the one thing we rely on is each other. Our friends are there for us when our schools change the schedule unexpectedly and also when we manage to get tickets to the sold out K-pop concert. They give us a lens through which to view our history, showing us where and who we have been. Knowing that someone has had the same experiences of hilarity, annoyance, and joy lets us appreciate and understand our own experiences more, even the terrible ones.

This year our Fulbright family was touched by the sudden loss of two members — Morrow Willis and Jim McFadden. They are remembered by their friends through the experiences they shared together, many of which they documented in past volumes of Infusion. Even though those memories are now touched with sadness they can still bring great joy to the people who knew Morrow and Jim. The authors in this issue navigate through everything from stereotypes to city streets. As they explore Korea they give themselves and their subjects the liberty to be in transition — imperfect, uninhibited. It is the same freedom we give and hope to find among our closest friends and family. Family can be frustrating, infuriating, but in the end they are always our biggest supporters. Whether long-distance or near at hand, our friend and family relationships grow with us through the grant year. In this volume our authors explore their changing relationships alongside their changing views of Korea. As you turn the pages of this issue, I hope these pieces will challenge you to appreciate the times of change in your own life as well as the relationships which keep you whole. Please enjoy Infusion Volume 8, Issue 2. Josephine Reece Editor-In-Chief

Shhh, the Sun is Waking Up for the New Year. Kevin Duong. Haeundae Beach, Busan

RUNNING GABRIELLE NYGAARD

So this is why these Korean winter gusts are called “knife winds.” They slice at the space between my eyes, and I wonder if my skull might split clean in two if not for the 2,000 won1 headband that encircles my forehead, desperately gripping things together. Nearly a year ago, when my former host father insisted I wear a face mask while running outside, I widened my eyes and gave him my “you’re not serious... are you? You might be, so I won’t say anything, but... you are joking?” look. Such meaning-packed looks are necessary when dealing with both a language barrier and a taciturn Korean man you share tight living quarters with, but aren’t sure even knows your name. But I suppose that’s alright; after a year together, I never figured out his first name either. He was just addressed as “hello” or “goodbye,” and indirectly referred to as “Hungyo’s father.” But Hungyo’s father was not joking. Disappearing momentarily, he returned and put a white surgical mask in my hands and said, “wear it.” He’s a man of few words, not counting church songs and soju-fueled bellowing. I could count the things I’d heard him say on my fingers with digits to

About $2 A fast food chain 3 Sochon District 1 2

spare; so I felt I couldn’t disregard the rare occasion of him instructing me to do something, even if it made me look like an axe-murderer running down the street. Mask or not, I think that’s the impression people had of me in my old neighborhood, where nobody would run, except maybe to flee the scene of a crime. Living near the huge police station, I don’t doubt this possibility crossed the minds of some of my bewildered onlookers, including the police officer who chased me down mid-jog one day. I froze, startled to see him streaking towards me in his fancy hat and neon yellow windbreaker, but in the end, all he did was ask for my phone number so he could practice English with me. Over the course of our ensuing “friendship,” he told me his dream was to produce songs for Taylor Swift and encouraged me to try a hamburger from Mom’s Touch2 (“Patty was so soft! Perfectly different from Lotteria.”) The only other accepted reason for running in 소촌동3 was to catch an approaching bus. That’s often what people thought I was doing, and they would sprint a few steps after me before realizing that I was not, indeed, making a beeline for the nearest bus stop, and would then sheepishly fall back into an unhurried gait. To my annoyance, taxis

also misunderstood my purpose and honked at me all the time. Did the drivers really think the gangly foreigner chugging down the sidewalk in workout clothes, ponytail flailing and arms pumping, was looking for a ride? And if she was, would they have wanted to haul that human sweat puddle around on their pleather seats anyway? With all of these things against me, I didn’t want to heighten my bizarreness with the face mask. But I did want to show my host father I appreciated his concern, so for the next few days, I put it on before I left for my run. Once I was a respectable distance away, I removed and pocketed it, then replaced it on my face again just before arriving back home. But then the strain of covering my oversized nose caused the ear strap to snap off. I lamented this fact to my host mother but took the opportunity to ditch the mask mandate, laughing at the absurdity of the whole thing. Yet 11 months later, pushing into the knife winds in a different part of town, I would give anything for a face cover. I pull my headband down and my jacket collar up in a futile effort to shield my big, vulnerable nose. It seems colder here on my new running route. Instead of a crumbling, uneven street, it outlines a fertile reservoir. Though it’s chillier along the water, without buildings to cut

the wind, it’s more appropriate. This path is actually meant for running, which I see people doing every day. Plus, rather than three, my run is disrupted by only one crosswalk signal now. I have learned that crosswalks are not something you want on your route, not just for the literal roadblock halting your progress, but because they provide an opportunity for an elderly man to step closer and closer until he’s blatantly sniffing your shoulder, while you stand prisoner to the red light and sweat anxiously in the summer sun. Though, to be fair, this is quite the motivator. I don’t think I’ve ever taken off sprinting so fast. Perhaps I should ask the nearest 아저씨4 to take a good whiff of me at the starting line of my next 5K. I only ran casually before coming to Korea, so I’m no expert in running etiquette. But I’d venture to guess when confronted with a jogger in America, most people would not make a sudden U-turn, pulling over to insist the person get in the car, nor grab their arm and nearly rip it from the socket to ask if they know “our savior 예수5.” And I doubt it’s seen as normal (or a good idea) to ambush a jogger on the curb, thrusting a garbled love letter with such perplexing lines as “The sun why the sunrises? The moon why crocheting?” upon them before jumping back in your white van 4

Ajeosshi, older man 5 Yesu, Jesus

and speeding away. The closest I’ve come in the U.S. is having a pick-up truck full of teenage boys honk their tacky novelty “The Yellow Rose of Texas” horn at me, but in general, running the streets is ordinary enough to make me invisible. Stateside, nobody asks me “where are you going?” or “who are you?” as I jog past. But they don’t flash me enthusiastic grins and a thumbs up, or shout encouragements such as “you can do it!” and “fighting!” either. In Korea, my running is a spectacle, or causes them, depending on whose shoes you see it from. I’ll take the stares. As funny as I might look, the view from within my Nikes is pretty amusing too. I love running in Korea. I love my daily dose of being out in the world and taking everything in. Maybe I don’t love when I slip on the ice and an 6

Ajumma, older woman

Family Selfie. Kelsey Hagenah. Suncheon

아줌마6 laughs at me as I slam butt-first onto the sidewalk in the winter, or when I inhale an entire colony of gnats and feel like I’m wading through a thick custard of humidity in the summer. But I do love the sunsets I race towards, the brisk air that propels me, and the peculiar moments I share with strangers, enough to outweigh almost anything. Except head-splitting knife winds. Perhaps Hungyo’s father does know best.

Gabrielle Nygaard is a 2013-2015 ETA currently at Gwangju Girl’s High School. She previously taught at Jeonggwang Middle School in Gwangju.

OMMA LEA CROWLEY

Two days after moving to my placement city, a coteacher called me and told me an administrator from the school was sending her daughter, Amy, to my apartment to show me around town. I imagine there had been rumors floating around the school about the new foreign teacher’s disaster of an apartment, and that the administrator wanted to see if there was any truth to them. Amy soon saw for herself the state of my apartment—broken windows, no sink, the smell of sewage and lots of bugs — and called her mother to let her know. When she finished the phone call, she encouraged me to stay in her family’s apartment until my living situation was sorted out. That night, I met 엄마 (omma) for the first time. Omma—the Korean equivalent of “mom” or “mommy”—was an intimidating woman. Although she’s tiny (maybe five feet tall, probably under 110 pounds) her presence immediately commands any room she enters. She speaks in a thick regional dialect, uses lots of slang, and constantly barks orders at her children and coworkers. The night I met her, I was nervous, covered in mysterious bug bites and incapable of carrying a conversation in

Korean. I was pitiful, I’m sure. I wasn’t prepared for how powerless I felt. Until moving into my apartment, I had considered myself well-prepared for living abroad. I soon learned that I was mistaken, and working out my apartment debacle made it painfully clear that I had no idea what was going on in Korea. From the moment I stepped into her home, Omma took care of me. For the next few nights, I would sit quietly on an oversized rocking chair, internally thanking the universe for introducing her into my life as she made tutting sounds and smeared gooey pink medicine over the welts that covered my face, neck and arms. For the first time since coming to Korea, I finally felt like I could make myself at home. Because of Omma’s sudden dedication to my happiness and health, I felt like I belonged. As Omma tended to my bug bites one night, I silently reflected on my pre-arrival preparations. After being accepted to Fulbright, I frantically began trying to familiarize myself with my future home. I listened to Korean pop music over and over, did Wikipedia searches of Korean celebrities, followed Korean fashion blogs, and attempted to teach myself the

Korean alphabet. I believed that knowing about these things would somehow lessen the impact of culture shock and make it easier to befriend Koreans. This search for an “in” to Korean society continued at Fulbright Orientation, where I listened to lecture after lecture on Korean culture. One concept in particular grabbed my attention: 정 (jeong). Even though my understanding of jeong was limited and I struggled to articulate what exactly it was, I was eager to experience it. I kept waiting for a thunderclap of inexplicable affection, but I just didn’t feel that strong, immediate and undeniable connection. The reality sunk in that maybe I would not experience jeong with anyone in Korea. But then I met Omma. Despite her no-nonsense attitude, she took me into her home, cooked for me and seemed genuinely concerned about me. I constantly thanked her in Korean for doing so much for me, although I could not come close to expressing the extent of my gratitude. During one of my many clumsy attempts to thank her, I asked “Why?” in Korean. I didn’t understand how she could take a pitiful foreign stranger into her home so easily. She determinedly looked into my eyes and said simply, “You are good woman” in heavily accented English. I was taken aback because I had never heard her speak English before. But more importantly, I was shocked at the air of finality she spoke with that made it all clear. She was saying she felt jeong with me, too. I had finally found it. A few days later, I moved out of her home and began settling into my new apartment. To my delight, our relationship continued to grow at school. I regularly visited her in her office and tried

to speak to her in Korean. She hoarded snacks in her desk to share with me, and patiently listened to my atrocious Korean to tease out what I was trying to communicate. We spent hours chatting back and forth, relying heavily on a translation app she installed on her phone specifically for the purpose of talking to me. Whenever she got the impression that I liked or wanted something, she immediately tried to make it happen for me. For example, when I told her that I wanted to go swimming, she personally drove me to the local pool—to the amusement and shock of the Koreans present—and showed me around. If I said I liked a certain food, she brought some to school for me the next day. Sometimes, she even lugged full bags of groceries to school for me. Even though I couldn’t understand most of what she said at first, the sound of her voice comforted me. I will be the first to admit that she talks to me like I am still a child, but I still love the way she coos “Aigooo, Lea-ya!” at me whenever I do something that makes her happy. Sometime during the course of our relationship, we began saying “Korean mom” and “American mom” to differentiate between her and my actual mother. She is my Korean mom, and occasionally she would ask about my American mom. I began opening up to her about my relationship with my American mom, which has been tumultuous to say the least. To my surprise, she replied by saying she experiences the same struggles with her Korean daughter. I had witnessed some of the lower points of their relationship, but I didn’t expect my Korean mom to openly acknowledge it as an issue.

