Korea

2006-05-03T15:56:00.000+09:00

Please keep reading after you finished looking at these pictures, and I have more pictures to add, but the paper I wrote is actually 10 pages long. Sorry, it's not a short blog, but it should be worth the read.

The building that had been bombed and where the bell was.

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Grandpa's dorm inside and out. It's the top right one by the water pipe.

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The first two are outside of what grandpa calls Mess Hall Company A. And the second two are generally the same picture of his dorm, Company B.

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These are some of the old pictures that grandpa took while he was here. I didn't seperate them, so a couple are sideways. The top left hand corner of the first one (it's sideways) is his dorms. All the trucks were parked at the college, the bottom left corner was a buddest funeral procession and the bottom right points directly to his dorm.

Pictures of the todays main building at Ewah University. At this time it was unusable after being hit by an airbomb.

The left is Korea University. That is where my host brother goes to college, but now there are many more buildings.

The right is my grandpa in 1952.

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In 1952 the city of Seoul, Korea only existed north of the Han River and everything south of the river consisted of farmland. The only bridge crossing the Han was destroyed December 9, 1950 by the South Korean forces to keep the communists from regaining land south of Seoul, but also making travel by pontoon boat the only way for American soldiers to cross the river on the way to taking a train or truck down the single dirt road to the airbase at K16. As a member of the 440^th Signal Aviation Construction Battalion B Company based at Ewha Woman’s University from September 1952 until November 1953, this is how my grandfather, Lyle Joseph Eichacker remembered Korea.

The ceasefire was signed on July 27^th 1953, the exact path of the DMZ was determined and Lyle began his journey home to South Dakota in November, not to return to Korea for fifty-three years. His brother visited Korea multiple times, a son received military training there for a one month period, and Lyle planned trips to return on numerous occasions, but none of the plans followed through until his granddaughter also decided to spend one year of her life in the faraway land of Korea. Unable to let this chance slip by; in December Lyle bought two airline tickets, one for him and one for his daughter, my mother, Theresa DeLanghe. After a pit stop in Tokyo, their flight landed at Inchon International Airport at 9:15pm on Friday, March 31, 2006.

During the hour drive east to Seoul, my grandfather tried to decipher where we were from what he could remember. But although we were traveling to what today is known as Seoul, it was a whole new territory for him. The road was no longer a single lane, nor dirt and the airport was not even the same airport. K16 which used to lie south west of Seoul is now commonly known as Gimpo International Airport and has been absorbed into the Seoul city limits. Korea’s new airport was built on a man made island, has it’s own eight lane toll highway and is situated in what used to be a small port city where General MacArthur launched the attack that divided the North Korean forces in August 1950, but now is a huge metropolitan city. On that first night the only landmark I could point out that my grandfather might recognize is South Mountain. In his day this mountain was uninhabited, truly south of Seoul, and the six soldiers on his signal repair crew would use one of its natural springs to cool their beer on a hot day. Today, I know the mountain as Namsan (still meaning South Mountain), but it is situated in the center of Seoul, topped by a 77ft broadcasting tower, the top is reachable by cable car and that natural spring is most likely listed in the most romantic places to visit on Namsan. On the drive to our hotel, the Han River with upwards of fifteen bridges crossing it, and South Mountain both lay to our north. Driving down the eight lane highway that my grandfather once knew as rice paddies, my relatives gazed in awe at complex after complex of high rise apartments and bright neon signs protruding from the shorter, maybe six story, buildings declaring the many businesses contained in each. All my grandfather could say was, “how do they get all of that concrete?”

The next morning I gave them a tour of the town from a different level, underground. Out of Seoul’s ten intricately laid subway lines my grandfather and mother where able to experience travel on three on our way to The War Memorial of Korea, another on the way to lunch and a tourist information center, and a fifth before going to a Korean traditional dance, music, and theatre performance that night.

Since Korea has existed as a nation in some form for about 5,000 years and this almost sixty year period after the Korean War has been one of the longest periods in which Korea has not participated in physical warfare on it’s own soil, the war memorial, although focusing on the most recent war has many soldiers and battles throughout history to commemorate. We passed through the ancient wars exhibition quickly, due to lack of time, and then were introduced to the Korean War by a series of video clips that had recorded live action on the field and the collapse of the Han River bridge. During the next few hours I learned how and why the war began and what occurred throughout the following three years.

The Japanese internment of the Korean people was severed after World War II, and in 1948 the Soviet Union occupied the land north of the 38^th parallel and the United States the South creating the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea (ROK), more commonly known as North Korea and South Korea. The leader of North Korea, Kim Il-Sung, knowing that the South would not convert to communism on their own, but still wanting to reunite Korea into one country launched a surprise attack on South Korea June 25, 1950. Seoul was captured by June 28th and almost the entire peninsula occupied by communists by September. The United States 8^th Army and UN forces from twenty-two countries assisted the ROK soldiers in pushing the DPRK army all the way north of Pyongyang (the capital of North Korea) and past. Then China joined the North Korean forces with a volunteer army, Seoul was recaptured by the DPRK, then back in the hands of the South, and negotiations for a ceasefire and re-declaration of the Armistice line began. That is when Lyle came to Korea. Seoul was stabilizing and the war was mainly discussions and a few battles near the 38^th parallel and his job was to make sure the phone lines were erected and repaired to keep communications stable between bases.

At the War Memorial and a few other locations throughout his return visit, my grandpa discovered relics from his past. Several items in the Korean War exhibition caught his eye including examples of rations and uniforms, but the most notable is the name of a soldier from his hometown engraved on the wall of those who did not go home. Also outside on the grounds of the memorial, he found a “flying boxcar”, the kind of plane he had flown in on from Japan to K16 after the eleven day voyage to Japan from California by boat. He exclaimed, “I never thought I’d see one of these again,” and commented on how impossible it is for a six foot man to sleep in the mesh seats they called sleepers.

After a quick two day visit to the Southeastern corner of Korea with a short ancient history lesson in Kyung-ju, we sped back up to Seoul at about 200mph on the KTX train, paid a visit to my Korean high school, and returned to memory lane; next stop Ewha University. When I tell Koreans that my grandfather lived at Ewha, they always tell me that it’s impossible, because men can not live at a woman’s college. Even administrators from the university didn’t know that the campus had been used as a military base during the war, but Lyle arrived with his photo album in hand and during a tour could even point out the room he had lived in. No one on campus knew anything about a bell that used to stand between two of the oldest buildings. The main hall, which was unusable after being air bombed in combat before he was first there has been restored, and the room he had used as a dorm is currently being used as a science lab where bacteria is cultivated. We were unable to visit the school’s history museum and it does not reopen until May 25, but when it does my grandfather’s pictures may be included as part of the display.

The day at Ewha brought forth memories of playing billiards in the fourth floor rec room, hauling extra soldiers out to the town for some extra cash whenever his crew left base to fix a telephone line and, the bell that was rung to announce dinner which stood next to his dorm, but now a statue stands in its place. As we left his dorm building Lyle commented, “the door still squeaks,” which showed that although the campus has thoroughly changed, a few things remain the same.

