JEJU ISLAND!!!!

A VISUAL OF THE ISLAND...THE NEXT YEAR OF MY LIFE.
It has been confirmed. I am going to be living it up on the island! Hiking, biking and beaches and I also get to be in the city teaching at ARA MIddle School. It was quite the experience hearing where we would be placed. Jeju went the first province to be announced. But, as they called name after name, I was sure I would not be with my friends on the island. Alas, as they announced my name as the 12th and final name, I felt a sigh of relief. I will be teaching at a large middle school-1272 students for three grades! The attire is business casual and I will be teaching low level english. I am so excited because I know this is going to help my practice tremendously. Furthermore, teaching in Jeju will let me explore the cultural relationship between the korean langauge and ESL. Jeju is currently debating a proposal which would make english the primary language for all classes with the exception of Korea. Although I do not support such a propsal, I am interestd in exploring the implications and debates that occur around this concept. Hey, a journal article could maybe even be produced if I feel prodcutive! I am located in the city which will be great for when fellow fulbright folk want to visit. The scene on the island is pretty insane. HERE IS A PICTURE OF 6 out of the 12 ETA's heading over there. From L to R- Myself, Julienne, Emerald, Alex, Rafiq, and Kate. Jen M Anderson, Gretchen, Sarah O and L, OC Lindsay and Lindsay are also all going. We will host many travelers I am assured. For better or for worse, there is a huge ex-pat scene on the island. A positive element is the saturday pick up rugby games! I am going to play finally. Below are some pictures of the island and the city I will be living in. If these don't make you want to visit, then we may have to sever ties. It is so nice to have a feeling of "What comes next." People in the program seem generally ecstatic about the placements, which is wonderful. It is sure to have a positive effect on the general atmosphere here in Chuncheon. Definitely excited for August 17th when I board my plane at Incheon international for the 45 minute flight.

Due to Jennifer Paul's recent disappointment with my less that acceptable updates, here it is!

It has been a whirlwind of events these past few days. What feels like months here, has actually been a mere two weeks. Everything in my life is going at an extraordinarily fast pace. In language, despite my less than stellar grades, I have made strides from annyunghaseo to writing complete sentences utilizing the Korean alphabet. Friendships are developing at an accelerated pace due to our common experience. Emerald from CMC told us how she felt as though we have all been friends for months; the feeling was mutual. Despite these triumphs, there have definitely been some hard times. I frequently feel confident and thrilled about my life and future here at 2 pm and want to cry and be back in Massachusetts at 6 pm-only to feel excited again by 8. What a rollercoaster. Sometimes I just want to cry, but don't even have any place to do so-it’s pretty intense feeling for someone who rarely cries. I have exited the "honeymoon" phase of culture shock and definitely entered what theorists call the crisis phase. At no given time have I wanted to leave, but rather I have questioned whether I am really this adventurous person people think I am and I have thought I am. I also am eager to move out of the camp-iness feel of living in a dorm with 64 Americans while in Korea; which we have fondly named fake Korea for the first six weeks. Although I cherish the friendships I am building, it is becoming a consistent urge to move into my home stay and start teaching. What has exasperated this feeling was my first English teaching experience today. Camp Fulbright has started and hordes of elementary through high school Korean students have invaded the college for an English language immersion experience! I taught a high intermediate low advanced class today with Rafiq on nature writing and Haiku. Being with the kids completely put into perspective exactly why I am here. Afterwards, I played four square with some of the campers. It reminded me of Rivers Day Camp-needless to say it was not Weston ma and there were no red popped collars. I can't wait to get to the school and start working/researching. My purpose will be much clearer once I am actually doing what I have come here to do. Being at orientation has frequently left me pondering my purpose-but nonetheless, a wonderful experience that will prepare me for a lot of what I am about to face.
With that said, we find out our placements tomorrow. AT 2PM I will know where I will be living for the next 13 months along with what age group, level and gender I will teach! I am really excited.

