Americans vs. Koreans

Ah, the Olympics.

Someone asked me, "Who do you root for?"

I have to admit, I get a surge of pleasure when Koreans win.

Korea is so small compared to the US. Yet somehow they pull out these winners, and it is exciting to watch.

Probably, if I were in Korea now, I would be feeling the tug of home and rooting for the Americans. But I am here, and feeling instead the tug of Korea. I wish them well in these games.

Rosetta Stone

Ever tried learning a language with Rosetta Stone?

Here's how it works: You see 4 pictures at a time. You hear - or read - a sentence. You click on the picture that matches the sentence. If you're wrong you get a big X and have to try again. If you're right, you get a check and go to the next set of 4 pictures. You do this over and over. There are variations as you go but that's the basic gist of it.

This is called "dynamic immersion" - an approach that supposedly mimics first language learning. There is no translation, no grammar instruction, no explanation of any type. The pictures try to make the meaning clear, and you try to figure out the grammar as you go.

I like the idea of this. This is - sort of - the way I wanted to try to learn Korean. I wanted to see if an adult could learn this way.

But I wasn't successful with it before I went to Korea. It was too hard, and too tedious. The chunks of language being used in the sentences were just too big.

And I didn't use it at all when I was in Korea.

But now - I use it every day. And NOW - it makes sense to me as an adult learner. What a great SUPPLEMENT to the textbooks and class instruction and real world practice. Now that I know a lot of grammar and vocabulary, the new chunks being introduced are not so overwhelming, and I get to hear sentences and patterns repeated and recycled over and over until the sounds and the meaning do seem to start to sink in - in a way they don't with any other method.

I'm hooked. I believe this is helping my learning.

But for anyone tempted to try this:

Don't expect to learn anything practical, or anything that you could actually use as a beginner. You will learn things like "This clown is putting on his pants/This clown already put on his pants" or "This rocking horse is not a live animal/This pig is a live animal" or "There are many cowboy hats but no cowboys" long before you will learn anything like "Hi, my name is..." or "Where is the bathroom?" Strange content at times - definitely not a program for the casual learner who just wants to learn a few phrases.

What I'm Missing in Seoul

I've been in the States almost 2 weeks now, and here are a few things I've been missing:

Vibrant bustling streets everywhere. Sidewalks filled with pedestrians. Street vendors of all types - cooked food, fish, fruits and vegetables, clothes, accessories, magazines, phones,...

Subway stations everywhere, with subway lines going everywhere. Streets filled with buses going everywhere: green buses that go around the local sector, blue buses that go to other sectors in the city, red buses that go out of the city, abundant taxis everywhere.

No tipping - none! No sales tax. The price you see is the price you pay.

Ondol floor heating. Hot water goes through those pipes under the floor, and the floor gets toasty warm. It takes a long time to warm up a room this way, but once it's does, ooh, it's delightful to walk (or lie!) on the floor on a cold winter day.

No keys! My apartment door has a touch pad. There are no locks on our mailboxes. No need for car keys. Nothing else to lock up.

Take-a-number waiting system is all over - in banks, movie theaters, the post office, immigration office - instead of standing in line, you take a number from a machine and sit (!) in one of the seats provided while you wait for your number to be called.

Personal customer service; friendly people willing to help. Wow. Calm, polite, patient people everywhere, willing to talk, answer questions, take time. I don't use the phone much myself but have sometimes had Koreans make business calls for me - they always get a human on the line, never an automated menu with endless buttons to press; I have yet to see anyone put on hold.

Korea's unemployment rate is, I believe, 3.something % - compared to the US 10% rate. There are undoubtedly complicated economic and social factors, but I can't help but notice the huge number of people working at jobs that don't exist in the States. Every large store has workers posted throughout the store, at every display case, just standing there waiting to help customers. There are people riding little delivery motor scooters everywhere - almost anything can be delivered to your home with a phone call (you can order McDonald's delivered any time day or night!). With market vendors in stall after endless stall at the big markets, the huge number of very small businesses (tiny little restaurants by the score, small clothing shops, bedding shops, camera shops, etc.) on every street, street vendors, bus and taxi drivers, people actually answering phones, etc. - all these visible jobs surely add something to the economy and people's livelihood.

