Thursday, May 26, 2011

Busan Journal, Day 25



The Total Animal Soup of Time, Part II

Somehow the semester is nearly done.

Just yesterday I was wondering how to introduce "Howl" to students I did not know, who had no frame of reference for what I hoped to teach and brought unknown expectations of their foreign professor.  I was also wondering how well my new students would read English and understand my rapid-fire lectures.

Now we are finishing our last books and thinking about the final assessment.



On the first day of classes I worked hard to discover what my expectations should be so that I could attempt to bridge the gaps.  That first day the classes were quite big -- not the hundred I might have had in one classroom, but big enough. More significantly, I had no solution to the problem of getting affordable books in English, so my reading lists were tentative. I needed quite a bit of specific information quickly, but I was not sure how to get it.

Getting Korean students to talk, as a general rule, is quite difficult; most of them are accustomed to sitting without speaking in the classroom.The general idea is that the teacher lectures and students take notes.  It is, I suppose, flattering to think that I might have so much valuable information stored up. But all the same I prefer give and take.  My internal GPS functions on eye contact and body language, both of which Korean students have learned to keep under control.

By the second week, the classes were smaller.  I think some students, who were initially curious about the foreign professor, felt the work would be too hard or that there would be too much reading in English. Some may have found the prospect of facing me every week to be a bit daunting.  Perhaps it is true that I am intimidating, although the notion always strikes me as misplaced.

I was sorry to lose so many right off because I have been excited about the learning opportunities.  My learning opportunities, that is.

Whatever the reasons, it has been better with smaller classes -- fourteen in the undergraduate class on immigrant literature and nine in the graduate class on the literature of rebellion.  We have, at least in the graduate class, reached a point where interaction during class is common and fairly easy. I do not exactly teach through discussion, as is my preference, but we come close.



It is the graduate class where we used "Howl" as our first reading. That was a bit of chutzpah on my part, I suppose, but the choice actually worked well.  We spent a lot of time on "Howl."

It was not so much the objectionable stuff that concerned my students -- or me, after my initial what-have-I done!  Every language has its dirty words and every culture has its provocative behaviors, so these elements were not an obstacle to learning.  In fact, these things are part of a fabric of puzzling references and allusions that needed context and explanation, and the form of the poem can be dizzying.  All of this meant I had to approach the poem by explaining context and form. 




As Ginsberg graphically parades nearly every major American concern of the 1950s, I was free to discuss the historical circumstances that made the literature of rebellion necessary. As he speaks the unspeakable and reveals the hidden, we were in open territory.  In the process, the poem begins to make a great deal of sense. It becomes a map of the post-war American subconscious.

The undergraduate class has proven a different sort of challenge.  Part of that challenge is due to the size of the room;  there are fifteen of us in a lecture hall with 100 seats and with a raised stage for the professor. What this has meant is that the natural gaps are emphasized. It is more difficult to create the atmosphere of familiarity in which a Korean student might be encouraged to look up and, dare I think it, speak.




Now, as I have said, the semester is nearly gone.  We have reached the "end game" in both classes.  How shall we draw our studies to satisfactory conclusions?

In the Immigrant class we have finished our books and have begun what I call "ruining movies." We are watching The Joy Luck Club together over a period of three classes with suitable time before and after the segments for discussion.  I am  ruining this movie for my class both because the story is ideal for our topic and because it gives them time to write their final paper without the pressure of new reading for class.

The graduate class came over for lunch this week to see how the foreign professor lives, to meet his wife, and to enjoy a taste of American hospitality.  We had a good time.  We have reached a good point in this learning experience.



Too bad we are reaching the end.  If only we had world enough and time.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Busan Journal, Day 24

Black Goat Food Village

Saturday afternoon Professor Kim, who teaches Chinese Literature, picked us up at our dorm to take us to a "garden restaurant" on Geumgang Mountain.  In the sunlight his car reveals shades of deep purple like a concord grape.

We picked up his wife and three small sons at their apartment building and then headed out.

As he lives at the foot of Geumgang Mountain, we drove quickly out of the city proper, up into the mountain on a two lane switch-back road. No more than ten minutes later we reached a portion of the Geumjeongsanseong Fortress wall that is being rebuilt over the roadway to allow foot traffic on top of the wall and car traffic through it. The fortress itself dates back more than three hundred years, intended as protection again Japanese invasions.



Once through the gate we turned off the paved road. We drove along a wide hiking trail that was in places smooth and hard as if paved, in places rough with large irregular paving stones, and in places rutted and in need of repair. We bounced along to the delight of Kim's young boys, sharing the path with hikers and bicycles.  




Ten minutes along this trail we pulled off at the garden restaurant. There were six or seven  outlying huts and a kitchen building with a traditional tiled roof and walls made partly of wood and partly of cinder block.The huts have clear plastic walls, galvanized pipe supports, and canvas roofs like tents. Although they look temporary, they are clearly permanent; they are built on concrete slabs, with the pipe framework embedded in the concrete.




It reminded me of a restaurant our travel group visited in Russia in 2004 somewhere off the hi-way between Moscow and Vladimir, although the resemblance is mostly in the feel and look of the place rather than in the particulars.