The few times I saw them together, Omma criticized Amy sharply and often. Whether it was her clothes, her makeup, her English ability, her hobbies or her opinions, Omma would relentlessly criticize and nitpick Amy’s choices. It seemed that Amy had become so accustomed to being berated by her mother that she could effortlessly put on a stoic expression and ignore it until it was over. Although my American mother does not criticize me in the way that Omma criticizes Amy, I noticed that both of our relationships suffer from a lack of understanding and communication. Given the situation with my American mother, hearing Omma acknowledge her difficult relationship with her daughter really hit home for me. Listening to Omma’s perspective, I could understand where she was coming from. Because I have been in Amy’s shoes more times than I can

count, I could also sympathize with her point of view. Like my American mother and I, Omma and Amy both love each other; however, showing that affection is difficult for them because their personalities are so inherently different. I see how much Omma loves her daughter: she has Amy’s picture as the background on her phone, she pours her resources into Amy’s education, and talks about Amy often. I never tried to understand my American mother’s perspective before, and I regret not doing

Throwing. Kate Trexel. Itaewon

it sooner. Thanks to Omma, I realized that despite all of the issues I have with my American mother, I know that she loves me more than she can possibly explain. She’s my biggest fan, and she always has been. To my surprise, I began to feel a connection to my American mom, similar to the one I had grown so used to sharing with my Korean mom. Feeling this jeong toward my American mom has positively affected the way I interact with her, and I can tell how delighted she is at the unexpected change in our relationship. I doubt my Korean mother understands the extent to which she has affected my experience in Korea. She is the main motivation for me to study Korean. She is the reason I stay healthy, because going to the gym with her is something that I look forward to every day. I worry about her health, and do my best to brighten her day as often as possible. I almost renewed my contract in Korea just because I wasn’t sure if I would be ready to say goodbye to her when the time came. I have talked to Omma about my decision to leave Korea, and she expressed support and understanding. Although she still teases me to stay for one more year, I know she realizes that it’s time for me to go back home. Omma and I plan on facing the unknown of long-distance jeong

together. I can only hope that we can continue building our relationship, despite the distance and time difference. I realize that maintaining a relationship across obstacles of space, time, and language can be stressful and overwhelming, but my relationship with Omma has been so rewarding that I am determined to make communicating with her a regular part of my life, regardless of where I live. Considering I feel noticeably less happy on the days I do not see Omma at school, I think not seeing her for months or years at a time will be difficult. But our connection is so strong that I feel sure I will return to Korea; I will discover jeong once more.

Lea Crowley is a 2014-2015 EETA at Duho Elementary School in Pohang.

Island Childhood. Kelsey Hagenah. Palawan, Philippines

Lunch in a Fisherman’s Village. Alessandra Hodulik. Cat Ba Bay, Vietnam

Coconut Head. Kelsey Hagenah. Palawan, Philippines

THE

UNATHLETE BEN HARRIS Out of all the events spanning the two-day sports festival at my school, the scrimmages between the teachers and the students were the most anticipated. People shuffled around listlessly when two classes faced off, but the atmosphere surrounding the teacher-student matches befitted a professional game. I’d been invited to play in the volleyball game. My co-teacher asked me well in advance, a few times, and I agreed whenever the question came up. When the net was up and the other players were in their positions, a teacher grabbed my hand to lead me to my spot. I became chicken. I pulled away and backed off. It must have seemed sudden, and it was, but although I hadn’t anticipated my own reaction, I wasn’t surprised by it. They found a substitute, another teacher who wasn’t happy to play, but at least he did. I watched the game, left out and a little ashamed. Feeling that I needed to do penance for my cowardice the day before, I agreed when a different teacher asked me to play basketball. Because all Korean high school boys seem to love either soccer, basketball or both, the basketball game was going to be hot. Basketball was the filet mignon to volleyball’s

cheese sticks, and nobody was about to miss it. I knew this was the case, and still said I would play; this is how reckless I am. Students rushed in to sit on the stage and in the balcony to watch the teachers warm up. I didn’t warm up. I barely even knew how to play. Just watching them from the sidelines made me sweat. To celebrate Sports Day, students’ parents brought a buffet of fried chicken, rice cakes and pig’s feet for the teachers to eat in the back room of the gym, and I would have been much better off spending the day there. The truth is that I am as interested in sports as I am in car mechanics or doctor’s office waiting rooms, which is to say: not at all. When another ETA told me that her first impression of me was that I was a sporty guy, I had to laugh. As a child, I was awkward, sniffling and asthmatic. I had nosebleeds and did breathing treatments. My parents never had any hope for me as an athlete. “We knew it wasn’t for you early on,” my mother once told me. “I mean, my God, you couldn’t even throw a football.” It wasn’t mean-spirited. It was fact. My mom always encouraged my interest in music, and didn’t even want me to play sports because I might get

hurt. My dad is so loyal a Detroit Lions fan that he kept faith even when they broke records one season by losing every single game. Yet if he was disappointed that his oldest son was more interested in the piano than in being a quarterback, he never showed it. I finally picked up running after high school, at first as a sometimes-habit, because I felt like I needed to do something. All my friends swam, wrestled, played football or baseball, and all I did was go to school and go home. I asked myself if I wanted to go through life on a rolling chair. I wheezed all the way through my first run with my best friend, who I’d held back so much that he ran another several miles after finishing our route. I hated it at first, but eventually grew to like it. I like the way I feel after a long run, and how during it I can think clearly. What I don’t care about is proper technique unless it’s something that keeps me from hurting myself, and I don’t care about speed. I’m trying to train for a half-marathon, and I don’t care about my finishing time. Finishing at all is the whole point. Running does not make me an athlete. Everything I know about true athleticism suggests that it is graceful, competitive and technically artistic. As a true unathlete, I am far away from all those things. Although sports are everywhere in the United States, they are still easy for me to forget. In a conversation, if someone asks me if I like a certain team or saw a certain game, all I have to do is say no and we change topics. There’s a sports section in every newspaper I read, although to me that article titled “Pistons Score Big Win Over Cavaliers” might as well be called “Better Seed Storage Methods for the Best Yield from Your Summer Garden.” Many people like sports and many people like gardens. In America nobody seems to care that I care about neither. In Korea, my indifference towards organized sports is often met with genuine bafflement. I used

to think it was disappointment, but now I’m not so sure. I’ve been told more than a few times that I’m very small, too small, and that I should be lifting weights. People sometimes tell me this with great concern, as if my arms were so small that they were in danger of withering away. I can never resist stealing a look. Really? Are they that puny? Some people seem to think so. They ask me to flex so they can feel my muscles. There’s not much to feel, though. I rarely have to lift anything heavier than a cell phone. The spring of my freshman year of college, my friends sometimes wasted time on the basketball courts behind our residence hall and every once in a while let me play, too, though they laughed at the way I dribbled. Later, an opportunity for a casual one-off tournament between two or three halls came up, and I must have gotten the wrong idea from their inclusiveness, because I asked the same best friend who took me on my first jog if he wanted me to play. Sheepishly, he told me he’d already dreamt up a team, and I wasn’t on it. I tease him about it now, and even back then I could only pretend to be offended. He knows and I know that I’d have been fooling myself if I didn’t admit he was right. I hadn’t played basketball since then. I had agreed to play in this teacher-student matchup, because I felt bad, and not because I had a real desire to practice my dribbling, which hadn’t improved in the intervening years. I told the teacher who invited me that he needed to be prepared, because I was really terrible. He told me it was okay. I am now convinced that he either thought I was being modest or that he somehow didn’t comprehend just how irredeemably awful at something someone can be. What followed for me was what I can reasonably, without exaggeration, rank as one of the most pathetic 30-minute periods of my life. It was here that the completeness of my unathleticism exposed

itself. I ran around frantically, understanding none of the moving parts. Perhaps the first moment my team realized they had a serious problem was when a student got close enough to the net to take a clean shot and scored while I stood ahead with my back to him, oblivious. After he scored, there was cheering, so I spun around just in time to see two students moving away from the net, while the PE teacher paused for a second to deal with me, pointing and speaking Korean I didn’t understand. Even though I couldn’t catch his words I understood the point, that it was my fault for leaving him alone back there and his incredulousness suggested that I had just made a pretty rookie mistake. It didn’t stop there. Halfway through the game the PE teacher had to show me that I need to have my arms spread if I’m guarding someone.