Due to the fact that my grandfather had been part of the military during the war and in Korea when the ceasefire was signed, parts of the trip became highly military oriented. In ten days we visited the War memorial of Korea, the UN cemetery in Busan, the National Intelligence Security (NIS or Korea’s CIA) visitor’s building, Panmunjom and the DMZ, the United States army base in Yongsan, and Korea’s equivalent to America’s West Point military academy. Each had its own interesting attributes, such as the NIS’ information on North Korean infiltration and spies throughout the past fifty years and examples of secret spy weapons, like a pen that held poisonous darts. When we were at the UN cemetery, my grandfather asked me to take some photos of the pictures capturing the life of marines, because he has a good buddy who served as a marine during the war. Then at the military academy’s museum he found in the gun display an M1 rifle and a Carbine rifle, which were the guns he had carried. We also found a small switch board, a commemorative silver medal for participation in the Korean War just like the one he received a couple years ago from the Korean government, and outside on the grounds stood an M46 tank, the same kind another of his friends had helped man during the war.

The most intriguing location due to its historical significance and current military tension was Panmunjom in the DMZ. With the help of an army friend, Torie and I booked four spots on a tour offered through the USO before my parents even came to Korea. The four of us stayed at a hotel Thursday, April 6^th, the night before the tour so we could arrive at the USO office by 7am for its commencement. It must have been relaxing and very ordinary for my parents to be traveling on a tour bus with only Americans, all of whom could speak fluent English and some of whom had blond hair, but for Torie and I it was a bit of reverse culture shock. In good traffic conditions, the line of Demarcation is only a little over an hour from the center of Seoul. Approaching the line, our bus passed through a series of military check points where our passports were checked and photos prohibited. At the last checkpoint, Camp Bonifas, which is the base camp for United Nations Security Force –Joint Security Area, we were briefed on what we should and should not do while inside the Demilitarized Zone and asked to sign a document saying that if anything happened to us while inside DMZ that the United Nations was not at fault.

From Camp Bonifas the tour group transferred to military tour buses and entered the Demilitarized Zone and then Joint Security Area (JSA) commonly known as Panmunjom. The village of Panmunjom was destroyed during the war, but since it was a neutral location on the 38^th parallel, a tent village was constructed for the Armistice peace talks to begin and eventually, the Truce was signed. . In time, buildings replaced the tents and Panmunjom became the Joint Security Area for the two nations, where everyday ROK and DPRK soldiers stand face to face on guard for their countries. The North and South’s main headquarters face each other, separated only by open air, a row of blue buildings divided hamburger-wise through the center by the Military Demarcation Line, and foot soldiers. The Military Demarcation Line (MDL), which is the exact line near the center of the DMZ that divides North and South Korea, is only visibly marked in the JSA outside the buildings by a six inch high concrete barrier and inside the buildings, by a seam in the carpet. While our tour stood in between the two headquarters North Korean soldiers were visible at their main posts and sometimes traveling from one building to another. The Army tour guides revealed that there were other soldiers watching us from cracks in the doorway, or posts in the trees, and that we were always being video-taped. Caution was enforced to not make gestures including smiles toward the North Korean soldiers, not to stop as our line was moving, and not to go anywhere near the MDL outside of the Military Armistice Commission Building (T2) unless you wanted to become a “personal guest” of North Korea.

T2 is the building where any sort of negotiations between North and South Korea or North Korea and organizations such as the Red Cross or Olympic committee are able to take place. During the negotiations translators sit at the ends of the tables straddling the MDL, while officials from the respective countries take seats on opposing sides of the negotiations table. Although maybe six building straddle the MDL, tourists’ entry is only permitted to T2 where we could not only view the negotiation tables and take pictures with the rigid ROK soldier guards, but also step over the seam in the carpet into what is technically communist North Korea.

After crossing into North Korea and safely back while inside the protection of the Military Armistice Commission Building’s walls, the tour continued in the bus past, “the Loneliest Place in the World”, the Bridge of No Return and the scene of the 1976 Ax Murder Incident at Panmunjom. The loneliest place in the world had become a nickname for UNC checkpoint 3 during the time when North and South Korean soldiers were endowed free roam on both sides of the MDL in the JSA. The UNC checkpoint 3 located nearest to the North Korean’s point of entry to the South and obstructed from line of sight from the next nearest outpost by an enormous poplar, was the loneliest and scariest place for an American or South Korean soldier to be stationed. August 18, 1976 the United Nations command decided to do a routine trimming of the tree to provide better visibility, but the KPA (North Korean Soldiers) did not agree with the decision even though the tree was on the South side of the MDL and told the American soldiers to stop. The soldiers sent to due the cutting held to their task as the KPA forces gathered around them, but after Captain Bonifas, the leader of the Americans in the task refused a second time, the KPA were commanded to “Kill the Americans!” and within four minutes the two captains were murdered and a total of ten more soldiers both American and ROK injured by the axes they had been peacefully using to prune a tree.

The tree was finally removed under full military forces including helicopters and fighter planes later that year, UNC checkpoint 3 was no longer necessary with the increased visibility and the MDL could no longer be crossed at will. The Bridge of No Return, directly adjacent to UNC checkpoint 3 gained its name from the prisoners of war who had to choose either the North or the South and after crossing this bridge were never allowed to return to the other side. The crew of the USS Pueblo, taken captive by North Korea on Jan 23, 1968 in international waters outside the coast of Korea and held captive for eleven months, was also released across the Bridge of No Return. “The release was made only after the Senior US Representative to the Military Armistice Commission, Major General Gilbert H. Woodward, signed a document stating that the USS Pueblo had illegally intruded into the territorial waters of North Korea.” (Panmunjom by Wayne A. Kirkbride) and the document was only signed so as to not start another war.

Part of the Armistice agreement included that each of the two countries would keep one village within the Demilitarized Zone. The South has Taesong-dong also known as Freedom Village, where a group of families decided to remain on their ancestral land. In Freedom Village men are exempt from military service and the US government pays each family $80,000 a year for the rice crop they produce through farming, but everyone has to be back in the village by dark and have doors and windows locked and lights out by 11 o’clock at night. The North also has a village that civil workers maintain to look like a wonderful place to live, but no one actually does live there. Up until very recently the whole village was rigged with a powerful sound system that would broadcast propaganda sometimes twenty-four hours a day promoting North Korea to South Korean soldiers and proclaiming that living in North Korea was like living in paradise. The two villages are most visible by the enormous flags flying one hundred meters high in Taesong-dong and even higher and larger in Propaganda village.

The tour continued to the 3^rd Infiltration tunnel after leaving Panmunjom. The historical significance is interesting, but truthfully it just felt like a hole in the ground with a long incline leading down to it. My mom and grandpa made it to the mouth of the tunnel before turning around just to climb right back up the long path. Torie and I followed the tour guide towards the front of the group with our hard hats on and me bending my neck to walk safely through. The whole group held an anticipation of “what might be at the end?” but all we found was a big boulder blocking the path to go further and then turned around to go back. When we met my grandpa at the top he said, “Those North Koreans can sure dig holes through mountains, but the South Koreans have mastered digging them through cities.”

After the DMZ tour on Friday, the trip began to wind down a little with souvenir shopping with my third host mom in the crazy bargain market of Namdaemun and the tourist street of Insadong on Saturday. Then we ate Saturday dinner with my first host family to celebrate my mom’s birthday, April 8^th. Sunday I had planned to just go to mass at a Catholic church near my regular church and then spend the rest of the day packing and resting. But, after a Palm Sunday Mass with evergreen branches, we visited the military academy and then shopped for an extra suitcase for grandpa to bring home all the jewelry boxes he had bought for his wife and daughters in law.

