The Third Day

Josh:
I have been in this PC room for about two hours now and the girl behind me keeps listening to the same song while singing loudly. Normally this would be okay because I am listening to metal on youtube but one of my headphones is dead so I keep hearing the same song again and again out of my left ear. Let's keep this moving, shall we?

Day Three (Wednesday): Today we woke up to the lovely sound of rain. We got up (luckily on time because I forgot to set the alarm) and headed our separate ways. I got onto the same bus as yesterday thinking it would be easier because I knew what the stop looked like but unfortunately the rain had caused the windows to completely fog over so I was riding blind once more. I decided to just relax and hopefully I would see the stop in time. About half way there the bus became rather full and an older woman stepped onto the bus. I was near the back and she started to head towards my area so I got up and gestured toward the seat. She smiled widely and said "Thank you" in Korean and sat down. I was sitting in a window seat so I had to step over the young Korean boy who was sitting to my right. Shortly after, he got off and I sat down next to the older lady. She started speaking to me in Korean and I said, "Sorry, I only speak English." She said, "Oooh," and we continued our ride in silence. I kept noticing her looking at me out of the corner of my eye so I just smiled and looked forward. I kept trying to look out the door that opened when people got off because I couldn't see a thing. I looked over and she said, "Pyeongtaek station?" I nodded and she nodded with a glance that said, "Don't worry, I got you." In a few minutes a young business man stepped onto the bus and headed toward us. I got up and gestured towards my seat for him and he vehemently shook his head "No" multiple times, smiled and said "Thank you" in English. I sat back down and the two of them started talking. He was to my right and she was to my left. It turns out that between the two of them they knew enough English to communicate with me. I felt a tug on my arm and she said, "Long? Year? Month?" I replied, "Oh, only three days." (I held up three fingers) which I received a "Aah." She then said something that sounded like, "Job?" I said I teach English, once again nods, and she said, "Busan?" (a major city in Korea) "No, Pyeongtaek Mechanical and Technical High School." She nodded and smiled happily. I turned to the man and he said, "Name?" "Joshua, what's yours?" He pointed to himself and said his name. I said nice to meet you and everyone nodded and smiled. It became silent again and I noticed him reach into his briefcase and pull a card out and put it in his jacket. A couple of minutes pass and I feel another tug and the older woman says, "Stop here." I said "Thank you." (in Korean) and got up, bowed to her and got off the bus. The business man got off with me and he pulled out his business card and handed it to me and said, "Me." I bowed and said thank you again and we parted ways. I really can't describe how happy this experience made me. It was amazing how even though we had such a language barrier, we were able to communicate and in some way, make each other's day. I highly recommend having some sort of experience like this in your life. This simple bond to another human is one of the most refreshing experiences I have ever had.

One of my co-teachers picked me up from the station and I began my second day at school. I only went to one class (to more "ooo"s) and decided to work on my lesson plan for the rest of the day (I don't have access to the Internet at my house). Lunch came around and I had a small piece of fish (wasn't as big of a fan of this as I was the others) and a small piece of a giant french fry sized radish (once again, not a huge fan) along with rice soup (good). As I sat in my cubicle creating a lesson plan, students would come into the teacher's room between class periods. This would be a big no-no in the US but I found myself to be rather fond of this idea. I had many students come up and introduce themselves and giggle as they left. One girl came up and tried to say my name. I had her break it down by saying, "Jah. (she repeated) Sh. U. ah. Good, now put them together." She tried her best and then left. Within two minutes she came back in and had mastered how to say my name. She said she was practicing outside. I told her to continue to practice and you will learn English in no time. Another student came right next to me and hunched over, "I feel sick."
"Do you want some water?"
"No."
"Is there a school nurse?"
"No."
"I hope you feel better."
"I am scared teacher."
"Why?"
"Because my English no good."
"Not at all! You're English sounds fine to me. You can talk to me so that is better than most. Keep it up." I love this kind of interaction and I look forward to students coming up to me after school. Hopefully some of them will be able to teach me some Korean too. Around 4:30PM Audrey came over (my co-teachers wanted to have a dinner with everyone so they invited Audrey also). We were supposed to leave at 5:00 so I showed Audrey around the school. Many of my students said, "Oh! This wife?", "So pretty!" as I gave her a mini tour. My favorite experience was when we were sitting in the teacher's room and students came in to get keys and literally stopped, dropped the keys and stared at Audrey. They then said, "Oh! So pretty!" and started speaking excitedly in Korean. The other teachers in the room thought this was hilarious and started jokingly shouting at the students while Audrey turned bright red. It was hilarious.

Around five we went to a traditional Korean restaurant where everyone sits on cushions and eachs at a long table. I shortly learned that my legs were not happy with that decision and I had to keep adjusting every few minutes. I ended up trying raw fish for the first time (took me about two minutes to chew, not exactly a fan), a small piece of angler fish (look it up, it's ugly) and had other various side dishes. Overall I had a great time. The two female co-teachers kept laughing at my lack of metal chopstick skills and everyone loved talking to Audrey. We said good-bye (they were nice enough to buy us dinner) and my co-teacher drove us to a big store with Wu where we could buy normal sized towels (finally!). Wu took us back to the station on a bus while giving us some helpful advice about the city and we finally went home and got some sleep.

An interesting side note: In my short time here I have noticed a distinct difference between the day life and night life. During the day time (especially morning) there are hardly any people on the streets and the town honestly looks a little boring. At night, however, there are neon lights everywhere and people crowd the streets trying to get to various bars or markets. The difference is like, well, night and day (I'm so funny).

-Josh