Jump Around. Zoe Wolszon. Nobyeon Middle School, Daegu

After hours of watching my students compete over those two days, I noticed many of them are unathletes, too. On the first serve of the first volleyball game of the day, the team lobbed the ball over the net, where it landed right in the middle of four people, none of whom bothered to move. All that made me wonder if I wasn’t imagining a lot of this pressure. Maybe it wasn’t a big deal after all. I keep going back and forth about this. Recently, the poetry teacher asked me if I liked baseball and I told him no. When he asked me then which sports did I like, instead of making an excuse or dodging the question, I answered frankly for the first time that I didn’t like sports. Immediately he said, “oh, then do you like to study?” I said yes. He smiled and gave me a thumbs up. I felt like I’d made a breakthrough. Were these the magic words that would save me from the

strange looks? Would it have been this easy all along had I not danced around the obviousness of my unathleticism? When my friends mocked the way I dribbled, it didn’t hurt my feelings because I don’t wrap my self-worth in the way I handle a basketball. That idea hadn’t been challenged much in America, but in Korea it was like another endurance test. For a long time, I endured that test rather weakly. Then I realized that I had cared about it a lot more than anyone else, in the same way a kid walks into a cafeteria and thinks that all eyes are on him when really everyone’s looking at their food. For all the embarrassment that Sports Day basketball game caused me, there was one bright spot. The sheer repetition of running several days every week has improved my lung capacity and made my muscles stronger. Though there was never any hope for my jump shot, I was able to derive a

source of pride from my increased endurance. The teacher who asked me to play, the one who wouldn’t believe I was so bad, was himself an impressive basketball player. Both of us ran up and down the court the entire game, and yet when it was finally over, he was visibly worn out. I was ready for more.

Ben Harris is a 2014-2015 ETA at Baeyoung High School in Jeongeup.

Calm Before the Storm. Erin Slocum. Deogin High School, Mokpo

TO MY LOVING

GRANDMOTHER 사랑하는 우리 할머니께1

ANDREA KANG 사랑하는 우리 할머니께, I’m frustrated that I can never send you this letter because it will be in English and you wouldn’t understand a word of it. As my friend always said, English is a colonial language and I too have been colonized—stripped from my mother’s language, your language. But I hope that this letter reaches you in spirit. I saw you many times when I was young but I didn’t know much about you. You were only a distant memory, a faint scent of flowers and myeolchi bokkeum2, bright red-stained lips and small notebooks filled with Japanese kanji and paper cranes—perhaps remnants of a “globalized” past, harbingers of both nostalgia and trauma. I remember you used to use words like denki, shashin and jishin3—words that I thought were distorted Korean from your Daegu accent but in reality were Japanese words that you would have only learned from your school days. As I studied more about Korea and its history, I began to understand that war taught you to be bilingual. In a way, it taught me to be bilingual as well. But for me, it has been a different kind of war, where assimilation was not as direct as it was in your era. I remember styrofoam mats and magic carpets. A wall full of colorful drawings and alphabet posters

with pictures of worms and apples, trumpets and roses. The smell of gingerbread and disinfectant wipes overwhelmed any visitor who walked in through those burgundy metal doors. My white teacher with round, golden glasses and graying brown hair hit me because I could not understand the odd words that she was speaking—the first time I was punished without really understanding the reason why. This was just the first of many moments that would try to teach me to forget the complexity of my heritage and identity, and to force myself into the dominant culture. My mom and I were greeted by the sounds of ringing phones and the clicking sounds of the money counter sifting through dollar bills. It was a typical day of running simple errands. “Canu I depositu thisu?” my mother said with perfect grammar. The bank teller looked to me in confusion, asking me to translate the English coming out of my mother’s mouth. I apologize. Why did I apologize for a mistake that the bank teller made? Have you ever apologized for something that was not your fault? I am sure you have. You grew up in a time when knowing and speaking in Korean meant physical death. For me, and for my mom, looking like we didn’t know English was a mark on our foreheads that said FOREIGN. NOT AMERICAN. We were all branded.

‘Sarang haneun woori halmoniggae’ Traditional Korean anchovy side dish 3 In Japanese denki (電気) is electricity; shashin (写真) is photo; and jishin (地震) is earthquake. 1 2

How did you survive your branded past? I wanted to know. You were like a book of war tactics that I wanted to open, because to understand your past was to understand my own, to understand how I could equip myself for the future. When I came back to South Korea to study abroad in college, all those years after the first time I visited as a child, I wanted to get to know you better. But weeks turned into months, and months turned into a whole semester of interrupted times together, and I began to realize that it was more than just a language barrier that kept us apart. Our family told me you were too sick to talk to anyone. They told me your depression had gotten worse so it was best that I didn’t bother you. Perhaps they didn’t want to burden you with another person to take care of in your home. That would make sense since the last time I saw you, a week before Chuseok4 this year, you looked like you were carrying a jigae 5 full of bricks instead of wood. On your better days, you would always talk about memories that even I had forgotten. But that day, your hair seemed a little grayer and the wrinkles on your face were not from smiles but from furrowed brows. Your movements were slower, and it seemed like you couldn’t remember what you did a minute before, let alone those memories from twenty years ago. Maybe you were too busy fighting the demons that kept your doors shut. But I couldn’t help but feel that I was somehow being kept from getting to know you. Perhaps they were too afraid of what would come out of our conversations. Too afraid that those conversations would give you the power you once had—the power to present your beautiful, imperfect self to a world that tried so hard to cover the blemishes, the not so pleasant things. Maybe they were afraid that our conversations would make me realize that they were human, vulnerable and imperfect like you, like me, like everyone else.

But in the end, I understood your small gestures. The way you peeled the goguma6 for me with your shaking hands, pained by arthritis. The way you picked up a small morsel of kimchi with your chopsticks and put it on top of my rice for me to eat. The way you dusted off my coat and asked me if it was warm enough for the South Korean winters, because it’s not just cold up North. The way you hugged me when I knew that hugging was not a practice you’re accustomed to. In the end, they couldn’t silence the language of compassion that our bodies spoke. And I think that it was this form of communication that helped me understand you a little better. Your vocal silence did not mean that you were silent. Because you were speaking in other ways. And these other ways showed more compassion for those who had wronged you than anything else. I understood that compassion was in itself your power, and that you had never really lost any of it at all. These were the war tactics in your book, the way you survived and thrived. You are not just the pleasant memories—paper cranes and flowers, red stained lips and myeolchi bokkeum. You are also war and depression, with battle scars that never really healed quite right. But I choose to remember all of you because that is what makes you whole. Because that is what makes me whole. 강민지 드림7

Andrea Minjee Kang is a 2013-2015 ETA at Jungwon University in Goesan. She previously taught at Gongju High School in Gongju.

4 Lunar Harvest Festival in the Fall Traditional carrier mostly used for wood but also for other things such as luggage 6 Korean sweet potato 7‘ Kang Minjee deurim’, “From Kang, Minjee”

청개구리

(‘Cheong Gae Gu Ri,’ Trouble Maker). Hannah Shannon. Daegu

Cotes. Hannah Shannon. Jeju

THE

WRONG KIND OF AMERICAN ZERIN (ZARIN) TASNIM & JUDITH FOO

This piece features alternating vignettes from two ETAs sharing their respective cultural experiences while in Korea. I. We sat in the back of the coffee shop, my small suitcase jammed next to a fake ficus, and the contents of an even smaller bag threatening to spill out. My stomach growled audibly and I felt sweat seeping through my stiff blazer. After four hours on the bus, I was tired, hot and ready for a cold shower. My head buzzed back to that very morning, when I woke up groggy and dreading the day. A haphazard placement ceremony, tearful goodbyes, boarding a bus to Busan—after a summer of anticipation, this very moment was underwhelming.

As I tried not to give in to my exhaustion, a small, plump woman approached the table. Caught off guard, I stood up and quickly bowed, gasping “안녕하세요1” under my breath. The woman nodded and stared at me even after she took a seat. I smiled and shifted around nervously. Finally she spoke, slowly and deliberately. “What did you study in college?” “I studied political science and history.” I answered automatically, wringing my hands underneath the table. “When did you graduate?” “This past June.” “Do you have any teaching experience?” “Not any formal experience, but I did learn a lot during my orientation,” I said not considering that she already probably knew all these things about me. 1

Annyeonghaseyo, Hello

“How long have you been learning English?” she asked studying my face. I noticed she hadn’t once smiled at me. “Excuse me?” “How long have you been learning English?” She repeated slowly. I gaped at her, unsure of how to answer. Surely she was aware that I am an American… “I’ve been speaking English ever since I can remember.” I finally answered. She looked at me as if she didn’t believe me and exchanged a look with my coteacher sitting next to me. “Where are your parents from again?” She asked. “…Bangladesh.” I replied unsure of what that had to do with me being a teacher. “Bangladesh,” she repeated. I nodded as my stomach began to fill with a sense of unease. The hum of warm summer night conversations swirled around the tension that filled the space between us. “Well, let’s go find you a place to sleep,” she sighed, as if disappointed. “Your apartment isn’t ready yet, so you’ll have to stay at a motel for a week or so.” She grabbed my wrist and led me out of the coffee shop. II. The sun is already setting over the Busan International Film Festival by the time we clamber off the bus in search of a 7 p.m. screening. The ten 2

Name changed

of us are huddling together around our crumpled festival map when a man, middle aged and garbed head to toe in bright red BIFF-stamped apparel, approaches us from behind. Hardly any speaking is required; all it takes are a few gestures towards his official badge and his enormous, professional camera to get the point across. He’s with official festival staff, and he wants to film us. “Just…hello!” He instructs, waving both hands enthusiastically in demonstration. “Say hi! Hello to BIFF!” Why not? We crowd laughing together, arm in arm and hands on shoulders. He squints into the lens, then frowns, squinting over it. “Korean?” He asks. I realize he’s staring at me, where I’m standing in the front row. The frown is for me. “Korean? No, she’s American,” my friend responds dismissively, flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder and clinging still more tightly to my arm. We settle back into formation, but the signal doesn’t come. Instead, the man steps out from behind his camera, steps up to us. We all straighten up, unsure of what’s happening. The man grabs my arm and walks me forcibly out of the frame, deposits me a few feet away on the sidewalk. Then he hops back behind the camera, beaming as if nothing of consequence has happened. “Just hello!” he shouts into my friends’ enraged faces. “Just hi!”