Sunday evening was my first chance to spend only with my mom and Torie, leaving grandpa at home to rest. We returned home for dinner, then mom and grandpa packed, slept and were up early the next morning to return home. On the airport limousine (bus) ride back to the airport we passed South Mountain, the Han River bridges, eight lane city roads and hundreds of twenty-plus story apartment buildings.

My grandpa had first arrived in a war torn, poverty stricken county where everyone was trying to get back what they had lost during the war and make ends meat. Transportation consisted of army trucks, a pontoon for a bridge, and a train to the army base. In 1952, Seoul was generally a small city, but on April, 10^th, 2006 he left a first world county with intricate subway systems and trains that travel 200mph. He left a city with a population of ten million people and an apartment seventy stories tall, but he left with memories of both eras and an understanding of how and why the city he knew had changed into the new world.

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Spring!!!

2006-04-24T15:10:00.000+09:00

I know that many of you are probably waiting to hear about what happened while my mom and grandfather were here, but I haven't had the time to post it. People keep asking me the story of what we did and explaining it is somewhat repetitive, but I am in the process of writing an article for my minnesota school newspaper about the trip. Partially I'm busy, and partially I'm just easily distracted when I get onto the computer, but it's a work in progress and so far it's about 5 pages double spaced without even mentioning the trip to the DMZ. So keep checking back. I'll have a good story for you soon. In the meantime this is a picture out my 12th story window. Sunsets like this are rare, but worth it. I made my dad hang up the phone and go to work, because I needed to take this picture.

2006-04-11T08:01:00.000+09:00

The war memorial.
The outside walls of the museum were lined with the names of soldiers who gave their lives in the Korean War. The grounds also held different statues and memorials along with old vehicles that were used during the Korean war or later wars such as the Vietnam War.
Inside we first traveled through ancient Korean war history. I could recognize the different dynasties and knew a little history for some of the wars, and took a cool picture of a boat that they used in those wars so many years ago, but the really interesting part came when we moved upstairs to the history of the Korean War.

2006-04-06T08:36:00.000+09:00

Saturday April 1. My original plan was to take it easy. My mom and grandpa had just flyed something like 16 hrs to come to the other side of the world, so I purposely booked a hotel right next to the nicest park in Seoul, Olympic Park. I thought we could wake up a little later and then go for a walk in the park and maybe to a traditional Korean dance performance that night. But God doesn't always agree with the plans I choose, so he decided to have it rain all day.
By doing so, God opened up a space for a visit to the Korean War Memorial Museum. I had to thank him, because there were no other times I could think of for going there. So, we set off on the first subway ride ever for my mom and the first in about twenty-five years since grandpa. (He'd used the rails in France.) I bought them transportation cards, because I like them far better than buying a ticket each time I want to go somewhere and we went to a part of town I didn't know well, but could find easily on the subway map. It took two transfers, a total of three lines. They were really impressed with the efficiency of this system (which I ended up keeping them underground for all transportation that day.)
The war memorial.

2006-04-05T10:36:00.000+09:00

Entering gyeongju...I'll add these pictures and write about it later. Time to go...

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table

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Our tour guides: My host dad in the plaid and his cousin.

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All together on the floor

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Grandpa sitting on the floor at a resturaunt. It's the usual was to eat at resturaunts in Korea, but the one and only time we're going to try it. It's something the Koreans learn to due from the time they are young children until they are old.

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For dad. The shipping yards as we came into Busan.

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Much of the agriculture is done in these green houses.

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What else to do other than play cards on a long train ride.

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On the train to Busan (Pusan). Mom video taped a good part of it. Hopefully Bobby can figure out how to cut and make it into a sensible video.

2006-04-05T10:27:00.001+09:00

New train station

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The old train station restored, but still in the same place. Now there's a new age station.

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Mom at the best Hamburger Shop in Seoul

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In Remembrance

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FREEDOM IS NOT FREE

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Sleepers. Can you imagine a 6ft. man trying to sleep in one of these?

2006-04-05T10:20:00.000+09:00

How grandpa flew over the first time.

2006-04-05T09:33:00.000+09:00

On March 31st at about 9:30pm Korea's time, my mom and grandpa Lyle landed at Inchon International airport about an hour's drive west of Seoul. From the minute he landed, grandpa was mystified. The traffic jammed six lane to each side highway we were driving on existed only as a rice field the last time he had seen it. Trying to figure out the general location of where he was now compared to fifty-two years ago seemed nearly impossible. Inchon was just a small port city connected to Seoul by train. When he flew over from Japan it was not in a huge jet to this port city, but in a "flying boxcar" (see pic) to K16, which is now in Seoul and known as Gimpo International airport. The site seeing of our drive home consisted of highrise after highrise, apartments mostly, but some bussiness buildings with many bussinesses in one building. Numerous bridges lit up by multicolored lights and consisting of both three lane roads for cars and subway tracks crossed the Han River at maybe two mile intervals. Grandpa declared that when he had been here, the one bridge crossing the Han had already been destroyed by the South Koreans to keep the North from recapturing the land south of it. The only way for them to cross the river then way by a pontoon bridge. Actually, even after we went entered Seoul, that whole part of Seoul hadn't existed. It was rice fields known as Yongdampo. I've been told that when they started building up the area south of the Han River that is known as the New Downtown or Gangnam-gu, they build eight lane roads through the fields before even starting the buildings.
Although the part of Seoul where I live wasn't even part of the city while he was here, I have been able to figure out where many of the places he had been during his stay in Korea are. Our itinerary for today is to visit Ewah University with Mia (the person who taught me Korean while still in the United States) and possibly other parts of the downtown area. Grandpa was stationed at Ewah University while he was here and we want to try to find the same building or at least where it was. Then he has another picture of part of a palace, so we'll try to figure out which one that is.. most likely Gyeongbokgung, because that's the biggest one.
The schedule is just so busy and this morning I'm letting them rest for awhile before we begin. First I'm taking them to visit my school. We'll go there around lunch so they can actually meet people and then up to the opposite corner of the city. Updates on that possibly tonight depending on how tired I am.

2006-03-14T12:44:00.000+09:00

Friday March 10, Japanese students from Fukuoka visited our school for the first half of the day. Their school is our sister school, so I guess every two years or so the students visit each other alternating countries. Anyway, there were about 100 seventeen year old Japanese students at our school for the first half of the day. It reminded me in some ways about the Austrians coming to Cannon Falls, about Kaori, and about me when I first arrived at school in Seoul.

Many of you may not know, but usually Korea and Japan do not like each other very much. Koreans especially have harsh feelings towards Japan because of the Japanese Rule over them for most of the first half of the 20th century. (Read the next blog for the history) After the Sino-Japanese War, World War II and the Korean Civil War ended, the Korean people stopped teaching in Japanese at their schools and the language, although still taught began to be percieved as a far lower priority in what students should know. And in Japan, the Korean language isn't taught rigorously either. The important language for both groups of students to learn is English. Usually the two groups of students probably wouldn't have wanted to try to get along very well, but they were the hosts and guests invited on a special occasion.