I am also thrilled because I have been spending time with some of the Korean Students from the university here. Last night I went out with students from the key club-an English language-learning club. We drank soju and hung out. The key club president reminds me of the president of a frat in the states. He is pretty fantastic. He even taught us a drinking game called titanic. The game consists of a shot glass of soju being placed in a large cup of mekju(beer). The object is for players to take turns pouring soju in the shot glass without it sinking. Should it sink, that player drinks the soju bomb. Hence the name-Titanic. NEEDLESS TO SAY, this conversation was prompted following our cultural exchange of US Drinking games-Beer pong (a very much needed name change due to unfortunate current world events) and flip cup. He was amused and since drinking culture is so prevalent here, we thought it to be appropriate. This weekend we will go to the noribang again with a few kids from the club. Here we are last Thursday. Our key club partners taught me some kickin dance moves. In fact, they have a move that is a funkified jazz square- I was immediately on my feet learning the moves. They sure do love noribang, and I am seriously going to be a force to be reckoned with in the Northampton Karaoke circuit once I return to the states. And group participation in a big part too! See, you even get tambourines. Even my tambourine skills are improving! We went to a small mountain town this past weekend, and there were 7 noribangs. A bit excessive, but nonetheless wonderful!

On that note, we went to Songnisam this past weekend.

It is located in the center of Korea and is home to the oldest standing temple in the country. We attended a great lecture on Korean Buddhism and had cheese!!! This may seem odd, but cheese is not part of our diet here in Korea-YES I AM UNAWARE OF HOW I AM SURVIVING since it was a staple food in my life. The Fulbright office treats us well and brings in luxury items such as American themed breakfasts. French toast, eggs, etc. Have no fear though; kimchi and rice were still a part of the options. COULDN'T FORGET KIMCHI! I attended a 3 am Buddhist service. It was beautiful and calming. The walk through the woods at 230 was unnerving yet amazingly peaceful, Rafiq and I looked behind our backs a few times. These are some pictures of what it looks like during the day.
There are beautiful rock sculptures and the air is so fresh!

These are pictures of the some of the temples. These are some of the housing complexes on the grounds

The guard statues as well as the drum where the traditional services start. The drum, bell wakes everything up. It is a resonating sound that is so amazing to experience. Closing your eyes and letting the sound drive through your body at 3 am is rather intense. It was the first time I could sort of get in my head and be alone with myself-something I really needed to do. It made me want to do a temple stay during my break.
I also walked barefoot along this particular path with special little pebbles that improve circulation. In other news, I have successfully eaten squid in forms other than fried calamari! I must gloat because I could never have envisioned that happening. NEXT STEP-DOG! We had a traditional mountain region meal. More plates that you could ever imagine. Bowls covering the entire table! Songnisam was great. Who can beat a good ol game of Taboo with fellow Fulbright folk who are as competitive as me!! Super low key, we slept on a yo-the traditional bed which is a comfy mat placed on the ground. I am thrilled I can sleep anywhere, since not everyone is happy with the idea of sleeping on the ground. Clearly my choice sleeping arrangements in sixth grade, of a little tyke toy ship sandbox filled with blankets has paid off; it's apparent in my flexibility!

Reasons so far why Korea is right for me:
-I can eat and talk with my mouth open (sorry mom!)
-it's not taboo to drop food and still eat it
-fantastic subway system
-Drinking culture-open container, drinks at family mart (equivalent to tiger mart-how the kids in Hingham would love Korea)
-Noribang EVERYWHERE
-Tipping not necessary
-Internet Everywhere
-Spicy spicy food
-teaching/learning=respected profession/experience
-dance moves similar to jazz squares
THIS LIST WILL EXPAND EXPONENTIALLY-but I am drawing a blank right now

Dunkin Donuts

I must elaborate on my comment regarding dunkin donuts. I love dunkin donuts across the world, but NOT in downtown northampton where B-side used to be located. King street was just fine.

ADDRESS

A few people have asked my address here in Korea, so here ya go.