III. I straightened up to answer the student who had just bounded into my classroom. “Teacher, teacher! My brother, did you see?” “Erm...yes. What’s his name again?” I asked trying to recall the faces of the 16 new third graders I met just seven minutes ago. “Park Woobin,2” she said, searching my face for any sign of recognition. I thought hard, trying to remember if any face was similar to this student but came up blank. “What was he wearing?” I asked. “He wearing orange jacket.”

I could tell she sensed that I didn’t have the vaguest clue. Not wanting to disappoint her, I pretended to have a moment of recognition and prepared myself for a tiny white lie. “Ah yes! I remember your brother!” My student broke out into a smile. “He is very cute!” I exclaimed. Technically, all the third graders were tiny and adorable. My student looked surprised and tried to convey her thoughts “Ah..yes. Cute… 하지만 섹갈 이상해요3…not good color.” I blinked trying to process what she said. Color? Was he sick? My student sensed my confusion and pointed to her skin. “His color bad,” she elaborated. 3

‘Hajiman sekal eesanghaeyo,’ “His color is strange”

Ah. I knew who her brother was now. Park Woobin, a little boy with cute dimples and a giant orange jacket, was similar in almost every aspect to his older sister but he had one difference. “Dahyun4,” I said with a slight smile, “Your brother and I have the same skin color.” My student blinked, realizing what I meant. “But teacher,” my student began, trying to find the right words once again. “선생님은, 이뻐잖아.5” IV. The first time I hear the crinkle of a coat behind me, I pay no heed. The café in downtown Seoul is bustling with strangers, each wearing a bright winter jacket puffier and noisier than the next. But a few moments later, I hear it again, right by my ear, so I turn. There’s a middle-aged Korean man, peering intently over my head at my friend sharing the table. Her light hair is shining in the café lights, and her long white fingers drum a pencil absentmindedly against the page of her Korean textbook. I cough and nudge her foot under the table. “Hey.” I whisper, smirking when she catches my eye. “Visitor.” Her gaze travels over me to the man, transitioning smoothly from confusion to resigned

4 5

weariness to politeness, so quickly I would’ve missed it if I hadn’t been expecting this reaction at this point. “Oh, hello!” I could listen in on this conversation, but why bother? Where are you from? Oh, America?! Why are you in Korea? You’re a teacher? So interesting. You’re very beautiful. It’s nothing I haven’t heard directed towards my friend before. On the other hand, I look Korean – something I’ve learned to be grateful for during my time here. No stares on the subway, in the market, or at the gym for me; I can commute, shop and sweat in peaceful obscurity. Now, I’m sitting back in this leather seat and enjoying my book while my friend politely entertains the stranger’s stilted small talk. Still, even as I enjoy my coffee in peace, something doesn’t sit right. I feel the man’s glances at the identical Korean textbooks spread on the table before us and the sheet of vocabulary on my lap, but he never says a word to me. Instead, for fifteen minutes, he talks right over my head to my friend. The price my friend pays for constant admiration is the constant invasion of her space and time. I wonder if the price I pay for peaceful obscurity is this unsettling feeling that I am not the right kind of foreign.

Name changed ‘Seonsaengnimeun eebbeojanha,’ “But teacher is pretty (so it’s okay)”

Learning. Donald Bauer Jr. Seoul Museum of Art: Africa Now Exhibit, Seoul

V. “Seoul Station,” I said as I clicked on my seatbelt. The driver nodded and the cab accelerated into the Seoul traffic. After a few minutes of silence, the driver cleared his throat. “Where you from?” he asked glancing at me. I looked up from my phone and answered in Korean. The driver’s face lit up with surprise. “Your Korean is very good!” he exclaimed in Korean. He immediately began asking me a series of questions. Where in America are you from? What are you doing in Korea? Do you like Korean food? I answered back in my limited Korean, grasping for phrases in the air and using a lot of hand gestures. The driver listened enthusiastically while he maneuvered down the highway. “Do you like samgyeopsal? It’s a very famous food in Korea,” he asked at the next red light.

“No. I can’t eat pork,” I replied. I hoped my simple reply would be enough for him, even though it hadn’t been for others in the past. “Is it possible... are you Muslim?” he asked with a look of incredulity. I nodded and smiled. “Inshallah!” he exclaimed loudly, making me jump. “I knew there was a reason I stopped my car for you! It is fate! I am Muslim too!” I was completely shocked. What were the chances? I never expected to meet a Muslim in Korea where the most dominant faiths are either Buddhism or Christianity. I immediately thought back to a recent school lunch. “I wonder,” my coteacher said as she picked up a piece of meat with her chopsticks, “Why don’t Muslims eat pork?” The table suddenly became very quiet and the other teachers peeked at me curiously. I swallowed and put

my sandwich down, trying to choose my words carefully. “Well,” I said, staring at the wall ahead, “There are many reasons. But for the most part, the Quran forbids eating pork because of its fat content. Pork is generally considered unhealthy by the Muslim community so we choose not to eat it.” “Ah,” my coteacher nodded understandingly. “I think this was said in the old days to protect people from diseases from the meat.” I gave a noncommittal shrug and picked up my sandwich. “But you should know, the Korean nation prepares pork very cleanly,” my coteacher stated in matter-of-fact manner. “So I think you can eat it,” she said, pushing her tray towards me. I shook my head and tried to explain, “I’m sorry. It’s not just a matter of cleanliness; I’m not allowed to eat it.” My coteacher stared at me, moving her tray back. “I guess your religion must be outdated,” she remarked. “Wow... really?” I asked, still in disbelief that not only someone accepted and understood my reasons for not eating pork in Korea but was Muslim as well.

“Yes! This is Allah’s work! We were fated to meet! Inshallah!” I suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of familiarity with this man. Who would’ve thought that halfway across the world, despite a different culture and language, I would have such a fundamental part of my life in common with a complete stranger. Before I could ask him any further questions, we pulled up to Seoul Station. I quickly glanced at the toll and handed my fare to him. “Only half. I’ll give you a discount because you are Muslim,” the driver insisted, handing back the rest of the fare. As I dragged my suitcase up the stairs, I looked back to wave at the man who waved from his car. “잘가요,6” he called, smiling warmly. VI. After my last class on Tuesday, the usual gaggle of girls has stayed behind to chat. As I clear my desk and switch off the projector, they mill around me, studying the day’s worksheet and blasting the latest k-pop hit from a cell phone that one girl waves to Jalgayo,’ “Safe travels”

6 ‘

Field Trip. Alessandra Hodulik. Changdeokgung, Seoul

the beat. At the whiteboard, a few girls are studying up for a Chinese exam later that afternoon. Their markers fill the board with characters that I find I recognize - 昨天我去了我奶奶家。As I walk by, I peer over their shoulders and casually read, “Wo zuotian qule nainai jia,” – Yesterday I went to Grandma’s house – aloud in Mandarin. The effect is instantaneous: four girls shriek, one slams the whiteboard eraser down with a loud clatter; the k-pop blasting phone is silenced as the girls crowd in around the board. “Teacher, you can read this?!” One of the girls, Sujin, demands. “How about this?” She points at another sentence, 我已經吃過飯了.“What does this say?” “This says… ‘Wo yingjing chiguo fanle.’ I already ate. Right?” “Heol! Daebak! 7” The girls chorus, eyes wide and mouths gaping, and I can’t help but grin. “But teacher!” Sujin speaks for the rest, raising bewildered hands towards me. “How can you know Chinese? You are American.” I look around at the girls—they’re all wide-eyed, speechless, completely floored by the Mandarin I’ve just spoken. I, in turn, find myself surprised by their surprise. After months of strangers skeptically guessing that I’m Japanese, Chinese, anything but American, I almost can’t comprehend their wholehearted, unquestioning belief in my American-ness, to the point that they’re utterly bewildered that I can

even speak another language. “One of the coolest things about America is that we come to live there from many different countries.” I explain, “My family is American, but my grandparents are from Taiwan, so I know Chinese so I can speak to my grandparents.” “Wow! Chincha jjang!” Sujin raises two thumbs up to go along with her compliment – really great! – and the other girls follow suit. The bell rings then, and they’re off, gathering books and bags. As they rush out the door, I hope they’ve internalized even a bit of the exchange that just happened. The next week, my hopes are answered. When I enter my classroom to prepare for my Tuesday classes, I find an anonymous message printed in meticulous Chinese on the board. “我愛美國教師,” it says. I love my American teacher.

Judith Foo is a 2014-2015 ETA at Jungang Girls High School in Jeonju. Zerin (Zarin) Tasnim is a 2014-2015 EETA at Dalbuk Elementary School in Busan.

Exclamations of surprise and excitement

Still. Kelsey Hagenah. Jinju

ONLY

DAUGHTER GETS A SISTER 자매가된 두 외동딸 1

ZOË GIOJA

When we pulled up to the restaurant, it was dark. I stepped out of the car, entered the restaurant and saw at least twelve people sitting on the floor, all looking up at me. I bowed, mumbling some greeting in Korean. This is it, I thought. Now I’m really in Korea. The English teacher beside me explained who everyone was, pointing out my principal and viceprincipal, but the person I really wanted to meet was my host sister. They’d left a seat for me next to her. I had wondered what she would be like—shy or outgoing? Would she ask questions, or would I have to do most of the talking? I was determined to build a relationship with her; for some reason I held onto this as the main key to success. All I knew was that my host family consisted of two parents and an only daughter, Jiyeong. What questions does one even ask a middle schooler? I wondered as I sat down next to her. How do you make conversation?