A group of about ten Japanese students joined each of the ten second year classrooms. When the students entered my classroom, they gasped to see me, an American sitting in their midst. (I was used to it. There are new first years at school now and they are the same way) I just said, "Hi, welcome, my name is Kimberly" and invited two of the boys to sit down at the group of desks where a few friends and I were sitting. The conversation started with "Hi", "What is your name?" "How old are you?" and "Do you have a girlfriend?" then it stopped. I had just gone back in time six months and these two boys were Torie and me. There were being asked the same questions. They had the same amount of understanding for the language. And if they were confused, they basically only had each other to talk to in their native language to try to understand. There was one korean girl who understood and could speak japanese decently and she resembled my host sister for these boys, so she could help if they were really lost.

Conversation picked up after awhile. A pulled out my electronic dictionary which has korean to japanese and japanese to korean along with my japanese textbook and paper and pencil. I understood the situation pretty well and the materials helped. I know that for me sometimes it is better to write things than try to pronounce, because pronounciation can be confusing and sentences can get pretty long. So some of the things we wrote. I worked best as a translator, sometimes from english to english, because the accents might be a little confusing and a native speaker would be best to understand. That means I also had the chance to speak with the Japanese boys the most and talk about things like sports and actors.

When a group of highschoolers that can't speak to each other in deep conversation due to language difficulties are placed in the same room and told to "get to know one each other" all nationalities I've met so far are so similar. We're all just highschoolers. We played games like Rock Paper Scissors and other hand games. Boys challenged each other in arm wrestling matches. We used our hands and pictures to talk and sometimes we just observed.

For lunch we ate japanese/korean curry. That really reminded me of Kaori, because the first time I ever ate it is when she made it ate my house in Minnesota. It's my favorite school lunch and it's also both Korean and japanese food. One of the side dishes for the meal was this fruit salad that is actually apples, banana, manderin oranges, tomato, and a few other things in something like sweet mayo. I don't know if it's actually good at all or if I'm just used to it. But the boys asked me what it was. I said fruit salad? just try it. That reminded me either of Kaori or myself when I first got here, because you don't know what you're eating, but just try it.

After lunch they left. They didn't have email. Japanese isn't as wired as Korea or the US. (Korea is actually the most wired country in the world) But I did get their air mail addresses, so hopefully soon I'll write some letters. I want to try to do some of it in Japanese, even if it's just simple hiragana.

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Source: US library of congress http://countrystudies.us/south-korea/7.htm

Korea Under Japanese Rule

South Korea Table of Contents

Korea underwent drastic changes under Japanese rule. Even before the country was formally annexed by Japan in 1910, the Japanese caused the last ruling monarch, King Kojong, to abdicate the throne in 1907 in favor of his feeble son, who was soon married off to a Japanese woman and given a Japanese peerage. Japan then governed Korea under a residency general and subsequently under a governor general directly subordinate to Japanese prime ministers. All of the governor generals were high-ranking Japanese military officers.

In theory the Koreans, as subjects of the Japanese emperor, enjoyed the same status as the Japanese; but in fact the Japanese government treated the Koreans as a conquered people. Until 1921 they were not allowed to publish their own newspapers or to organize political or intellectual groups.

Nationalist sentiments gave rise to a Korean student demonstration in Japan, and on March 1, 1919, to a Proclamation of Independence by a small group of leaders in Seoul. With the consolidation of what became known as the March First Movement, street demonstrations led by Christian and Ch'ondogyo (a movement that evolved from Tonghak) groups erupted throughout the country to protest Japanese rule.

In the wake of the protest, Japan granted considerable latitude to Korea. As historians have noted, the ensuing intellectual and social ferment of the 1920s marked a seminal period in modern Korean history. Many developments of the period, including the organization of labor unions and other social and economic movements, had continuing influence into the postliberation period. In the 1930s, however, the ascendancy of the military in Japanese politics reversed the change. Particularly after 1937, when Japan launched the Second SinoJapanese War (1937-45) against China, the colonial government decided on a policy of mobilizing the entire country for the cause of the war. Not only was the economy reorganized onto a war footing, but the Koreans were to be totally assimilated as Japanese. The government also began to enlist Korean youths in the Japanese army as volunteers in 1938, and as conscripts in 1943. Worship at Shinto shrines became mandatory, and every attempt at preserving Korean identity was discouraged.

The Korean economy also underwent significant change. Japan's initial colonial policy was to increase agricultural production in Korea to meet Japan's growing need for rice. Japan had also begun to build large-scale industries in Korea in the 1930s as part of the empire-wide program of economic self-sufficiency and war preparation. Between 1939 and 1941, the manufacturing sector represented 29 percent of Korea's total economic production. The primary industries--agriculture, fishing, and forestry--occupied only 49.6 percent of total economic production during that period, in contrast to having provided 84.6 percent of total production between 1910 and 1912.

The economic development taking place under Japanese rule, however, brought little benefit to the Koreans. Virtually all industries were owned either by Japan-based corporations or by Japanese corporations in Korea. As of 1942, Korean capital constituted only 1.5 percent of the total capital invested in Korean industries. Korean entrepreneurs were charged interest rates 25 percent higher than their Japanese counterparts, so it was difficult for Korean enterprises to emerge. More and more farmland was taken over by the Japanese, and an increasing proportion of Korean farmers either became sharecroppers or migrated to Japan or Manchuria. As greater quantities of Korean rice were exported to Japan, per capita consumption of rice among the Koreans declined; between 1932 and 1936, per capita consumption of rice declined to half the level consumed between 1912 and 1916. Although the government imported coarse grains from Manchuria to augment the Korean food supply, per capita consumption of food grains in 1944 was 35 percent below that of 1912 to 1916.

Under Japanese rule, intellectual influences different from traditional Buddhist, Confucianist, and shamanistic beliefs flooded the country. Western-style painting was introduced, and literary trends, even among writers who emphasized themes of social protest and national independence, tended to follow Japanese and European models, particularly those developed during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The works of Russian, German, French, British, American, and Japanese authors were read by the more educated Koreans, and Korean writers increasingly adopted Western ideas and literary forms. Social and political themes were prominent. Tears of Blood, the first of the "new novels," published by Yi In-jik in serial form in a magazine in 1906, stressed the need for social reform and cultural enlightenment, following Western and Japanese models. Yi Kwang-su's The Heartless, published in 1917, stressed the need for mass education, Western science, and the repudiation of the old family and social system. Ch'ae Man-sik's Ready Made Life, published in 1934, protested the injustices of colonial society.

In the 1920s and 1930s, socialist ideas began to influence the development of literature. In 1925 left-wing artists, rejecting the romanticism of many contemporary writers, established the Korean Proletarian Artists' Federation, which continued until it was suppressed by Japanese authorities in 1935. One of the best representatives of this group was Yi Ki-yong, whose 1936 novel Home tells of the misery of villagers under Japanese rule and the efforts of the protagonist, a student, to organize them. Poets during the colonial period included Yi Sang-hwa, Kim So-wol, and Han Yong-un. But the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War marked a period of unprecedented repression in the cultural sphere by Japanese authorities, which continued until Korea's liberation in 1945.