Lauryn McCarthy, Fulbright Fellow
Korean-American Educational Commission
Fulbright Building
168-15 Yomni-dong, Mapo-gu
Seoul 121-874 SOUTH KOREA

maybe i will get parcels and letters!

i basically failed my korean exam today-pretty absurd because I am actually acquiring the language better than any other language i have attempted to learn. Case in point, see "ORDERING FOOD" post. I am utilizing the language in real life situations-does that not count for something? Perhaps what's worse, is that I knew all of the answers but ran out of time. Damn korea and your regimented testing style. My learning style doesn't fit with your rigidity.

Stories from Seoul

The group of travelers out for the night- Julienne, Emerald, Kate and myself.









Early morning train ride













SERIOUS and FANTASTIC ELEMENT OF GLOBALIZATION *I know this is politcal and I am probably hated by many for loving this, but I am and always will be a strong and committed patron of Dunkin Donuts.




I just arrived home from Seoul and it was quite the trip. We arrived and immediately found ourselves trying to navigate a subway system comparable to the NY. Metro.
Fortunately signs were in English too; so the challenge was minimized.

We stayed at the emerald hotel and set off to see what we could. Our big adventure for the day was the most famous and most visited shaman temple. It was quite the experience trying to initially find its location. So much construction was going on that we ended up having to walk through a site in order to get to the bottom of the mountain we were about to climb. Prior to the construction we found a rockin moped!
The temple was beautiful and there were many areas to worship. We climbed to the top of the mountain where we were able to overlook the city and see the mountainous surroundings. Here are some pictures:









The weather was less than enjoyable, but it was a beautiful location and I look forward to hiking there again during the fall. Emerald almost fell off the rock she treacherously tried traversing. Many umbrellas were broken, but what can I say adventuring is worth it.

Seoul is more spread out than I had imagined. We walked around in the underground arcades. They are basically long walkways with kitschy shops and can be really confusing. We also indulged ourselves in American culture by visiting some well-known American establishments. I met a guy from Brandeis who actually knew Pam Leonard from Hingham. It's pretty amazing to meet people abroad 1/2 way across the world that are friends with people you know from the states; really makes the world a bit smaller.

During the evening we went to Itaewon. I have heard wonderful things about it; mainly that it has great shopping. I was gravely mistaken about the nightlife though. We arrived to see a ton of foreigners (meaning Americans). The military base was very close to the city so a ton of GI's were there as well. Itaewon apparently was a huge disappointment for all groups of fulbrighters who traveled there at night. There was a very present prostitution scene and I was very much under the impression that there is sex traffic-ing going on there too. We left early due to the torrential rain and less than appealing environment. Next time we hit up Seoul we will go to Sinchon, located near EWHA women's university. Supposedly it has great food/shopping and a kickin night life.

One of the strangely interesting things we did in our hotel was watch Korean television. There are three channels committed solely to test prep. Think GRE/MCAT/SAT Kaplan Princeton review on television. This is how seriously the Korean society takes testing. Although I am opposed to high stakes standardized tests, at least there is more accessibility for students to get test prep without attending pricey test prep courses.


One thing I have realized while living in Korea is when they say fresh beef, the do not mean cooked fresh beef; they mean fresh as in raw. We had some great meals, but I was definitely not ready to digest raw meat. I mean I don't really even eat tofu so that might take a while. We asked the women to cook it and she agreed though she looked confused. I think we created a new Korean entree that afternoon.

All in all a fantastic week. Perhaps people have seen Korea has even made the U.S. news waves because of the monsoon. There is a lot of flooding, but we are safe up on the hill in Chuncheon.

ordering food

STAGE 1- THE PHONE CALL


STAGE 2 THE TRANSACTION


STAGE 3 THE AFTERMATH/EXCITMENT


I made progress with the korean language this evening. Ordering food seems like a reasonably easy endevor. However, with a language barrier and the lack of visual gesturing due to the nature of a phone call, it is a ridiculously challenging task. With the aid of our fantastic korean american eta's and support from other eta's, I ventured into the world of korean phone conversations! If the domino's man appears with our pepperoni pizza, i will be proud of my language aquisition. Pictures forthcoming. A proud tale for my teacher on monday. A few friends-rafiq, kate, emerald, julienne, ryan, and myself are off to Seoul tomorrow. Itaewon will never be the same.