‘Jamaegadwen du Oe dong ddal’

But it turned out I didn’t have to worry. As we sat there, she was quiet at first. Then she turned to me. “Teacher,” she said, in English. “I found some informations about you on the Facebook.” “Oh really?” I asked. “I found some pictures. Of you and your friends.” She took out her phone. She showed me pictures of me at my graduation, pictures from orientation, that she’d saved on her phone. “Teacher,” she asked. “What is your favorite movie?” “Oh gosh, I don’t know... Maybe... um.... Lord of the Rings?” “Oh, yes, yes,” she nodded. “I like that one too. It is very good.” All right, I thought. This is going to work. Later that night, she sat with me as I unpacked, revealing that she’d wondered about me even more

than I’d wondered about her. “I wanted to know would you be pretty or not,” she said. On their fridge was a low-quality photocopy of the form we’d filled out for our homestays, secured with two redwhite-and-blue USA magnets. It had basic personal details and a picture, which had come out as a dark, vaguely Zoë-shaped smudge. “I couldn’t tell from the picture,” she said. “There were three things I was worried about: I didn’t want a foreigner who is fat; or a foreigner who is too shy, and just sits in her room all the time; and I wanted a foreigner who had lighter skin... I wanted a pretty foreigner.” This was just the beginning of her bluntness. When I’d finished unpacking, she added: “You have a lot of clothes. I think you must be very rich.” Later that week, I asked her why her family decided to host me. “Because I always wanted a sister,” she said immediately. “Jo Teacher came to our class and said, ‘Who would like to have a foreigner in their house?’ And I raised my hand. At first my mom said ‘Hmmm....’ But she knew I want a sister. Sometimes I’m very lonely. But now I have you!” I thought how strange it was, instantly being welcomed in as a member of their family. I didn’t know them at all. They didn’t know me. But they were so willing, so instantly ready, to use all the titles that we can’t earn—the titles that we’re usually born into: “daughter,” “sister,” “mom,” “dad.” My host father was around often in those first few weeks, eager to show me Mokpo, drive us to museums and over bridges, to ply me with ice cream and ramen. He refused to speak to me in Korean, the way my host mom would, patiently working with me to create meaning. He relied on his translator. Once, he typed a string of words into his phone and put it up to my face: “I have two princesses so father is happy recently.” Days later, my host mom seconded, “He is happy because he has two daughters now.” That’s right, I thought. Two oe dong ddal; two only daughters, trying to be sisters. This is going to be interesting. ***

One Saturday morning, I woke to my host sister poking me on the shoulder. “Teacher, it’s late,” she said. I looked at my phone. It was 10 a.m. “I was asleep,” I mumbled. I was distinctly irritated that she’d come into my room at all. I sat up in bed. “Okay, so... in the future... please don’t wake me up. Ever. Unless we have a special plan. Okay?” On Sunday, she settled for admiring me from afar. My room has a sliding window that looks onto the laundry room, covered by a pink-flowered curtain. I woke up, restless; I saw the curtain rustle. When I emerged, Jiyeong told me, “I was looking at you. To see if you were still asleep.” You’ve got to be kidding me, I thought. At first, I’d loved everything, been grateful for everything – my school, my students, my host sister’s obsession with me, my host mom’s devotion and kindness. I’d spent all my time counting my blessings, trying my hardest; sitting in the living room assembling puzzles with my host sister and working at the kitchen table instead of retreating to my room. Endeavoring to be the pretty, social host sister she’d wanted. She asked me if she could nap with me in my bed, I said yes; she asked if I wanted to play Bananagrams, I said yes; help her with her drawing homework, her TOEIC studying, her English homework. But certain things began to wear on me. “What are you writing?” Jiyeong asked when I sat with her at the kitchen table, writing in my journal. She picked it up. I wanted to protest, but she was already reading it. “Oh, I can’t understand,” she said. I breathed a sigh of relief. “Your writing, this kind of thing,” she indicated the cursive. From then on, I made my cursive as illegible as possible. And the questions. Teacher, why do all Americans wear bikinis? Do they wear them in the street, and everywhere? Teacher, how much do you weigh? You won’t tell? Why won’t you tell me? Teacher, on Sunday, do you have a special plan? Can we go to the bookstore? So we went to the bookstore. They had a limited

English selection. I couldn’t find much, but I did pick up a copy of 1984. I took to reading a few pages every day on the way to school. One morning, after a night where Jiyeong had begged me to help her with her drawing homework until late into the night and still poked her head in through the sliding window after I’d shut my door, I read the sentence: “Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull.” I almost burst out laughing. How could I possibly sympathize so much with that statement? But when I tried to convey these feelings—the intense desire to be left alone, for her to leave me be —those near me often observed: “Boy, you’re really not used to having siblings, are you?” No, I wasn’t. I wasn’t used to having a child in the house who by turns enraged and endeared me. There were days when everything she did annoyed me: the way she would talk to her mom (“엄마, 물,2” she’d demand, instead of asking for it politely or just getting it herself ); the fact that, at thirteen, her mom was still cutting her toenails; how some days she’d tell me I was fat and on others, skinny; how she would talk about me to her mom in Korean even when we were sitting together at the dinner table; how she’d call me when I was out, wondering when I was going to be home; how she’d yell and whoop and scream and sing at midnight, right outside my door, when I was trying to sleep. But then, as the weather got colder on our morning walks to school, she would link her arm through mine, holding onto me so we didn’t slip on the ice, and my heart would soften again. I wasn’t 2

‘Omma, mul,’ “Mom, water”

like her, so instantly and demonstrably ready to love someone. I wouldn’t reach out to hold onto someone’s arm like that. I felt grateful, those times, that she reached out and held onto mine. *** It was midnight on Friday, December 6th— Jiyeong’s birthday. We’d eaten a cake and watched a movie together. Her father hadn’t come home from work to see her, on account of the snow. After the festivities, Jiyeong hadn’t wanted to keep studying. Her mother, who I’d never seen angry, had raised her voice and told her she had to study. She’d shut herself in her room, locked the door, and refused to speak to Jiyeong or come out. I was sitting next to Jiyeong on the couch, stroking her hair, putting my arm around her. Tears were running down her cheeks. “I’m sorry she’s mad,” I said. “You shouldn’t have to study on your birthday. And it’s no good to be mad at you on your birthday. I’m sorry.” She didn’t talk for a long time. “I have to study,” she said finally, standing up and fetching her textbook. I lay down next to her on the floor and read my book. “Teacher,” she said after some time. “I didn’t expect to cry on my birthday.” She looked down, her lip sticking out. “This is the worst birthday ever.” She read on for a few minutes. Then: “Teacher…” she said, looking up at me. “What is it?” I asked. “My father didn’t come.”

Flower Fields. Donald Bauer Jr. Seoul

She teared up again and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. I just stroked her hair again, murmuring apologies. “Before you come, in this situation, I am always alone,” she said. “My mom just get mad and I just cry alone. But now, you are here, and you understand my feeling I think. You are only daughter, like me. So you understand your parents really… tell you to do well. My parents are always saying, ‘Top ten! Top ten!’ and ‘make me happy,’ like that.” She sighed. “But my friends, they don’t always understand my feeling. They don’t think deeply about this kind of thing. And I can’t tell the teacher, because… it looks bad on my parents. But you understand my feeling.” I looked at her for a moment, struck by what she’d said. I remembered all the times I’d seen her as childish and immature—showing me picture after picture of K-pop stars on her phone; talking about “handsome guys”; acting like the kid she was. But she had articulated thoughts I’d often had, even as an adult. We were quiet for a while, I reading and she working through her textbook. When I yawned, she made as if to ask something. “Teacher, I – no, sorry.” “What is it?” I asked. “I… I’m afraid you’ll say no.” “It’s okay,” I assured her. “You can ask.” “Will you… Can I sleep with you in your bed?” She wasn’t used to sleeping alone. She always slept with her mom on the living room floor, right outside my room. But her mom wasn’t talking to her tonight.

I thought for a moment. “Well, my bed is pretty small. How about I sleep out here with you?” “Okay,” she said. I went in my room to get my blankets and pillow, thinking, sure, I’m entitled to my boundaries, my own room, my own bed, a door that I can close. But sometimes those things are worth giving up. I knew Jiyeong was a bed hog, that she’d probably kick me off the heated mat, that I’d roll around uncomfortably all night and probably wouldn’t get much sleep. Tonight, I realized with some surprise, that was okay with me. When I peeked my head out of my door, she was passed out, her cheek stuck to her book, her pencil in her hand. I left my room and sat down beside her. I looked at her, thinking of all the times she’d annoyed me, and all the times she would annoy me again. Then I set my blanket down, peeled the book from her face, slipped the pencil out of her hand, and lay down next to her.

Zoë Gioja is a 2014-2015 ETA at Jeongmyeong Girls Middle School in Mokpo.

