KimChi

I have a confession to make....


I'm pregnant!!!!!!


Just kidding! Did your mouths drop?? No we are definately not with child at the present time so don't you worry!

No my confession is this:
For the first two months of living in Korea I ate absolutely no KimChi. I would aviod it at all costs which is pretty impressive. Even Jon didn't realize that I hadn't eaten any of it. You have to understand the KimChi culture here in Korea. A meal is not a meal without KimChi, it comes with everything. You eat it before your meal, with your meal, you cook it on the grill, you eat it cold, you cut it with scissors. Its a very integral part of Korean food culture and I avoided it like the Bubonic plague.

I don't know exactly what I was afraid of. I am usually the adventurous food eater...

But finally one day at our church's cafeteria I broke down and told Jon I hadn't eaten any of it. So I tried it.. and I liked it!!! I really really liked it!

Now I crave KimChi. I crave its spiciness, its smellyness -- the whole bit! When I walk through the market and can smell KimChi I breathe in deep breaths of it. Go figure. Maybe when I do get pregnant (IN A FEW YEARS) that is what my midnight cravings will be. No pickles and icecream for this expat -- its KimChi all the way!

The saga of the picnic

In Canada, your average - run of the mill picnic plans usually involve a trip to safeway for your chips, hotdogs, buns, pop etc. Once said items are purchased and it is time to embark on the picnic, a typical location would be a local park, river valley or maybe a nearby national park. Needless to say, walking into our school picnic on Saturday, this is sort of the image that I had in mind.

Granted, I had figured out that the food would be different. First of all, I would be very scared to eat a Korean hotdog, and second of all I have seen no Safeways since arriving here :) I did figure though that our destination would be one of many parks in Gwangju or perhaps the mountains that still fall within city limits.

Imagine my suprise when...

We all pile into cars at the school and start driving, and driving...at nauseum at nauseum etc etc. I keep expecting that our destination will be just around the next bend. We have after all definately left the main road and are steadilly climbing up a steep and winding mountian road. Our convoy of vehicles would stop periodically so everyone could catch up. We had a straggling car because one of the foreign teacher's wife and kid were throwing up. It was an intense road.

Two and half hours later we finally arrive. So much for within city limits. Imagine my suprise when on the horizon I see the ocean!!! We drove all the way to the flippin' yellow sea!!! It really was beautiful though...

Our picnic consisted of meat cooked over a portable gas range, rice and red pepper paste. You put all of those ingredients in a little lettuce leaf burrito and down it in one bite. (a very common meal here) Oh and there was of course Kimchi. There is always Kimchi.

A good time was had by all and again I was reminded that my cultural worldview constantly needs adjusting, even when it comes to picnics.

Fan Death

Every culture has the myths and popular tales that have little or no grounding in reality. We would call them old wives tales, fables or perhaps myths. Korea is no exception.

Fan death, as it turns out, is what happens to you if you go to sleep with a fan blowing in your face. Since your breathing is more shallow when you are asleep, the fan will stifle your breathing to the point of death. Many Koreans hold this to be true since someone did a study once, or so we hear.

Another one is running backwards. Emily and I have started running at this track by our apartment where several people from the community also run, jog or walk. We will often see people running backwards (as much as one can run backwards) which is a little confusing. Upon futher investigation, we learned that running backwards apparently gives 10 times any benefit that running foward does. Who knew?

Pictures of Korean Life

This is the view from our balcony. We live on the sixth floor so we get a neat view (in my opinion). We're really blessed - we live in the last set of parallel rows of apartments, so we get to see the city and all the other buildings look directly into the building infront and behind them. The green netting you see in the middle of the picture is a driving range. Koreans have a great sense of nationalism - they will warmly embrace anything that a Korean is really good at. I think the #1 or 2 female golfer right now is Korean, so there are a whole ton of driving ranges on top of buildings.





This is what's going on underneath our balcony. It's this whole market street with all these old ladies ("Ajjumas" - it's a term used for any older lady, and it means somewhere around Grandma and Ma'am) and they sell whatever is in season. It's such a blessing being able to walk out our front door and peruse all sorts of incredibly fresh produce every day. They also sell fish out of styrofoam boxes packed with ice, but those are less appealing.



This is the Korean equivalent of those statues you see on Easter Island. I think they've got something to do with the gods protecting something or other, but you'll see these statues at tourist places and on anything to do with Jeju Island (the Korean Hawaii), which is where this style of statue is from.

October 8 Update

Our e-mailed update from October 8, 2005

Greetings Friends and Family!

My goodness it has been a while since our last update! I have not yet learned the discipline of keeping up with this, so please bear with me and my sporadic tendencies! With that said, hello again from South Korea! Though we are half way around the world, all of you are never far from our minds and hearts.

October in Gwangju is apparently the most beautiful time of year and so far that has certainly been true. The weather is lovely, pleasantly cooler than the summer but still warm and sunny every day. The big blue skies really show off the beautiful mountains that surround our city. If you look carefully, you can see the many ancient temples nestled on the peaks. In a recent beautification project, flowers have been planted EVERYWHERE downtown. They are sprouting from around the fountain in the middle of the traffic circle, growing from pots lining the walls of the subway entrances, and in big pots in front of most stores. They are absolutely beautiful!! Yesterday as I was walking from the school I passed an older gentleman who was pulling a cart overflowing with flower pots and I had one of those “I know why I am here in Korea” moments. It is strange to see all this planting going on in October where back home I am used to seeing everyone pulling up their yards in preparation for the frost!

