Nothing super exciting has happened since my last post.
Until today, that is. I was riding on the bus from Yugu to my school (it's about a 20 minute ride through really scenic country-side). The same old man has sat behind me for the past week, and each time, he kind of pushes on my shoulder. I could never tell if he was just pushing because he was holding on to the chair or if he was doing it on purpose. Maybe he just wanted to touch a foreigner. I really had no idea. But today, he finally worked up the nerve and spoke to me. It was in Korean, of course, and I had no idea what he was talking about until I heard him say "Hagwon". I said "No, Deokam Elementary. I am an English teacher." BUT....my Korean was really horrible! I used the highest form of speech because I was nervous and not thinking. But it made it sound like I think so highly of myself that even I honor me. I'm sure he understood that I don't speak Korean well, and therefore let it slide, but I still felt really, really bad about it. When he got off the bus (just two stops before mine!) he said "Thank you" so I responded with "Goodbye" EXCEPT...I used the wrong form again! This time, it was just a matter of who is leaving and who is staying. I basically told the man getting off the bus "Stay in peace" instead of "Go in peace".
At school, I was eating lunch when JaeHwa showed up! She was the Korean scholar there last semester and we knew each other from Columbia College about two years ago. The TaLK program did not assign me a Korean co-scholar, so my school just went ahead and hired JaeHwa directly to work with me on Thursdays. Thursdays are the HARDEST days. My three classes are 1st/2nd, Kindergarten, and teachers. The student classes aren't that hard if the homeroom teacher is there. But if JaeHwa is there, the homeroom teacher won't come. So that's BAD! But with the teachers...oh, it was horrible! I'm pretty sure I was blushing most of the time because I felt so awkward. All these teachers who are married with children my age are sitting in tiny little chairs at tiny little desks looking up at me and writing down what I write down on the board. It was just so weird. And since they're adults, we talked about introductory questions. The three questions I used were "Are you married? How long have you been married? Do you have any children?" They practiced and then wanted to know how to ask someone if they aren't married. They were like "What if you have a boyfriend? How do you ask when they will marry?" The worst part was that it was one of the male teachers (only two of them!). They were trying to figure out how to ask me when I will get married. And then to make matters worse, another teacher came into the classroom and started taking pictures of me teaching!
It was all just so awkward today. I don't know how to act around people older than me in Korea. I know just fine in America, but in Korea...I want to be respectful, but I feel like they want to treat me as a friend! If I were Korean, it would not be that way. But because I am a foreigner, they want to get to know me and talk with me in a friendly way. I don't know how to do that. They think it's because of the culture difference. I think it has more to do with the age difference. Hopefully, as the semester goes on, and I meet with the teachers more, it won't be so awkward. It will probably always be awkward with the Music/P.E. teacher though. He never talks, even in Korean, and he is probably the youngest of the other teachers. And I'm pretty positive he worked at JungDong, my previous school with the TaLK program. If so, that's even more awkward.
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