PHONE CALLS TERI BUNCE

I stood, winding and unwinding the cord to my window shades around my index finger as she spoke. “It’s not good, honey. They say these are probably signs of heart failure…” Tears well in my eyes as I press my forehead against the cool glass, pushing her voice out of my head. ** Feeling the heavy, balmy summer heat, I scooch closer to the passenger door, and reach for the crank handle. My bare legs are stuck to the faded brown vinyl seats, and it requires all the strength of my eight-year old arms to lower the window of his 1986 Volvo. As the breeze hits my face he says, “Sorry hun, you know this thing don’t have AC.” “I know.” I reply. “I don’t mind.” And I really don’t. I lay my face on the windowsill, my right arm lazily swooping and cutting through the air as we drive. How many hours have we spent this way? Driving around with nowhere in particular to go, winding down the dirt roads of Wayne County, Georgia, lazily watching the cotton and tobacco grow. “Do you want to head home now, sweetie?” “No. I want it to be just you and me a bit longer, Grandpa.” **

I open my eyes now and the flat endless fields of Georgia cotton that fill my memories have been replaced with the ceaseless mountain peaks of Korea. They’re speckled with the last, persistent buds of pink and white cherry blossoms, and I can begin to make out the brightest hue of green across the prickly mountains. The view is a reminder of how far from home I’ve come. I remember the cell phone in my hand and interrupt, “I’ve got to go, Mom. I’ll be late…” I lie. I hang up the phone guiltily and walk towards my bathroom. I turn on the shower as I push away the streams of self-criticism that fill my head. Selfish. Heartless. Cowardly. Under the streams of hot water and self-criticism, I collapse against the cool tile with burning skin. I close my eyes and attempt to block out my thoughts for a moment, but ultimately a scene from earlier in the day creeps up. ** Steam swirled, but I could still see them across the room. She wasn’t more than 16, and her halmeoni must’ve been over 80. I couldn’t seem to tear my eyes from them, the way the girl lowered her grandmother in and out of the warm, steamy baths. I watched as she gently washed her grandmother’s back and arms. Stared as she tenderly rinsed the

Portrait of Kim Bok-dong. Lindsay Burnette. Seoul

charcoal and acrylic sketch of a comfort woman at a protest in 2014

shampoo from what was left of halmeoni’s wispy hair—careful not to let any suds drip down onto her face. ** Sitting alone in that jimjilbang,1 I was aware of how very different I was from the Koreans that surrounded me. And not in the usual, superficial ways I was used to. I tried to remember a single time with my grandfather, whom I consider the most important and influential man in my life, that was as selfless and caring as the moment I was witnessing. I tried to remember a single moment when our relationship wasn’t centered on my happiness or well-being, but his. Yet here was this teenage girl, choosing to devote her Saturday afternoon to caring for her grandmother. ** 효 (hyo), the word for filial piety in Korean, is one of the most enduring influences of Confucianism in Korean culture. The cultural value of hyo was so strong that Yi Sun Sin, the most revered admiral in Korean history, retired in the middle of a war when his grandparents passed away. Until the 1950s it was common for Koreans to visit their familial and ancestral tombs, daily, to show respect and appreciation. While today, this practice has diminished in frequency, the value of hyo still dominates Korean life. To allow your grandparents or parents to grow old alone is unfathomable; to be considered bulhyo, or un-hyo, is one of the worst crimes you can commit. ** In Korea I am reminded of how very un-hyo I am. I moved a world away from my family, in their time of need, to chase my own dreams. I wonder if I am the type of person who can ever be hyo—if my

self-imposed distance from my grandpa, as his life runs out, is a convenience I gladly hide behind. I consider if it is easier for me to avoid his illness and seek refuge in our memories. The weight of these thoughts feels too much to bear. I stand up to turn off the water and make my way to my bed. Collapsing, I wrap my comforter around my wet body and bury my face into my pillows. “6,000 miles…” I tell myself. What could I possibly do from over 6,000 miles away? ** I wake up to the sound of rain, and my eyes drift to the framed photographs on my desk—three in a row. Me beaming, sitting in my Easter dress on a proud, strong grandfather’s lap, clutching my kindergarten diploma. An 18-year-old me, a bit too obviously posing in a tight, short dress under my high-school graduation gown, held close by an even prouder grandpa. The most recent photo reveals his steep decline. At my college graduation only four years later, his hair is entirely white, and he leans on me to steady himself. He smiles, but his eyes look tired. I wrap my blankets around me tightly, looking back to the man from the first photo. Suddenly, I feel like a small child again, hoping grandpa can solve my problems. I reach for my phone and dial, biting my nails as it rings. He answers, and although I have so many fears and his greeting barely masks the weakness in his voice—I exhale and say, “Hi, grandpa, it’s me.”

Teri Bunce is a 2014-2015 ETA at Yeunnam Elementary School in Sejong City.

Korean public bathhouse

Cloudy. Kevin Duong. Osaka, Japan

Stop the Canoe. Kevin Duong. Bali, Indonesia

Watch Out for the Monkeys. Kevin Duong. Bali, Indonesia

Sunset in Mui Ne. Alessandra Hodulik. Mui Ne, Vietnam

SOMEWHERE ELSE EVERYTHING IS SIGNIFICANT A Series of Poems A. MORIAH JONES

The weight of water If there was a sound like the violent rending of a marble floor I’d liken it to that – the sky has cracked in Gwangju a bowl tipped over its contents poured through and it seems appropriate to mention that at this juncture I am ill prepared to hold the weight of water – and so I find more often than not – I have spilled over meanwhile drops have condensed on the surface of clay vessels – as if to suggest the water within is cold but really there are cracks in the cisterns – they cannot hold water

Portrait of a room crowded with plants – the family is letting the vines crawl across the wood floor paneling and all along the walls – there is a stain like thrown coffee above the TV and since she gets on her knees every day to wipe around the low hanging leaves – the stain must be left as a reminder or warning: shrunken skulls wind tossed and jangling against each other: a music as broken as the ecstatic screams of children at play and all of it carried past teal neon crosses that are gaudy against the night sky she pulls the towels from the rack where they dried – they’ve all been stolen from hotels – and presently the intimations of halting piano scales drift into the room through ceiling vents ridiculous at this hour – but why not?

Dinner on the stove at Café the Big Banana pots coppered and brown with use hang like decorations hand dripped coffee gathers in a spiraled glass there’s English on the signs and bananas with bruised skin the place is eclectic in a way that seems like home – which is unexpected piquant waves from someone’s cooking dinner clash against my saccharine honey lemon tea its tepidity informed by my leisure and the trafficked entrance I’ve been here for hours – and finally evening has come perhaps to say understand more fully the fragments of silences broken by a flippantly earnest bless you the space between the entitlement of naivety the assorted ways of being

Somewhere else – everything is significant there is just enough blood to make you curious to make you draw closer to the heavy bellied bird hunched in the ditch – the breast is concave where the wing was pushed bluntly into the hollow boned chest – proven as fragile as you imagine you will hurt appropriately – long enough for you to note where the feathers have been stained where the life has spilled over you will get close enough to be too close – so the bird will stutter away but you will see its eyes and know enough to name your face in its fear

It is wet in Korea again The window frames in Caffe Pascucci are all painted red their panes wink with the most recent rain’s sputter – it is wet in Korea again and the bottom panels glisten where the light makes glitter of the dust and crumbs – gnats crawl along gathering what they can bouncing from one sill to the next – at times I can do little more than consider – the man on the corner sorting trash and how he handles it all in a way that seems informed – and I want to look at him until he is beautiful – until he gleams – and I want to tell the woman working her store front touting the benefits of emulsion and essence to use her language precisely – but I don’t understand a word anyway because here to call a women glamorous is to call her buxom – which is to realize the unstated excess in the folds of your body – we’ve been consumed here – we’ve been resisted – but look the streets tidy even though he wore no gloves the sounds at once diffuse and discrete – everything dazzles

A. Moriah Jones is a 2014-2015 ETA at Jeonggwang Middle School in Gwangju.

REGRET MATHEW GOLDBERG III. I sit squished against my student’s side in the single wooden chair stationed in front of the class computer. Our fingers bang against the keyboard in a dashing fury, pressing our respective keys: punch, kick, combination move. A crowd of students watch Tae Kwan and I play Tekken Street Fight. Exasperated cheers in broken English overwhelm the classroom. I smile, feeling reinvigorated and alive in these ten minutes between classes. All the while, I dread the bell as much as my students, reluctant to resume teaching. The hallway is in its usual disarray with innocuous fights and student horseplay, but I remain focused on the glowing monitor. Tae Kwan snickers, “Die, Mat. Die!” when we hear a jolting yell. My stomach sinks. The classroom window shatters under the force of flesh. I jump out of my seat and run into the hall to see He Young thrashing against the wall still screaming. Students are hovering, but I am the only teacher around. Blood drips from the fractured window. Queasy, unsure and impulsive, I grab He Young and repeat, “It is okay. Calm down. Just listen to me.” His body is rattling with anger and he could easily throw me to the side, but he doesn’t. The math teacher steps in and begins talking to He Young in Korean. My hold weakens as He Young’s shoulders collapse, blood still oozing from his knuckles. Moments later, He Young, the teacher, and a fellow student are proceeding downstairs to find the nurse and go to the hospital. Two other students are grabbing the broom and dustpan and begin cleaning. The rest of the hall disperses, leaving me in an eerie silence.

convenience store

I. The bell rings. English class is over. Students lift their heads and rub the sleepiness from their eyes, readying to leap from their desks and run to the maejeom1 or into the hallway. I maneuver through the mayhem that now feels familiar, looking for He Young. I notice he’s leaning against the window outside his homeroom class. He is short in stature, beaming with a charismatic smile; I look at him and see a person who is as clever and kind as he is misunderstood. I call to him. He swipes his hand through his auburn-brown hair, walking toward me through the maze of students with a tough façade. “Mathew, what?” he whines. “Why did you drop out of the speaking contest today?” “English boring.” “Lies, you are so good at English. You are one of my top students.” He Young laughs and says, “Thanks, Mat. Class time, sorry.” I am left unsatisfied and confused. Later, I see He Young again outside of class and run up to him. “We didn’t finish talking.” He Young looks at me in frustration. “I don’t know English words.” “That’s okay. Try.” “I am scared … Why do you want me?” It’s my turn to laugh at his words. “Why, because you have great English, you are a leader in school and I believe you can win the competition.” “Mat, phone,” he commands. I pull up the translating app and hand it over. When he holds the phone to my face, the translation reads, Shame.

