It is rather telling that our third learned Korean phrase
(following “hello” and “thank you”) was “ppalli ppalli” – quick quick.
We have only been here for a week but we can already tell –
time passes fast in Korea.
Everything seems to happen fast here.
In 1998 there were 300,000 foreigners living in South Korea.
This week at orientation we’ve befriended EPIK teachers not
only from the U.S. but Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa
and the United Kingdom.
Together we will join the collective 1.4 MILLION non-Koreans
who are now calling Korea home – a home, by the way, that consists of roughly
50 MILLION people all in a land area equivalent to the U.S state of Indiana.
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| "smoke monster soup" |
With full days of lectures and university cafeteria meals of
kimchi, rice, some variety of pork and what we’ve lovingly named “smoke monster
soup” – we look forward to evenings when we can visit the on-campus convenience
store and buy something sweet for our American sugar-addictions.
Nothing out of the ordinary for two QuikTrip loving
Midwesterners – BUT – in Korea the first 24-hour convenience store wasn’t
opened until 1989. Today the country has over 20,000 convenience stores
Not impressed?
that’s 2.3
stores opening
every day
365 days a year
for the last 24 years.
We have only been here a week – BUT we’ve
–
learned how to break a board with our fist
during a Taekwondo lecture
–
learned to read and write basic 한글 (a.k.a hangeul, the Korean alphabet)
–
already acquired an addiction to the glorious
Korean snack that is Choco-pies
–
visited a palace, eaten a traditional bibimbap
meal, watched traditional Korean performers, and toured the National Museum of
Korean Contemporary History
Yeah. Things happen fast in Korea.
That is, until this afternoon.
Post lunch, the minutes crawled by. We attempted to look
engaged as the last of our class gave their condensed lesson demonstrations.
Even the finest of highly intonated, energetic teacher voices couldn’t keep our
minds from wondering to the fateful meeting that would happen later – the
revealing of our placement schools.
“Anduh Reeeeya – Pyeongchon Elementary School, Yesan,
Gareduh Reeeeya – Geumo Elementary School, Yesan”
With a fervent fist bump we celebrated both getting an
elementary school – exactly what we’d hoped for – before frantically scanning
the tourist map of Korea we’d brought to locate where we’d be spending the next
12 months.
In the ultimate game of “Where’s Waldo”, our eyes scoured
the map for Yesan. We’d already memorized the names of the big cities in our
province and knew the icon identifying a metropolitan area. This was taking too
long – where the heck was Yesan? And that’s when we saw it.
A snail.
In the dead center of our province Chungnam, an icon of a
tiny orange snail next to the words “Yesan”. Using our 6th grade
geography skills, we referred to the map key.
Snail = “Slow City”
Using our iPhones, we referred to Google. Yesan, South Chungnam
Province is Korea's sixth and the world's 119th "slow city."
"Slow cities commit to preserving the natural
environment and traditional food production and ways of life while pursuing
sustainable development”.
So, maybe not EVERYTHING happens
fast in Korea.
Tonight, we look forward to the
unexpected surprises that await us in snail town.
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| Andie's fave Korean snack "chocopie" |
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| Bibimbap at the Korean House with fellow EPIK teachers |
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