From the late 1930s until 1945, the colonial government pursued a policy of assimilation whose primary goal was to force the Koreans to speak Japanese and to consider themselves Japanese subjects. In 1937 the Japanese governor general ordered that all instruction in Korean schools be in Japanese and that students not be allowed to speak Korean either inside or outside of school. In 1939 another decree "encouraged" Koreans to adopt Japanese names, and by the following year it was reported that 84 percent of all Korean families had done so. During the war years Korean-language newspapers and magazines were shut down. Belief in the divinity of the Japanese emperor was encouraged, and Shinto shrines were built throughout the country. Had Japanese rule not ended in 1945, the fate of indigenous Korean language, culture, and religious practices would have been extremely uncertain.

Japanese rule was harsh, particularly after the Japanese militarists began their expansionist drive in the 1930s. Internal Korean resistance, however, virtually ceased in the 1930s as the police and the military gendarmes imposed strict surveillance over all people suspected of subversive inclinations and meted out severe punishment against recalcitrants. Most Koreans opted to pay lip service to the colonial government. Others actively collaborated with the Japanese. The treatment of collaborators became a sensitive and sometimes violent issue during the years immediately following liberation.

2006-03-09T21:50:00.000+09:00

And this, I know that you see them in the opposite order that I posted them, but oh well. This is Olympic Park. The flags are really cool. Torie and I walked around while we were waiting for a Rotary meeting to finish. They were inaugarating all of the new commitee leaders and governors and such. Torie and I went to tell them a little about our experience, because many of the new chairmen would be involved in youth activities for Rotary, like the international exchange program, Interact, Rotaract and this thing for middle schoolers called Littleact. We were told that after we spoke, we could leave until dinner. The event was held at the hotel seen on the left side of the picture, so we walked around the park for about two hours talking and just enjoying. The weather was gorgeous and it's amazing to think that the Olympics were held there 18 years ago. At the Rotary meeting we also met some pretty cool people. The conversation was mostly in Korea and at dinner time I was really tired, but I could speak a little and understand a little more.

2006-03-09T21:49:00.000+09:00

This double exposure of Korea and Minnesota is pretty fun. This is "MY ROOM"

2006-03-09T21:34:00.000+09:00

I call this one "HOME". It is a double exposure of my home in Minnesota on Valentine's Day 2005 overlapping the view out my 12th floor apartment window at sunset.

2006-03-09T21:32:00.000+09:00

This is a picture of my favorite quote, which was March 3rd's "10,000 Places to see before you die" calandar quote, a picture of an elephant stepping on me, and the nightscape out my apartment window!!

2006-03-08T13:46:00.000+09:00

Sorry it's been such a long time since I last wrote and I never updated you about Jeju. I'll start...

Forms of Transportation I took in or to Jeju...

Subway
Airplane
Car
Boat
Horse
Elephant

Things to remember...

*The look on the youngest boys face when he first met me and usually there after...a huge smile
*Trying to explain things using my electronic dictionary
*Eating Bulgogi burgers at Lotteria in the airport
*The boy's excitement as we lifted off the ground in the airplane, it was his first flight
*The sunsetting over islands while we were flying over (but I was on the east side of the plane)
*Buying groceries in Jeju city to cook for the rest of the trip (I was told I had to choose things to buy, but didn't know what to choose. I don't go shopping in Korea)
*Riding at least an hour with 4 kids and me in one row in the van, because everyone wanted to sit by me
*The cold weather I hadn't expected on what I was told would be a semi-tropical island (i had to borrow a coat)
*HAMEL- the boat of Hamel, the dutch captain who sailed with his crew to japan, but shipwrecked on Jejudo. The first western contact with Korea.
*Dragon head Rock (i think it's called) I don't like it because it maybe looks like a dragon, but because the volcanic rock it's made from.
*Walking backwards to keep my hood up with the help of the wind
*Jampong (spicy seafood and vegetable soup) and homemade kimbab (california-rollish, no fish) in the resturaunt covered in letters about Marado.
*Rock the boat. The winds rocked us back and forth, so instead of taking the chance at getting sea sick I fell asleep like a baby rocked in a cradle.
*Miniature buildings. I could be in Sydney, New York, Seoul, and Italy at the same time.
*Monkeys on stilts, especially the shy one who turned it's back when bowing.
*A seal playing the piano.
*Trivia. Good idea to keep the kids occupied and happy on the car ride. I took it with a good spirit, but they were so loud my head was splitting.
*Seeing a fish swimming in the tank, captured, cut apart until it was sushi and sashimi, and then ate it.
*Also ate some other sort of raw sea creature, like sea cucumbers or something.
*The view from the top of Sunrise Peak, even though it wasn't sunrise.
*The Nolaebang (singing room) with 4 elementary kids the last night.
*When they thought my retainer case was for soap and I couldn't explain that it wasn't.
*Clemintines 결's galore. I was given five at a time. I was also given 3 yogurts to eat in the car and used them as something to did the oranges in. (After about 20 they don't taste as good plain.)
*About 5 meals a day.
*Being stepped on by an elephant (don't worry, the elephant knew what it was doing)
*Riding horses in cowboy gettup
*Hallansan- I didn't get to climb it, but just seeing the snowtopped peak in the middle of the island
*Always holding a little kid's hand

There's the trip in brief. I'll try to find all the places I went and post them too.

2006-02-24T19:07:00.000+09:00

For now I'm kind of tired and don't have the energy to sit in front of the computer to type everything about my trip to Jejudo, but I decided to post the pictures first. People can usually focus on pretty pictures easier than ongoing not really paragraphs of words anyway. So scroll down until you see the flashing pictures under "Photos " or click on the "My Photo's" link. I'll add descriptions later. Enjoy...

2006-02-09T20:55:00.000+09:00

I guess you'll have to try clicking on the pictures and see if they will get any bigger, but the gest of it is that I am one of the first 38 people accepted through Macalester through early decision II, so that is what I am going to school in September!!! If you don't already know, Macalester College in St. Paul Minnesota has been one of my very top choice schools for the past four years. My other dream schools are in Zurich, Switzerland or beginning in Costa Rica, then traveling the world and creating a profile. But next year I know that I am supposed to go home, mostly because I want to be near my Grandma Dee, so I only applied to schools in St. Paul. I was accepted to all three: College of St. Catherine, Hamline University and Macalester College. Out of the three, Hamline was a close contender for me and St. Kates would have been okay too, but Mac is where I truely want to be. I hope I love it as much as I think I will. Just wanted to share the good news.

*If I don't write about the Lunar New Year soon, someone please email me and remind me to do so, it was January 29th and I've been planning to do so for a long time.