Looking Down. Donald Bauer Jr. Masan

Last Chance 2014 . Hannah Shannon. Jeju

“What, why?” “I get angry. I can’t … control myself. I can hurt what people think of school. I don’t trust myself with people.” Anger management problems. “How do you control your anger?” I ask, concerned. “I use to go to hospital. But, girlfriend helps me now.” “Ah, that’s good.” I say plainly, unable to communicate my feelings. I wrestle with my next words and whether to hug him. I want him to know he can trust me; that I believe in him. But instead all I say is, “Will you think about the speaking contest?” I settle on giving him a high five, and we head in opposite directions. Awkwardness and disappointment swell in me. Later that night, He Young texts me. My fingers open the message in nervous excitement. He writes “Thank you for the many opportunities ☺” This was my second chance. This was my opportunity to be the person I want to be for him. To be more than a teacher and to be a part of his life. I craft my words carefully and push send with renewed hope. We continue talking until we exchange our goodnights. He calls me Mat brother, and I fall asleep proudly, wishing Mat teacher and Mat brother could coexist. I know that tomorrow if He Young sees me, he will call me Mat teacher, but silently I will hope to hear Mat brother. II. Two days later, He Young storms into the classroom where I am playing with Tae Kwan. Enraged, he slams his fist against the black board slurring curses in Korean. “He Young, what’s wrong?” I ask, while still engaged in the computer game. He Young doesn’t respond and I feel conflicted. I lean backwards in the chair preparing to jump up, but I hesitate, continuing to kick, punch, and battle. My fingers can’t compete against Tae Kwan as he delivers punch after punch. He Young walks out of the classroom. My attention is divided: Should I follow He Young outside to make sure he is okay? This is the first time I was invited to play with Tae Kwan and his friends.

By leaving do I risk my friendship with Tae Kwan? I decide to stay, noticing He Young and his girlfriend talking. Everything is okay. Minutes later, a scream and the sound of glass shattering tell me I was wrong. Coda. He Young’s mother enters the gyomushil 2 with her son behind her. Their resemblance is undeniable. I scan over his face, noticing he has his mother’s eyes and a similar dimple on his right side and wonder if he’s a momma’s boy at heart. A cast masks his bruised and cut hand. I sit stationary at my desk, finding it painful to look at him as it only reminds me of my disappointment in myself, my anger at my inaction. I saw the signs, and I chose to ignore them, wanting to play, convincing myself that I wasn’t a teacher. I reach out to He Young over text that night, too cowardly to talk to him in person. “I’m very ashamed,” he writes. It was only a few days ago we translated that word together. Now he writes it while carrying a new burden. “Don’t be ashamed. We all make mistakes.” I respond, wishing he will forgive himself and recognize his talents and potential. But, He Young isn’t the only one feeling ashamed. I replay the experience repeatedly in my mind, believing I could have made a difference. He Young ends the conversation saying, “Thanks Mat” like nothing has changed. I think about balance, and how much I value both sides of our relationship. Being friends with students like He Young has motivated me to become a better teacher inside and outside of the classroom. It has enabled my students to become my teachers, instilling within them needed confidence. Those moments are too important for these friendships to be a mistake. No, I wasn’t wrong to want to be friends with my students; my mistake was to believe I could not be both a good teacher and a good friend.

Mathew Goldberg is an 2014 - 2015 ETA at Naju Technical High School in Naju.

teachers’ office

HOMEOSTASIS DIEM-TRAN (BIJOU) NGUYEN

I received verbal consent from my NKD tutee to share this story. Her name was changed to protect her identity. “What did you think?” I prompted Ji Min as she pulled the article, printed on heavily creased computer paper, out of her bag. Ji Min adjusted her thin, wire-framed glasses, before meeting my eyes. “I,” she said, in her soft, understated voice, “I really like this article. It reminds me… much of my mother. She died from cancer.” I was suddenly gripped by a fear that I had crossed a line. In our training for working with North Korean Defectors, we had been instructed to never ask our students about their families or life in North Korea, or bring up any sensitive issues that might trigger a negative or emotional reaction. Therefore, I was at a bit of a loss at what to do as Ji Min started to share her story. Ji Min was my NKD student, whom I had met one-on-one during my first few months in Korea. Among her peers, Ji Min was by far the most advanced in English—I remember, during our first meeting, she told me her goal was to be able to recite Steve Job’s commencement address at Stanford University by the end of our sessions. In spite of her evident skill and mastery with the English language, Ji Min was rather cautious and timid when speaking, and I often had to prompt her with questions to create a dialogue. One night, we discussed Brittany Maynard’s story and whether

or not “death with dignity” should be legal. While topics we had discussed in the past had sometimes seemed too abstract for Ji Min, she seemed very excited and passionate to discuss euthanasia. She believed euthanasia should be allowed, because the role of a doctor is to listen to the patient and to ease pain. I wondered how she knew so much about the Hippocratic Oath. “I am very interested in this topic,” Ji Min continued, “because in North Korea I was a doctor.” I was shocked to hear this. As far as I knew at the time, Ji Min had grown up and lived in North Korea until she finally escaped to South Korea with her two sons. How, I’ll probably never know. She had attended Chungnam University in Daejeon, and had a steady job that she enjoyed as an accountant. She worked full time to raise her two sons. Hardworking, soft-spoken and diligent, she was dedicated to studying English, though she sometimes cancelled our appointments for business meetings or her sons’ open classes. But now, here she was, telling me about how she had worked as a physician in North Korea. Ji Min continued to share that when she finally escaped to South Korea, her medical license was invalid. “I had two babies to take care of and no job,” Ji Min said carefully, “and medicine in South Korea is very long. So I studied accounting instead so I would have a job more fast.” “Are you happy as an accountant?” I cocked my head and looked at her, trying to get a read on her face, which usually was so solemn and stoic.

Ji Min paused and looked skywards for a moment. She normally seemed tired at our sessions—with a full day of work and a long commute on the Daejeon subway line, followed by a bus to get to Chungnam University—but right now, she looked especially exhausted. She sighed wistfully, and then continued. “I think,” she said finally, “if I could be a doctor, I would in South Korea. I miss medicine and helping people with my hands, but this job I have right now—I really like it and it is good for my family. I saw a lot of suffering in North Korea, but now I am lucky to have a new life. So this article— thank you.” Though there was nothing extreme or emotional about Ji Min’s reaction that day, I couldn’t stop thinking about her story as I boarded the train to head back to Jochiwon. I thought about Ji Min’s story, and how many pieces of her I will never know or understand—even if she chooses to share them with me. I am not a stranger to hearing about hardship. My parents came to America as teenage refugees during the Vietnam War. They had nothing. The obstacles they had to overcome and the prejudice they faced are forever foreign to me. My mother was valedictorian of her high school class, but she was forbidden from making her speech at graduation because she could

not afford an outfit nice enough to wear. My father lived squashed with his five siblings and two parents in a tiny room, as he worked three jobs in high school to help support his family. Because of the suffering they had witnessed and faced, they were inspired to pursue careers in medicine. When I was three, my younger brother was diagnosed with leukemia. He spent two years in the hospital, but the cancer’s effects didn’t dissipate when he was in remission. Instead, his chemotherapy and radiation therapy drastically slowed his mental processes. As his older sister, I became his teacher and watched him work tirelessly to compensate. He is now a first year student in pharmacy school. I think about Ji Min, who has gone through so much. I imagine seeing starvation firsthand, being desperate enough to leave all my family and friends, and risking being caught and tortured, all in hope of making a better life for myself in a country I have never even seen. I think about not having a second chance at the job I love. I think about how my parents and my brother succeeded in spite of all the odds stacked against them, and I am struck by the unfairness of Ji Min’s situation. Why couldn’t Ji Min do again, what she so badly wanted to do? Then again, what if she has succeeded? What if her ultimate dream was to leave North Korea? What if to have one dream, she chose to give up another?

I think about all of this, and I am so humbled by my blessings and how good life has been to me. I think about how this world needs more good, and how Ji Min, who loved helping others with all her heart, was robbed of this opportunity. I think about whether or not I can ever be as good of a doctor as she was. I wonder if she’s as upset as I am. I have often wondered if I am too emotional to be a doctor. When I decided to come to Korea, I thought I would be more prepared for medical school by the end of the grant year through learning to think on my feet in the classroom, adapting to a foreign culture, and becoming more independent. Though these lessons hold true, I am taking something more important back home. In Korea, I have found the patience and the willingness to listen to the stories of others. I have lived in a place where the language is foreign, but where I have witnessed the universal nature of pain and strength—of the human spirit and the resolve of the human heart. Pain is a universal language, but simultaneously one that is unique to every person. Pain can’t be quantified, and it is subjective in nature. From the gutting ache of menstrual cramps to the acute heat of a migraine, everybody experiences pain differently, yet we are all connected by it. I want— no, I need—to do everything in my power to stop this pain in others. I will do the work that Ji Min wishes she could do, but cannot anymore. In college, my biology professors used the

term “homeostasis” liberally. Homeostasis is a phenomenon in which the human body tirelessly works to regulate and stabilize its internal conditions in conjunction with external environmental changes. Our bodies take external stimuli and make sense of them, sending us warnings and triggering defense mechanisms as feelings—including pain—all in an attempt to maintain the body’s homeostasis. I wonder, if perhaps, the mind works in the same way. I think about chapters ending, and new chapters—stories, really—beginning. Ji Min has started over: she is an accountant and a mother and a pioneer in South Korea—and her life in North Korea might sometimes just feel like a nightmare. She seems to have found peace. I hope I can do the same.

Bijou Nguyen is a 2014-2015 ETA at Janggi Elementary School and Uirang Elementary School in Sejong City.