As usual, we were the only non-Koreans in the area.




Professor Kim parked in a space between huts, near a large mound of discarded wood scraps and cinder blocks and just down from a vegetable garden.   He had called ahead to order our meal and to tell them that Americans were coming. I am sure the "heads up" was appreciated.  They were expecting us.  The duck was being cooked. 

We were greeted -- Ahn-yeong-ha-seo! -- and welcomed into one of the eating rooms in the kitchen building.

Many of the huts had groups or couples eating. There were, as well, several platforms out under the trees where people already eating and relaxing.



We enjoyed eating with Prof. Kim and his family.  His two older boys were mostly out of the room, running around with young children from other huts. They entertained themselves finding worms and insects and watching water work its way down the drive. 


Our room was covered -- ceiling, walls, and floor -- with linoleum.  It was free of decoration and clutter.  Apart from two extra tables folded against the wall, the room was devoted to eating -- one low table and cushions for sitting.


Our menu was duck and goat.  I think Korean meals are identified by the meat dishes, since there are always many small side dishes that may present a variety of special foods but always include kimchi.  To my memory I have not had duck since I was a boy and we once ate ducks my father had shot.  If it were not for the unpleasant memory of helping to pluck the ducks, I would probably not remember eating duck at all.  

And we have never had goat, to my knowledge.  Both were good. Because the goat was spicy, I am not really sure that I can describe the taste except that it made my lips and tongue burn a little. We ate quite a lot.




At the end of our meal we were served rice soup made from the duck broth.  By this time we could hear recorded music coming from one of the huts.  Pop music alone at first and then singing. Professor Kim said that they were singing pop songs that people his age would recognize.  A national pastime, this singing.

The voices we heard came from three older men who were belting out tunes in a hut by themselves, on a microphone, reading lyrics from a TV screen set up in the corner.  A dozen or more empty green bottles lay about the floor.

 

After we had finished with the duck and goat and acorn moo, we walked with Professor Kim up to the restored West Gate of the Fortress Wall.  The Fortess is a story in itself.  





When our walk was finished, we drove the switchbacks back into what has become our city, feeling full and a bit sleepy.  It was a good afternoon, thanks to Professor Kim and his sweet wife and his energetic boys.


Although we got near, we did not drive far enough into the mountain to reach the Black Goat Food Village.  I thought I would use the name for my title as it has a certain exotic charm.






Thursday, May 19, 2011

Busan Journal, Day 23

Learning Korean

English is my only language.  It is the air I breathe, so to speak, the water I swim in. My three months in Korea is not producing any fluency in Korean. I had hoped for more.

My experience with other languages has always been rocky.  The terms strange and alien have always characterized my encounters with foreign languages.  Latin in high school, German in college, French in graduate school -- all were and are again mostly Greek to me.

The same is true of the Russian terms we learned in 2004 preparing for our trip to Vladimir.  Please, food, toilet, thank you. Hard to pronounce, impossible to remember, funny sounding when I tried to say them, now lost in the odds-and-ends bin of memory. I remember searching for the right word to say as the opportunity for using it passed and coming up with a German word from my college years.




As we prepared to fly to Korea in February, we made a couple of attempts to begin language study.  Our home stay kids had given us a handful of terms over the years --annyong-haseyo, kamsa hamnida, bop. But I have had a hard time getting other words to stick in my brain. I have been hard pressed to hear words and to see them.



We know that learning languages is easier, relatively speaking, for the young. Sometimes I envy them for this ability.  But I think, too, there must be something in the way the brain is wired that makes language a more natural thing for certain people than for others. My brain seems to be wired to resist language retention. When it comes to absorbing language my brain is duck feathers, teflon.

Or maybe thinking this explanation is just an excuse for not working hard enough at it.

I think that living in a culture is an advantage for learning a language, but it is not foolproof.  I have discovered, for example,  that it is remarkably easy to get by in Korea without actually learning to read or speak or understand. 

That a non-speaker can "get by" is a mixed blessing.  When I go to the Post Office, I can make myself understood well enough to mail whatever I want to mail.  I buy stamps, I fill out customs forms, I mail postcards and packages, I send them off.  Some of what I want is obvious; the rest I can usually convey through pointing, expressive gestures, and occasional mispronounced words. The money system, which looks difficult, is relatively easy to master.


The down side is that I may well be paying for the wrong things, thinking I have sent my letter airmail when in fact it is going by freighter around the Cape of Good Hope. Then too if I can get by without a lot of struggle, where is the motivation for learning the language itself.  It is easier to settle for getting by.

Still, I want to learn.

I have been given lots of advice about the business of learning Korean.  And books on the subject abound.


One book I found boasts that you can teach yourself Korean in 40 minutes. I have read it twice and done the exercises.  It has been helpful, but it would be stretch to say I taught myself Korean.


Still, all is not lost. I have been trying in my own way to absorb Korean.  I can hear words now, some of the time, where before talk had sounded like unbroken strings of language. I have discovered the joy of hearing a word or two I recognize in an overheard conversation. Just this week I heard jik-jin in the middle of an otherwise unintelligible conversation.  