Drinking vocab.

Here at camp fulbright we have fun with iphoto!
That's me in the sepia setting. Rafiq and myself also dabbled a bit with pop art!

Quickly coming to terms with my inability to communicate effectively with the outside world. Recently though, we have had some fantastic interactions with Korean kids at dinner and bars. Yesterday evening a group of us went out to Tudori, quickly becoming a hot spot since they have tots wrapped in bacon and a menu with pictures! We study over drinks and create, what we find to be humorous pneumonic devices to help with the obscene amount of vocab being thrown at us every day. We met a hapa girl with her mother-they are visiting the mother's sister and they seemed happy to see fellow Americans at the establishment. Morgan, the young girl was wearing a kickin outfit (white dress and red cowgirl boots) I asked if she knew where I could buy some, but being only 7, she was unable to help me in that search. Nevertheless, she drew us some pictures that were fantastic. Drinking vocabulary also proved very helpful as our study group was extremely well versed in the vocab when class time arrived. We also hung out with some Korean university students and talked with them in broken Korean English. Both groups were happy to dabble in each other’s language.

They didn't lie about the monsoon season. In the states rain like this never goes on for more than a 10 minute time period. Heavy, heavy rain goes on forever. My #1 learning experience yesterday was-purchase an umbrella.

I started my first Tai kwondo class yesterday. It meets four days a week and we are training with a grandmaster that is world-renowned! I got a spiffy outfit and it is a blast going with 30 other kids to practice in the country of origin.

Perhaps most exciting though is the fact that we get to spend thanksgiving at the ambassadors house!!! I hope there is some good stuffing. We also came to the realization that in the chain of command, our ultimate boss is CONDI RICE. That's pretty funny.

The food here in the cafeteria is pretty awful. My friend Dana put it best when he claimed "Maybe I'm exaggerating, but I'm getting a little tired of the vicious looks I keep getting from the pile of pickled cabbage waiting to greet me thrice per day in the shiktang...I Tonight at Tae Kwon Do I will imagine I'm beating the shit out of a Kimch'i delivery boy." We eat out a ton because otherwise I eat rice and soy sauce for three meals a day. Americans suffer what I am going to coin McDonalds super size syndrome. The cans, bottles, serving sizes are so small here-as are the people. We could learn a lot about how to eat more healthfully. They also drink more water than I could ever imagine. Lifestyle change starts now! I can't find diet coke so I am making up for all the lost hydration! Sonya's mother once offered me "very good noodles" which Sonya and her sister promptly alerted me that it was just Korean ramen.......well, KOREAN RAMEN IS FANTASTIC. Think traditional ramen but wonderfully spicy. Thank you Sonya's mom-you were right.

Wild times in Chuncheon

these are pictures of Ashley and alyssa fellow eta's, myself and our key club english/korean language partners: Chang-Min (the boy) and ra young (girl in the back). We went out for this special desert called popbingsu. It is frozen yogurt, shaved ice and different fruits. Once you receive it you mash it up and eat out of a big bowl with your friends. You can buy it at Ice cool and there are swings that you sit on while eating. Pretty fantastic...although i have no clue how people eat it all since it is huge.

Yesterday was jam packed with things to do. We set out in groups to do a scavenger hunt and some of the items seemed easy enough, though we were quickly proven wrong. For instance, a foreign car was impossible-every car in this city is either daewoo or hyundai there are absolutely no other cars. Finding a women smoking was also something we did not come across. Though, I did come across a tee shirt at a thrift store that said germantown car wash...all the way here in Korea an article of clothing from Laure's town.

the evening was so entertaining. Our RA's Jim Young and San Keyeo took us to get the famous chicken of chuncheon before we went out for the evening. We hit up a bar a dance club and a 7-11 type store. The men at the bar "Lava" were really excited to have us there. In total I spent 16 dollars on dinner and all of the evening drinks. We also danced at a club with a Canadian bartender. There are a lot of canadians. I have already met two. When we walk down the street, many Korean girls approach us, wave emphatically, and say HIIIIIIEEEE. We wave, say hello and then there is not much more to the conversation due to the language barrier. They get very excited to say hello though.