Yawning. Donald Bauer Jr. Masan

Flying. Kelsey Hagenah. Jinju

HEALING ANONYMOUS

June 2014 The ajumma at the roadside cafe smiles kindly at me as I sit sipping my coffee. My friends, brandishing a DSLR, have just left to explore the streets of Ewha Maeul, a colorfully painted tourist attraction on the streets of Hyehwa. I feel tired and self-conscious. I haven’t been outside and active in a month. I impatiently wait for my coffee to cool. The faster it cools, the faster I can slip on my mask and leave. “It’s too bad,” the Korean woman chirps as she straightens a plant beside me. “If your face wasn’t like that you could go out and take pictures with them,” she says sympathetically. The sun is shining too brightly on my face. I wish very hard for her to go away before smiling and saying nothing. “But all for the price of beauty,” she chuckles. “Where are you from? China? We have a lot of tourists from China who come for that.” “No, I’m American,” I answer quickly before snapping my face mask back on. She looks surprised as I quickly bow and exit the shop. A few hours later, a Chinese shop assistant asks me the same thing. “What’d you get done?” she questions, peering curiously at my face mask. “Your nose?” I pause before telling her the truth. “I didn’t get plastic surgery; I was in an accident.” She looks at me skeptically. “So you were in an

accident and you decided to come here and get your nose done?” “No,” I answer curtly, leaving the shop. July 2014 Sometimes it’s hard for me to talk. My once-clear pronunciation has deteriorated into a slight lisp. I suppose I should have expected it when I lost half of my teeth. “Where do you want to go again?” the taxi ajeosshi asks. I try, for the tenth time, to enunciate clearly for him my destination, but between my mask-muffled words and garbled pronunciation, he looks very confused indeed. Finally, my non-Korean speaking brother impatiently imitates my words before the taxi driver finally understands. “No one can understand you like that,” he snaps irritably. September 2014 My first day of Korean class went off without a hitch, but ten minutes into my second my Korean teacher asks me to take off my mask. “Can you take it off? You were wearing it yesterday too, right? Do you have a cold? It’s just that it’s hard to hear you with it on. Your voice is all muffled.”

I pause. “I don’t have a cold; I was in an accident.” “An accident?” “A biking accident,” I hesitate, “I rode down a hill and ended up falling off of a cliff. I split my face open… I’m wearing bandages.” She pauses and looks directly at me in the eyes. “I see.” Her voice is soft, strong and slow as she speaks the next words, “You know, it’s okay. We won’t care about such things. If it’s okay with you, will you take off your mask?” I quietly take it off; from my left I hear the creak of my classmate’s desk as he leans forward to get a better look of my uncovered face. My teacher looks at me. “See, it’s okay? We’re okay with this, right?” One of my classmates nods silently in agreement. I smile. November 2014 A friend of mine is complaining about her day. “Ugh, I’m just so sick and stressed out,” she wheedles as we sit together.

I listen, comforting her as she continues on, but after twenty minutes of complaining about her school, her health and how her life is the worst, I’ve reached my limit. “My goodness, I just feel like I’m dying, like ser-” “Trust me, you’re not dying. I know the feeling of almost dying.” She stares at me before quickly backpedaling, “Well, I know I’m not actually going to die but still…” “You’ll get past this; trust me, it’ll be OK.” “Yeah, I guess.” January 2015 I’m running late to my first piano class. Rushing through the door, I quickly greet my teacher before stripping off coat, backpack and mask in rapid succession. I turn to her and flash a smile before introducing myself. She returns my smile and points to the music. “Turn to page four…”

March 2015 “You haven’t seen your nose yet, right?” my doctor asks excitedly as he begins peeling back the bandages from my latest surgery—the fourth I’ve had post-accident. He immediately calls for a mirror as I shake my head no. “Look, it’s much better! We’ve fixed the nasal deformity at your nostril—I mean, it’s not perfect, but much better! We cleaned up some of the scarring on your face too… well… not all of it… but next time we can do more!” He is obviously very proud of himself. I look at myself in the mirror for the first time with my “new” nose. The long scars across my face have faded to a slight pinkish color over time. A few are covered in stitches from my latest surgery. My nose, well, it certainly looks different. I’m not sure what I expected, but maybe it was this? My doctor hovers eagerly over me, his eyes shining. “It looks good, right, right? Not bad!” “Good job.” He laughs and pats me on the back.

rewarded or praised for going through my accident. After all, should I really be commended for something that I, or anyone else in the same position, would have to do? A few days before the one year anniversary of my accident, one of my friends asked me: if I had known that I would go through this situation, would I still have chosen to come to Korea? I think the “me” right after the accident would have chosen, without a doubt, to not have come. Faced with the prospect of reconstructing the pieces of my life—and face—it would have been much easier just to “pass” on the whole experience. But as for the current “me,” I’m not so sure. Healing wasn’t —isn’t —easy. But, it was only when I was putting the fragments of my life back together that I realized who and what was most important to me and what I really cared about. So now even though my mother sighs when she looks at me —“You were so beautiful” —I’m okay. I’m healing. I’m loving. I’m living. What more could I be doing?

June 2015 — Now Since returning home to Dayton my mask lies buried somewhere in the pile of suitcases I have yet to unpack. Disembarking from my flight, one curious look from the customs agent was all it took to do away with it. The need to be covered doesn’t exist in me as strongly as it did before—or maybe I just don’t fear being judged as much. My relatives and friends all call me “strong” or “courageous” for going through this ordeal, but it feels strange to be labeled as such. I don’t think I should be

Out of concern for the author’s identity, this piece has been published anonymously.

SOMEDAY WE WILL MEET AGAIN 언젠가는 우리 다시 만나리1 Morrow Willis died in 2015 after a battle with cancer. He was a 2011 ETA in Mokpo. The photo reprinted here is one of many he contributed to Infusion. There isn’t much to do in Mokpo, so on weekends we would often find ourselves at the Mokpo Dancing Fountain near “new downtown.” The show was more or less the same every time: there would be about five songs with choreographed fountain movements and colors. We each had favorites but there was unanimous consent that the best one was a ballad by Shin Moon Hee (“Moony”). The finale of the song is particularly epic. It’s kind of like if you combined the endings of “The Star Spangled Banner” and Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” (seriously, YouTube it). One Friday night, Morrow got really into it. He stood up at the end and, somewhere between comical histrionics and genuine inspiration, performed the final chorus. As the Koreans around us looked on in confusion, he arched his back, clenched his fists, opened his mouth to the night sky, and dramatically lip-synced the finale. I often look back on our time together and I cry, bu when the person you lost was Morrow, it’s impossible not to look back and laugh as well. (Henry Lyford) “Don’t mess with the best.” For Morrow and myself, this was the dictum that steered the better portion of our winter break. The statement seems 1

‘Eonjenganeun woori dashi mannari’

narcissistic, immature and idiotic—and we would completely agree. But we didn’t care. It was our life force that winter, our guiding compass during a season of uncertainties and dilemmas. This phrase convinced Morrow to grow mutton chops. It justified every one of our 3 a.m. fried chicken deliveries. It was the first, middle and final points of all our arguments with the other housemates. It was the impetus for every action. Of course at times it drove us to our physiological and psychological limits, but there was no stopping us. Ever. Because the best are those who live life to the fullest. This was what Morrow taught me and embodied in his life. This is the lesson that is manifested in the lives of those he impacted. So here’s to you Morrow, the best of all. Cheers brother. (Samuel Izumi Han) “Christiana, look up.” Click. Morrow chuckles—a short-second breath which escapes his mouth when he smiles. He puts his camera in his lap and locks eyes on David who is sharing a story about one of his students. I glance at the camera, knowing I won’t be able to ‘inspect-then-delete’ the undoubtedly not-Facebookready photo. But Morrow wasn’t looking for the model shot. He looked for the moment shot. The shot that created a memory: for him, for the group. And when he took your photo, you didn’t care

if it made it to Facebook. That moment, with those people, that’s what mattered. The time he spent with you mattered to him. And the time that mattered to you was the time with him. (Christiana Bay) Three years after Morrow and I were roommates in Jungwon University and teaching buddies in Mokpo, I had the privilege of flying down to Austin, Texas to visit him and the rest of our “Mokpo Mafia.” Morrow was the same wonderful guy, spending the whole day to show me around his favorite Austin haunts in spite of his chemo-sickness. Seeing him again brought back memories of our final dinner in Mokpo, when Morrow asked us to share annoying yet endearing traits about one another. We went around the table, six of us revealing secret annoyances in turn. Not intending to shame our friends, we shared only those uniquely annoying quirks which won us over—those which defined us as imperfect individuals, loved despite,

and even for, our shortcomings. Morrow’s camera, that omnipresent, endearing annoyance, transformed my experience of Korea from one of vague recollections to one brimming with vivid memories. More than a camera, it was us he had strapped around his neck as he traveled to every corner of Korea. That was my dear Morrow. Thoughtful and loving, a true friend with an eye for the present and a mind for the future. I’ve not forgotten the trait of mine he found so endearingly annoying… my inability to tell short stories. Well pal, I hope that this long story does you justice. Thank you for the good times, 형2, and for sharing the photos that help me remember them. (Daniel Lambert)

Henry Lyford, Samuel Izumi Han, Christiana Bay, and Daniel Lambert were all 2011-2012 ETAs. 2

hyeong, older brother

Map . Morrow Willis. Goesan

Cover photo: Color Outside the Lines. Emily Sabo. Cheonan The cover photo embodies an important grassroots effort that’s currently being undertaken in Korea (on behalf of open-minded, progressive-thinking parents) for a more creative educational/upbringing system. While today’s general student body certainly still faces the challenges of a rigid schooling system, there ARE outlets for creativity and imagination. This is a picture of my students literally coloring on the walls of their bedroom. When I asked their mom if I should be telling them to stop, she told me that she and her husband had bought a special wallpaper for the kids’ bedroom so they’d have a place to express themselves in artsy ways. If you find yourself asking why was I at my students’ house, the answer is as follows: a few years back, my school established a really cool program called ‘Traveling Dinners.’ Once a week, I’m invited to one of my students’ houses, where we share some English conversation over a delicious home-cooked meal followed by some quality game playing/hangout time. This Traveling Dinner to Junhan’s and Janhan’s house was one of the most memorable because their parents had mindfully created an environment that encourages imagination and rewards childlike wonder. I surely never got to color my walls when I was a kid. It was so much fun! Artwork on previous page: Faces of Fulbright. Monica Heilman Designs: Mountain Series: Part 2. Donald Bauer Jr. The Fulbright Korea Infusion EMAIL fulbright.infusion@gmail.com WEBSITE infusion.fulbright.or.kr FACEBOOK facebook.com/fulbrightkoreainfusion INSTAGRAM fulbrightkoreainfusion 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.