I will say, though, that these armies of customer service workers spend a lot of time seemingly doing nothing as they wait for customers. Are these folks getting paid much? Are they making it?

Anyway, I miss them!

Preview of July

I am now in California - had a great reunion with local family today. Leaving Seoul definitely gave me a tug, giving me a preview of what it's going to feel like in July, when I leave Korea for good. I feel very lucky that I get to go back in a few weeks, but for now I'm glad to be home; I will have a chance to take care of some things and contemplate how things have gone so far. Any momentous conclusions will be shared here. Thank you for sharing the first part of this journey with me. See some of you soon.

Sudden Change in Plans - Winter in California

Surprise! A number of circumstances converged this past weekend, resulting in... a decision to transfer my course registration to the spring term, and come home for the next month or two. Yes, this Saturday I'll be back in California. I plan to stay in California until mid-March, and then come back to Korea to take the spring semester and complete the sabbatical.

I did not expect to come home in the middle of this, but now I am, and I'm looking forward to it! I hope to see many of you soon. I will keep the blog going from home. For those in Korea, I will miss you for the next couple of months, but I will see you again soon.

Second Quarter Begins

I am now comfortably in a Level 2 class which began 2 days ago. I opted for the slower paced one (the sequence where students take 8 quarters to complete the whole program instead of 6) - which means I am back in the exact same place I started last September. But now it's easier and my sweat is staying in my body (although that may be due to it being about 70 degrees F colder now!). The best part is that there are currently only 6 students in this class. The other 5 are young - 2 white Americans, a Korean-American, a German-Korean, and another Asian (not sure where from).

The negative part: this teacher exhibits the boredom the others must feel. She seems miles away, barely able to bring herself to listen to our stumbling efforts, impatient with our mistakes - I don't think she likes doing this much. But - she takes us through all the required steps and gives us that invaluable listening practice, so I think I can learn in this class. 2 days down, 48 to go.

Seoul Winter - the Good, the Bad, the Good...

Thanks, Charles, for welcoming me back to Seoul winter!

When I looked up average precipitation and temperature in Seoul, December didn't look that different from January. Things were a little cold when I left for Japan toward the end of December, to be sure -but it was dry, and I thought, "I can handle this winter!" I came back to a bit of snow on the ground. Fine! Pretty to look at, and the cold still tolerable.

Then last Sunday it snowed throughout the day. So pretty to watch from my 15th floor apartment.

The next day, Monday, I went out with my friend Mi Kyeong to lunch and a movie. We sloshed through the snow and it was fun.

Then came - the slip! Still only early January, and I already took a spill. 2 days later, when I had had enough and sought out a doctor, I ended up like this:

Xrays did not show a break but I'm to wear this for the next 4-6 weeks. We'll see how that goes. For now it actually feels great having this thing encasing and protecting my sore arm - I think I shall sleep tonight.

While having lunch with Mi Kyeong, before "the spill," she taught me an expression: "pul heng chung ta heng" (불행중 다행): something like "out of misfortune comes fortune."

And so it proved true. I found a great "international clinic" at the hospital associated with Yonsei University -right on my walk to school. (The hospital has a great reputation but an unfortunate name, it seems to me - Severence Hospital!) Everyone speaks English, was friendly and helpful, took care of me right away... and the best part was that I met a fellow sojourner - an American woman, exactly my age, experiencing exactly what I had been experiencing - the isolation of not having women friends our own age. She finished her appointments, then stayed with me through my exam and xrays, went with me for coffee - it was great! Yeah, she's American, and I'm here to meet Koreans, (and actually one of the great things about Kyong Mee is that she is close to my age -her kids are grown too - but my Korean is still so elementary that our ability to talk about things is still very limited) - but oh, I did enjoy being with Mary Lorna today.

And now - the sidewalks are slick with unmelted ice and school starts tomorrow and I have what used to be a half-hour walk (I'm giving it an hour now so I can go s-l-o-w-l-y) each way - I just hope the good fortune remains!