The best example of the language barrier occurred when a group of us attempted to go to dinner. Needless to say we all forgot our phrasebooks and thus were rendered helpless in the restaurant. After an attempt to point aimlessly at items that seemed like they could have meat in them (due to the price) we gestured to a place where two other individuals were sitting and tried to communicate in non-verbal terms that that food looked good. Instead we were perceived to want to move to that table. The waiter and waitress then moved us, still not understanding what we wanted to eat. After a 20-minute time period we finally conveyed to them, that any food would be great. We ended up having a fantastic meal despite the language barrier. It was Korean bbq and they don't use knives-instead you cut the meat with siscors. Pretty exciting hands on cooking. We also got to watch a fantastic Korean dating show. In the end our meal was 5 dollars per person. Eating out is fantastic.

We are getting the tail end of a typhoon! This basically means it rains a lot-but I was prepared...hence the fantastic rain slicker.

I also started Korean class. I know the alphabet! And my vocab now includes phrases such as I am American (as if anyone would guess otherwise), My name is Lauryn and What is your name. I can even say hello and thank you! It is a very rhythmic language-somewhat musical in an odd way.

As for the teaching workshops, it is a review of my past four years of Ed. classes. Due to the repetition, I am not enjoying them, but hopefully I will gain a better understanding of esl teaching instead of classroom management techniques.

It is interesting engaging with people about their reasoning behind choosing Korea. From what I can see, most of the Korean American eta's are interested in gaining fluency in the language and a better understanding of the culture. Some eta's want to travel and others like myself are interested in the research aspect of it.

So much going on. K.Barney calls it over stimulation...which is the perfect word for the scene.

Kimchi

These pictures are of my dorm room, a pond called couples pond and one of the night clubs we found.




I dislike kimchi-this could be extremely problematic and dairy is not a frequently used product here. Point in case, in the U.S. when we take pictures we say cheese, in korea, they say kimchi. I'm screwed. We explored the back gate area of the university yesterday. There are lots of hof and soju places-beer and soju bars. I am a bit concerned about my food intake, multi vitamins will be of the utmost importance. I did find oreos! It's been a challenge finding diet coke though, i had coke light-a product only sold outside of the U.S. I think it tastes too much like real coke. I just want my diet coke. And the best food I could imagine compared to the cafeteria food is the korean version of ramen.

On a more intersting cultural side, it has been interesting to see American/western influence in the streets of chuncheon. For instance, all of the hair salons have posters of white models with different hair styles and few (if any) images of models of korean/asian decent. There is also a baskin robins in my small city. Perhaps more interesting is the christian influence here. There are flyers on the campus that say christian students coalition and students for christ all in english. crazy. And I haven't even made it to Seoul yet,

Here in Korea

Arrived in Korea at approximately 4:30 am. What a flight. Met up with kids from the program immediately and slept for 9 hours. I just moved into my dorm with a girl named Jia who went to Williams. We will be living in chuncheon for the next 6 weeks. I have wireless internet here which is a good thing since i forgot the ethernet cord. Today we go to orientation and have a language placement test. needless to say I will be in the beginner level, although i made a great deal of progress understanding the hangul alphabet during our 13 hour flight. I am also going to have to cope with the humidity. My hair is going to be crazy all summer.

I found out about a fantastic festival that we are going to try to make our way to. It's a mud festival-you can check the info out here. www.mudfestival.or.kr

it was an extremely hard trip to make, leaving everyone i love so much back in the states. But now that i am here I am acclimating to everything. One thing that the ETA forum failed to let us know was the fact that people do not use toilet paper here. If you do use toilet paper, you can not flush it. It is interesting being in such an industrialized country with practices such as that. With that I am off. It's only 10 am here a day ahead of most who will be reading this. Getting ready to eat some sticky rice!!!

I am putting up pictures that are the view from my window...hopefully they will upload.