Jon and I recently began twice-weekly Korean classes and are gradually (very gradually!) learning Korean. So far I almost know the alphabet and some basic letter combinations. It’s so strange being back at such a basic level of language learning, sounding out words step-by-step. I feel like I am back in Kindergarten! Tomorrow we are learning some basic phrases for shopping so that will be really helpful. I know how to say “how much does it cost?” but I have no idea what they are saying when they answer me! There are about 6 people in our Korean class and we have a really awesome teacher who is so energetic and speaks excellent English. Hopefully, by the end of the class we will have a lot more independence to communicate with people.

Jon’s classes are still going really well. At the beginning of this week there was a big shuffle of classes to accommodate new students and the loss of a teacher so Jon has brand new grade 4’s and 5’s. They have never had a foreign teacher before so they are still a little bit afraid of him, but they are gradually opening up. I get to meet them for the first time today so that should be fun! Jon also got a new grade 6 class from a teacher who left and they are a very advanced and smart class. We are going to be able to do a lot of supplementary stuff with them to really challenge their skills. Right now the middle school students are writing midterm exams so his grade 7 and 8 classes are really small or nonexistent. He has been able to come home early a few times this week and that is always a treat! When he just has 2-3 students it doesn’t make sense to continue on with the curriculum so he has been playing games with them and yesterday he took them out into the neighborhood to tell him what some of the buildings were in English. Next week we have a day off because all the middle school students will be gone – what a nice treat!

Two weeks ago was the Gwangju International Day. This is an annual festival that brings together all the foreigners in Gwangju in a celebration of the various cultures, food, and native dress. I had NO idea there were so many foreigners in Gwangju! To quote an article I read about the day, “have they been hiding out in some top secret foreigners tree house club all this time?” There was representation from countries like Pakistan, Nepal, and the Philippines. It was an incredible day! We actually made it on TV. They did up a news segment about the festival and Jon & I made it in a couple of times! (You can actually watch it on the internet – let us know if you’re interested in seeing it.)

Jon and I had a friend who was competing in the talent show and she won the audience choice award! Rachel did an awesome job of singing, she has an amazing voice! We were also excited because they had a flea market which was our first garage sale-esque exposure since coming to Korea. We bought some books for 500won each (about fifty cents!) that we have almost finished already. It was also a great time to talk to people from all over the world, as well as Koreans who speak English. We met a brother and sister who invited us to come to their church, they are our age and we really hit it off so we definitely want to do that with them.

Most things are going really well here. We’re starting to get into a good schedule and we are starting to feel more and more comfortable with our lives here. At the same time, we are also feeling the distance between us and our loved ones. It’s very difficult trying to live a life in Korea while having left one behind in Canada.

Something that has been of great encouragement has been the trips to Costco that we have been taking. There is a Costco in another city about two hours away from us. We have taken a couple of day trips over there to pick up such essentials as cheese, tortillas, oatmeal, soup and a couple other tidbits. It’s funny the things that make such a big difference.

(From Jon) And also a big thank you to everyone who e-mailed in a greeting for my birthday! It was very special and it meant a lot to me. It turned out to be a great weekend.

That’s about all for now. We love you all and miss you terribly. We LOVE getting e-mail from you, even if it’s just the “boring everyday” stuff. It helps us feel that much closer to you all.
Bye for now!

Jon & Emily

The People of MunHwa

Here is a group picture of most of the MunHwa staff. It's a fairly old picture but I (Jon) just recently got a digital copy of it. It was taken at the "Welcome to MunHwa" party held for Emily, Tyrone and I. There are people from the English school and the math school here. The English and Math classes are held in two seperate buildings, so I don't know any of the math teachers, but I will introduce you to the people that I do know.

Anyway, from top left, is Harland (a Canadian that has lots of experience in Korea and teaching and is a very kind man), two math teachers, Gumi (she's very nice and helpful), Ms. Woo (she just got married yesterday), Mr. Moon (whose classroom is next to mine), and Mr. Kong (the owner and director of MunHwa Math & English school - my boss). The next row is Jack (Michael's son - he was just visiting at the time), 4 people from the math school, Eun Gyung (another wonderful person who is very good at explaining Korean to English speakers), Tyrone (a really fun guy - he started at the same time as I did) and myself.

The front row is Mrs. Kim (very friendly, but I don't see her much), a teacher from the math school, Michael (a Canadian whose classroom is on the other side of mine - a wonderful person), Emily (my incredible wife) and Mr. Lee (the administrator of MunHwa and a good friend who helps us out with anything we need, from immigration to broken toilets).

That's the MunHwa crew! Actually, there's a couple of people missing, but that's just about everyone. I can not believe how great everyone is and how wonderful it is to work at this school. God has blessed Emily and I beyond anything we could have ever dreamed. This is fantastic!