That is, I think, a step in the right direction.  What a thrill!



I have also started practicing the Hangul letters. Amazing what one can do with that little brush. Practicing with the letters has helped me recognize them when I encounter them around me. 



These are little things, I grant you, baby steps you might say.  But then, that's the point where language learning is most productive, isn't it.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Busan Journal, Day 22

Bukchon Photo Op

At the tail end of my last post I included a picture of a little boy in hanbok, traditional Korean dress.



On our walk through Bukchon, in Seoul, an area with many houses built in the old way, the tradtional fashion, we came across this little boy being set up for a photographer.  Both of his parents were dressed in hanbok as well.

His father was working hard to prop him up beside a door.





His mother stood in the street calling encouragement while the photographer was moving about for good angles from across the narrow path.


The mother nodded permission for me to take pictures, too.


Keeping junior on his feet facing the camera without assistance clearly involved a team effort.






The occasion as I understand it is the child's first birthday, called Tol, a word that can also be used generically to indicate birthdays.  Historically the child's first birthday calls for special celebration because the mortality rate for children before the first birthday was high.  There is also a traditional celebration marking the first 100 days of life, baek-il, but the one year mark is the more significant. Mortality rates in modern times have improved to the point where the celebration is truly observed as tradition.







We found ourselves entertained by the photo shoot and lingered longer than we probably should have.  My interest in taking the boy's pictures did not garner a dinner invitation for us, however, so we pushed on.  I can only hope the photographer got some good pictures out the occasion.





Friday, May 13, 2011

Busan Journal, Day 21

Over the last two weeks access to blogspot, my blog vehicle, has been limited due to technical problems on their end.  As a consequence I have several half-finished drafts for blogs that I could not finish and post.  So, today, while service is on-line, I will write about a number of disconnected things.

Post, Interrupted

On Sunday May 1st we went to Busan's Chinatown after church.  I had thought to catch the last day of a festival that I had understood to be going on.  The first thing related to a festival that we saw was an outdoor karaoke event that had attracted older male singers with questionable voices.  It had attracted a considerable crowd despite the talent on stage, but we decided to look around rather than take a seat as several people with yellow sashes encouraged us to do. 

Sometimes it is useful to not speak the language.

The only other event that looked festival-related was a dart throwing opportunity for which there was an enormous queue. Apart from the rather alarming presence of onlookers right behind the circular, spinning dart board, the most interesting thing we saw were costumed teenagers we thought might be waiting to perform.



Then we discovered that some of them were in the dart throwing line, too, so a performance was not imminent.


We decided that this was not a good time to see what Chinatown really had to offer, due to the crowds, and that we would need to come back another time to look around.






Here are a few random bits of information.  You might think it would be easy to spot a blond woman in crowds of dark haired people, but it is not.  Also, we found nearly as many store signs in Russian as in Chinese in what is called Chinatown.  We are told that the population is shifting away from the predominance of Russian merchants toward a growing Chinese presence.  If that is the case, then this Chinatown will get bigger and more interesting in the coming years.

Later the same week we traveled to Seoul on the KTX (Korean Train eXpress) because I had Thursday off. Children's Day.  Of course.

Chloe met us at Seoul Station.  She served as our language and transportation facilitator for those three days. On our first afternoon, she took us to the traditional market in Insadong and then to a not so traditional performance of Nanta, which is a rhythm-based drama on the order of "Blast," but with a restaurant setting and story line.  Lots of flashing knives and flying cabbage.



On Friday we took the subway and then a long bus ride out to a Korean folk village near Yongin.

We almost bought a samurai umbrella during one of several rain spells, but opted instead for a cheaper though useful standard model from the convenience store.  In addition to the village houses, gardens, flowers, and folk dressed in Hanbok, traditional clothing, we saw what is called Farmers' music and dance and the beginning of a traditional wedding ceremony.






The Farmers' dance involved a lot of acrobatics and was energizing the way athletic dance can be.  From that arena went to the house where the wedding was to take place and found good seats near the spot where the bride was brought out.


Unfortunately, mid-way through the ceremony a misty rain returned and the actors packed up and left.  No happily ever after.


The couple went in under the porch roof and stood for pictures anyway because what is a wedding without the photos. 




I notice that there are similarities between the pretend wedding and the real one.  In neither case is the couple allowed to smile, according to tradition.  The difference is that in the real wedding, the couple is only pretending to be somber.  I know this because we had dinner with them a few days ago.


The day after the Folk Village we went to the Seoul neighborhood called Bukchon, which has traditional urban houses, art galleries, restaurants, and so forth.  We rode with Mi-Sook and Jong-Myoung and Chloe. Jong-Myong and Chloe are bilingual, Mi-Sook speaks mostly Korean, and we speak only English, so conversations are interesting.



I realize as I write that I will need to write more later about a number of these places, so I will end the odyssey here. 

It has been, all in all, an event few weeks.  We continue to find Korea a rich and amazing place.  We are grateful for the opportunity to live here these few short months.