2006-01-27T17:37:00.000+09:00

Aren't we just cute? Sticker pictures- gotta love 'em. Since I left my first host home I've barely seen Myung-hae and Hyung-kyung. I was still in their class during school in December, but I rarely went to school then because finals were over so there was nothing going on at school and I was too stressed to think about anything other than my college applications. Then during break they've had academies and I've just been doing a lot with church. Plus the bus to Suseo only comes about every twenty minutes. But finally on January 17th we got together. First we ate Samgyipsal (sp?). It's barbequed pork that you put on lettuce with anything else you want with it, especially garlic cloves. Then we bought tickets to "The King's Man" (that's the English translation). Before going to the movie we took these pictures. The sisters wrote on them, because they have fun doing it, and I haven't mastered what it says on the controls yet, so I always push the button to finish too early. After pictures was the movie. It's by far the most popular movie in Korea right now and no one has anything bad to say about it. Maybe I'll try to find a review that's written in English to explain it. I didn't see it with English subtitles, so I could follow the basic plot, but I missed a lot. After the movie we went to a luxery noraebang (singing room). I don't know if I've ever described these places well enough. They aren't karaoke bars. This one had a fancy couch and chairs, a table, two microphones, a coat rack, two books to look up your favorite songs, two remotes, and a big screen tv for the words and a music video that doesn't correspond with the song you are singing most of the time. Torie and I are still singing English songs which is really depressing and I'm determined to learn the words to a korean song before I go to a noraebang again. The girls sang Korean songs though, and I'd try to read the words to go along or just dance. We sang Barbie girl and it's my life together though, because those are 'classics'. We got icecream at the end, walked through Sincheon (which was where we spent our day, but it changes a little at night. ) Guys who worked at clubs would try to get us to go to dance clubs by handing out flyers, but Torie would say "I don't have Korean" making people realize that she truely knows very little about Korean, but a lot about how to get people to stop bothering you. Then we went our seperate ways on buses home.

I'm meeting with my sister again at my old house on February 7. That's when my school starts again. I'm not sure if it is only one day for graduation, or if it really starts again. People had me thinking that it wouldn't be until March. Oh well, I guess I'll find out.

2006-01-27T17:27:00.000+09:00

Since I have been absolutely terrible at updating my blog lately, I decided to let this newletter do some talking for me. In early January I went on a church retreat with the teenage english ministry at my church and since I never wrote about it, except maybe in a letter to my grandma and in my old fashioned paper journal, I figured I'd let my friends do the talking. They did it better than I could have anyway. Enjoy. Just make sure to click on the picture and make it as large as possible before actually trying to read it.

2006-01-27T17:25:00.001+09:00

This is my story of the Christmas Eve service. I gave an overview of my Christmas activities if you scroll down into December, but this is more in depth about the service and much better writing than what I usually do in my journals or blog.

2006-01-27T17:25:00.000+09:00

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2006-01-14T22:02:00.000+09:00

One of the main reasons I did not write for awhile was that I was very stressed out about applying to colleges. But I would like you to know that this is the essay that I ended up with. I was accepted to Hamline on Jan 12th, but now I have to wait to see if I am accepted to Macalaster because I applied there early decision.

For the first time in my life I could not participate in class discussions or even comprehend what the teacher was saying. My classmates jotted notes in their textbooks, chanted a song to remember verb conjugation, and joked with the teacher, but it was my first day of Japanese class and instead of class work, all I could do was scan the board and strain my ears for words I knew such as “남자” (nam-ja) and “학생” (haksaeng), meaning “boy” and “student”. As a foreign exchange student to Seoul, South Korea my Japanese class was not being taught in English or even Japanese, but in the country’s native language, Korean.

The Korean alphabet, hangul, consists of fourteen consonants and ten vowels, none of which remotely resemble the Romanized alphabet on paper, and the sentence structure is subject, object, then verb instead of subject, verb, then object. I studied the basics before arriving in Korea, but in Korean high school my processing time was too slow and vocabulary too low to understand the main topics in classes.

My Japanese teacher, Mrs. Chu, could not speak English, encouraged the students not to speak English to me unless explaining part of the lesson, and gave me a copy of the Japanese Hiragana alphabet the first week and asked me to memorize it. For a few days I focused on studying Korean and not Japanese, but at the next class period she called on me to read out loud. Since the passage was written in Japanese, I could only recognize the character ‘ka’, and my classmates had to help me syllable for syllable.

That night I created Japanese flashcards and studied them until the hiragana letters embedded themselves in my head. I began copying into my own textbook the same notes my classmates had been jotting and asking the students what the Japanese words meant. Sometimes they answered in English, but if the response was in Korean I could use my dictionary to find the English word and learned a new Korean word at the same time. With my host mom’s help I began translating homework from Japanese into Korean, and then English so by the next time Mrs. Chu asked me to participate I knew both how to pronounce the words and their meanings.

Japanese and Korean have similar sentence structures so studying the languages together helped me adapt to the sentence structure I need when using Korean in my everyday life. I still do not claim that I am even intermediate in either language, but I have created an intense study schedule for the two months of winter break, hoping that when I return to school for the first semester in March I will not only be able to understand the main topics in class, but to ask Mrs. Chu questions in Korean when I am confused. I am usually an active participant in my classes and I will not let a language barrier change my personality and work ethic.

This is the one that I applied to Mac with...

Between the rolling cornfields of Sogn Valley and Welch Village are farms like the Hernke’s that have been owned by the same Scandinavian families since before Minnesota gained its statehood. Freshly constructed town homes are inhabited by Cannon Falls’ newest residents of third generation European descent and when Sunday rolls around some citizens attend Mass at St. Pius V, while others gather for Protestant services at one of the six other churches. Cannon Falls High School’s students of color total about twenty-five in a student body of five hundred. Macalester College appeals to me because this is not their definition of diversity.

Macalester, usually mentioned in conjunction with cultural awareness or the international community of the metropolitan area, creates an ideal environment for nurturing international awareness through their Department of Multicultural Life that I can not find at other universities.

The month I turned nine years old my family moved away from my childhood home of fifteen-o-five Prentice Street, Arlington, Texas. Koreans, Indians from two different castes, Latin Americans, a family from Kenya, and two homosexual couples shared Prentice Street with a minority of middle class, white, two point five child families.

One of the Indian families followed a tradition that the first son receives a first birthday party as large as a wedding. Hamid, the son, was five years old by the time of the festival. I was seven. The YMCA room smelt like the spice isle of a grocery store with all the lids removed. I bit into a doughy roll expecting sugary sweetness, but encountering a hot spice I had never before tasted. Dancers twirled and bowed and lit up the room with their vibrant robes and veils. During my childhood in Texas, cultural experiences such as Hamid’s birthday party seemed to be part of the average life.

Since moving to a small, predominantly white middle class Christian town, I have learned that few people experience cultural diversity naturally. Macalester creates its community of diverse cultural understanding by hosting the fourth largest population of international students and providing monthly cultural discussions through “In the Kitchen With…” and “Soup & Substance” along with student organizations to support students of all sexualities, religions and heritages.

Since I left Texas, I have worked to keep my diverse cultural perspective by becoming Spanish Club treasurer and taking extra Spanish classes at the Resource Center for the Americas in Minneapolis. In history and sociology classes I challenge fellow students to place themselves in the mindsets of other cultural communities and to not use racial or sexual jokes. Throughout the years I have befriended numerous exchange students and am now in Seoul, South Korea for a year of studying language and culture. I hope to provide the perspectives of a diverse metropolitan neighborhood, a small Scandinavian descended town, and an Asian city to the Macalester community. On hot September days and cold February afternoons, I want to sit down in the Lealtad-Suzuki Center and digest some substance with my soup.

2005-12-29T18:08:00.000+09:00

This one is from a long time ago, but I just got it on my computer. I'm standing next to a Ricola box that is holding a cigarette that on the english side says "smoking with Ricola". I could not keep a straight face.

2005-12-29T18:06:00.000+09:00

David saying "I'm never going to get 30 points. Hurry up, just lay something. When's it gonna be my turn again?"

2005-12-29T18:05:00.000+09:00

Blokus?

