I moved to South Korea in February to teach English, having no experience of teaching, no idea about the country or the culture of the students that I would be teaching and only a minimal “hello, thank you, goodbye” grasp of the language.
I moved to South Korea in February to teach English, having no experience of teaching, no idea about the country or the culture of the students that I would be teaching and only a minimal “hello, thank you, goodbye” grasp of the language.
Today I walked down the street with a smile on my face, greeting my staring neighbours with sprightly annyongs ("hellos"). I stopped at the corner store and didn't need to look at the screen to understand how much my drink cost – I could understand what she was saying! I climbed into a taxi and expertly directed him where to go, chit-chatting along the way about where I am from, what I do and how long I have been here.
It hasn't been like this all along. It feels like yesterday that I was dying to come back home, crying on the phone to my boyfriend because I couldn't understand anyone and, more importantly, couldn't get anyone to understand me. I still remember getting lost on my own in the middle of Busan at 3am in the pouring rain because the taxi driver couldn't understand where I needed to go and dropped me off at the only place I could direct him to. It ended up taking me half an hour to get to the motel on foot, getting lost down sidestreets along the way.
My first few months in the country were spent getting to grips with the language, the customs and the culture of the Korean people. Each month felt like an eternity as every day introduced me to new aspects of life here – you shouldn't wear those kinds of shirts, you should bow when you greet someone older than yourself and you should never, ever sit at the end seats of the subway trains in Seoul.
As a new teacher I was also learning the ins and outs of the job itself – this class needs sweets as motivation to do their homework, this class is quiet and too shy to participate in games, this game works and this one doesn’t. I often found myself playing charades, trying to explain words to students that felt like such basic parts of the English language. In a school system where everything is about respect, I had to find my own way to earn respect from students who are less than ten years younger than I am.
I have had my ups and downs living in Korea – travelling around the country, fast internet and good company being some of the ups, communication being one of the major downs and food being somewhere in between. I have never been a fan of spicy food, and Korean food is the epitome of spicy – kimchi, or spicy fermented cabbage, being served with each and every meal.
I have developed a small tolerance for spiciness and can now cope with kimchi and some of the spicier soups, but I try to avoid them as much as I can. Then there are my favourites – shabu shabu is a meat and vegetable soup that has been adapted from Japanese cuisine, kalmegi sal is a meat that is barbecued at your table, almost like your own personal braai, and gimbap, my favourite quick snack, is much like sushi but with the raw fish being replaced with ham, egg, spinach, pickled radish, cucumber and carrot.
When I first arrived, I rushed into every Western restaurant I came across as though it was a haven. Now I find myself wondering how good the Korean restaurant in Cape Town is and how often I will be able to get there.
In the beginning, I counted up the months that I had been here, and wondered to myself how I was going to manage to make it through. Now that I have passed the halfway mark, I am suddenly finding myself wondering what life will be like going back to South Africa. In my mind's eye, I can see myself removing my shoes as I enter every building, greeting every person that I pass, not saying "excuse me" when I bump into someone (because bumping into someone isn't seen as a rude thing to do), putting up my arms in a cross every time I want to say no to something (a bigger cross for a stronger no) and feeling my newly acquired vocabulary slipping into my everyday life – annyong replacing “hello”; gamsamnida replacing “thank you”.
At first I struggled to come to terms with Korean culture, but now I can't imagine myself acting any other way.
Today I walked down the street a changed person. I don't know when the change happened or how or why, but I am glad of it. Today I walked down the street with confidence. I am in Korea. There is no place in the world I would rather be.