2005-12-29T18:04:00.000+09:00

John the photographer

2005-12-29T18:03:00.000+09:00

Cranes for dad

2005-12-29T18:02:00.000+09:00

Girls from the adult minstry at church.

2005-12-29T18:01:00.000+09:00

The guys from the adult ministry at church.

2005-12-29T17:59:00.000+09:00

Christmas Breakfast. Although it may not look like much, it was the best food in the world.

2005-12-29T17:58:00.000+09:00

A white dusting for Christmas Morning.

2005-12-29T17:56:00.000+09:00

Pastor Phillip.

2005-12-29T17:54:00.000+09:00

The north pole of Lotte World

2005-12-29T17:53:00.000+09:00

Where we sang christmas carols. It looks really cool with the multiburst effect.

2005-12-29T17:52:00.000+09:00

Burritos and Nachos for Chrismas Eve dinner. I was too full, so the Nachos actually went to my STEM friends who were setting up for church the next morning.

2005-12-29T17:50:00.000+09:00

Pastor John as Santa. He was asked to dress up in this for his old Hagwan (english academy) and decided to wear it for affect at the service.

2005-12-29T17:49:00.000+09:00

The Christmas story told from the perspective of the Animals in the barn. These kids were absolutely hilarious, especially the chicken and the lamb. They must have either grown up in the US or attended International School their whole lives because their english is way too good.

2005-12-29T17:12:00.000+09:00

For the Christmas Festival, the STEM worship band joined with children from Jubilee to lead us in song.

2005-12-29T17:10:00.000+09:00

Samsung subway station at almost 5pm Christmas Eve. It was the exact opposite Christmas morning. Completely empty.

2005-12-29T17:09:00.000+09:00

Christmas songs on Ice.

2005-12-29T17:07:00.000+09:00

This is the Average Day in my room. Studying or something.

2005-12-29T17:04:00.000+09:00

This is from a long time ago, but the day was really cold and we didn't have hats, so Torie improvised and used the box she bought to send her brother's secret santa gift in.

2005-12-29T17:02:00.000+09:00

There are some of the most interesting trees here. Because Christmas is a newly celebrated holiday in Korea, most people have not perfected the art of tree decorating. If you look closely, the lights do not go circularly up the tree, but zigzag vertically. Not to mention the puffs of cotton balls.

2005-12-29T16:53:00.000+09:00

This is my class at school. They were practicing "I will follow him" for a school chior contest where every class competes against one another. I sat out for the competition. Also the teacher in the photo isn't our home room teacher. He's the gym teacher, but I know him better than my home room teacher. While they were practicing he was playing the drums because he takes drum lessons every Thursday. I will have a different class when school starts again.

2005-12-29T15:59:00.000+09:00

This is the retreat I'm going on next week. It will be an amazing way to end my stress of writing college entrance essays which are due Jan 3.

2005-12-29T15:55:00.000+09:00

I hope this is large enough to read. It is my contribution to the STEM (Sarang Teen's English Ministry) Newletter. Maybe I will post more of the Newletter later.

2005-12-25T23:15:00.000+09:00

My Merry Christmas Schedule.....

First of all I just want to say that God is an Awesome God! He gave me the most amazing Christmas I could have ever dreamed of. Right now a tear is rolling down my face because I just got off the phone with Erik after not hearing his voice for four months. That in itself would have been enough. Supposedly it's a present for him, but it is also one of the best presents I could give myself. I also called Soup to wake her up on Christmas morning just before Erik and hearing her voice again for the second time in fourth months put the biggest smile on my face.

Christmas really began on Christmas Eve Morning though...

8:00am- Wake up and think "It's Christmas!" but try to fall back asleep
9:30am- After hitting snooze a few times and putting on Minnesota style layers of clothes, run out the door as my mom gives me four bananas and a doughnut, because I'm late to meet the group who was going to go sledding
12:00pm-Decide to go bowling (with Quin, Scott, NZ Steve, sorry I don't remember your name who just came back from three years in Brazil, Ange, and her Canada boyfriend) after already declining both sledding and ice skating due to hundreds of other people already participating in those activities
2:00pm-Eat shrimp mongolian barbeque for lunch, then sit in a bookstore and read some of Charles Dickens' short Christmas stories
5:00pm- take a picture of Seoul's busiest subway day that I have ever seen, then meet Yoo-gyung outside exit six of Gangnam station to go to Grace Chapel
6:00pm-Ater chatting with numerous friends of all ages apologetically probably making Yoo-gyung feel a little awkward because she didn't know anyone, the Christmas Program began.
10:00pm- Eat burritos for Christmas Eve dinner because this year I couldn't have green chili
11:00pm-On the way home from Church stop outside Lotte World where there are Christmas lights and places to take photos and sing christmas carols really loud.
11:30am- Return home to my house with Torie because she was spending the night

CHRISTMAS!!
1:00am- Go to bed after watching part of Charlie's Angel's II (voiced over into Korean) with my host family. Also my family gave me a spoon holder for when I eat lunch at school and a pair of red reindeer antlers on a head band. I felt kind of bad because I didn't get them anything.
7:00am-turn alarm off and go back to bed
7:30am-turn alarm off and go back to bed
7:45am-get up, get dressed, turn on tv to see veggie tales christmas in Korean
9:00am-show up at pastor John's house and help him make breakfast for Torie and me: pancakes, bacon, eggs, pineapple, hot chocolate, whip cream, canadian maple syrup, raspberry jam, and cranberry juice
10:00am-show up late to church, miss the singing, but come right in time for pastor phillip's sermon
12:00pm-Go to coffee bean and tea leaf to enjoy a caramel latte, try to wake up and people watch out the window. Also talk about life with Torie. End up having a text message conversation with Robert after I see him walk into Starbucks.
2:30pm- Go to NHM chrismas party where there is turkey, dill pickles, peanut butter cookies and eggnog. Listen to pastor John's chrismas story
3:30pm-Go to Eugene's christmas party with Stemers, Bible study teachers and pastor phillip. Play board games like blonkus? and Rumi....with the chips and you have to get 30pts to start laying...
7:00pm-Go to Korean Christmas program at my host family's church
11:00pm- Call Soup. Talk for about an hour. At first she thought I was her aunt because I woke her up and she wasn't completely concious
11:50pm- Call Erik. Talk to him for the first time in four months. Just that would have been the best Christmas ever.

DAY AFTER (still Christmas in MN)
9:00am- wake up after 8hrs of sleep and try to write college essays unsuccessfully, so I call Zack and talk to him instead. I hadn't talked to him since my birthday. About the same with Soup.
10:00am- realize that my host parents bought food off the army base for Christmas. There is turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, green beens, and cranberry sauce. I ate. I could not believe how amazing my host family was to buy this. Thank you sooooo much.
11:00am-call my Grandma Dee's house where I talk to my Uncle Darren for the first time in four months, my mom, sister, dad, brother, and grandma

Try calling Steph numerous times throughout the day, but I didn't know her cell number and she must have been at a relative's house or something.

The rest of the day wasn't really Christmas. But my Christmas as a whole was absolutely amazing.

2005-12-23T23:09:00.000+09:00

Today I didn't go to school until 1pm because I truely need to finish my essays for college admissions. If you knew me last year, especially if you are Mr. Fogarty or Mrs. Moran, my english teachers, you know that I am a terrible procrastinator at writng essays, but once I actually do it they don't turn out that bad. Anyway, today I was browsing the Macalaster website to find specific aspects about the school that I can use to demonstrate why I would be a good student for them. Their attitude is directed toward promoting multicultural and international perspectives. This is also my goal, the only problem is that I have to figure out how to write about that with out being clique or dreamy. The approach I am thinking about taking is writing about Texas-multiculturalism, Nebraska-student teacher ratio, Minnesota-leadership, and Seoul-international perspective. If you didn't know, in Texas I lived in Arlington, a suburb with a very diverse community. Nebraska was a school named Rokeby consisting of 35 kids and about 5 teachers. Minnesota I just like to talk and lead class discussions or activities. And Seoul is definetly international, but something else really interesting is that it is about 99% homogeneous. The problem is trying to fit all four of these things plus the reasons why I am writing about them into a 500 word essay. It's hurting my brain trying to get rid of the unneeded material. I haven't even been able to write a complete first draft.

Well, today when I did go to school there was a chior contest where each class in grades 1 and 2 (10 and 11) performed a song. I didn't participate , but my class did the sister act version of "I will follow him" another did "Happy day" and many of them were christmas medlies in korean. Some I didn't recognize. My class didn't get first prize I don't think, but we had a pizza party anyway. In some ways I felt really left out, because today even more so than usual people were afraid to talk to me. Maybe because I was so preoccupied by college.

After school I sat in a coffee shop for an hour working on my essays then went to meet my Rotary counselor. We have both been very busy, so I haven't really seen him much in Korea. Today we went out for Chinese food with his son who is a junior at a boarding school in Rhode Island, but home for Winter Vacation. The night was really nice. Chinese food and then more coffee and some really good chocolat chocolat cake. I felt bad, because they wanted me to speak Korean and then they would reply in English, but lately my head is so swarmed with English words that are trying to form themselves into my essay that I could barely think of a Korean sentence. That's what I will be practicing over break.

On the way home I met two people whom I haven't seen since September, Caleb and Heather from my church. I was walking in the subway and someone grabbed the my backpack. I was really confused, but there was Caleb. It was God sent, and only two days before Christmas. Heather and I exchanged numbers and they invited me to Christmas brunch at their house around noon on Sunday.

When I got home, my house was filled with about nine elementary school kids. They were all very shy of me because they were afraid to speak English. But then I took out my double deck of cards and taught them how to play go fish and everything turned out really well. It was Christmas because we were playing cards. Somehow many of my christmas traditions are showing up in untraditional ways even though I didn't plan it.

More after Christmas. The caffine in my system just told me this would be a good time to write.

2005-12-22T23:23:00.000+09:00

Sorry it's been such a long time since I've updated you. You're probably even more curious about what is going on in my life since it is almost Christmas. Well to say the least I'm busy. Not only is it almost Christmas, but that means that the application deadline for colleges is quickly approaching. I'm applying early decision II to Macalaster, so the app is due on Jan 3. I have two essays that I need to complete, but are only in their beginning stages. Because of this and because since final exams are over and no one is actually doing anything at school, I stayed home on Tuesday and Wednesday to work on my essays. Please pray for me that I will be able to convey my thoughts and experiences through two well written essays that truely tell who I am, what I have done, and how I feel.
There is so much more to talk about, but it's 11:30pm and I have to be up at 6:30 tomorrow morning for school. I'll try to write very brief updates during the next week and as soon as I send in my applications I'll spill my heart out for you. Since I am going to bed I would like to say sweet dreams. And a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays to everyone. I pray that you don't get caught up in the whole commercialism aspect of Christmas, but focus on family and love at this time of year. Even on this side of the world I can feel how much I am loved by both my biological family and my good friends at home. Also I have my host families, friends and church family over here.
Today we celebrated one of my really young host cousin's birthday with my host mom's whole immediate family. She has five siblings. This felt like Christmas.

2005-12-13T22:41:00.000+09:00

This should be a really interesting picture for all of last years humanities students. It is actually a scanned copy of a page from my art textbook. One day I was sitting in art class and the teacher was talking about this page. Although I only understand some of the words (by the way, the top underlined one is Renaissance) I would have been able to tell her about each one of their artworks. Thank you Mr. Weber and humanities. By the time I get home I'm going to have translated this page. She also had copies of other famous artworks that I knew. It was such a fun class period. I was reminiscing about last year.

2005-12-13T22:11:00.000+09:00

Do you know sticker pictures? These are not the greatest...I don't really know how to decorate them and I think I pushed a wrong button, so we have too many of he same picture, but oh well. This is my friend Ahra. I just got to know her in the past week, but I consider her one of my best friends at my high school. She won't be there when I go back to school in March, she's graduating and going to University, but I hope that we can stay in touch through winter break and after she goes to college. Aren't the pictures cute?

2005-12-13T12:34:00.000+09:00

Brent, one of the teachers at STEM and one of the people in Korea who I have gotten to know really well is going back to the to the US on Wednesday. Last night the Seniors took him out to dinner to say goodbye. From left to right is Tamitha, EJ, Anna, Torie, Anne, Brent, me and David.

2005-12-13T12:28:00.000+09:00

These are my crazy cool friends from church. From left to right starting in the back row is Pastor Phillip with his toungue out, Gloria, me, Angela, EJ, ?, and Torie. Then there's David, Phillip SSN and Anne. In the front is Robert.

2005-12-13T10:02:00.000+09:00

Are you wondering what I've been up to the past week? Most of you, probably yes, but for some of you I have this terrible habit of logging on to Messenger every time I go onto the internet so you hear from me quite often. In all truth I should probably stop doing that or at least appear offline. Truthfully I do talk with people from Korea on messenger too and that saves a lot on my cell phone bill, because otherwise text messaging to figure out plans costs three cents a text. Anyway, so my life lately...

Since last Tuesday I haven't been going to school. No, I'm not skipping, I was told that I shouldn't come to school because the other students are taking their final exams and since I don't have final exams I would just be interrupting. So this week I have spent most of my time divided between hanging out with friends, especially a friend who is moving back to the United States on Wednesday, and working on the computer to write college admissions essays, work on the applications and contact people in the United States who I need to help me finish the application process. This week feels like I am hectically not accomplishing anything. Oh yeah, I've also tried to find time to study Korean this week, but somehow my plans outside of the house are just scheduled at the worst times of day and while I am on the computer I loose all time management skills.

I actually made a schedule for my Korean Language studies. This is what I SHOULD be doing each day...

Complete 1/2 Chapter in Seoul National University of Education Text and Practice books
Wrtie in Korean Journal (it doesn't matter if spelling and grammar are correct)
Read 20 of Korean out loud (to practice pronounciation)
At least 20 minutes of Korean Conversation (it can be spread throughout the day)
Use planner that you want to be writing Korean in as a planner

That is what I should be doing, but I keep getting lazy/busy and lost in the English world. Even my Korean friends from school speak English with me for the most part.

I have to go meet someone. I'm very excited for tonight though, because there is this little girl who I can go talk to by watching my sister's Tae Kwon Do practice. She wants to practice her English Conversation by me speaking in Korean and her speaking in English and then we'll correct each other if we say something wrong or help the other figure out words. I'm not tutoring her for money because she's also helping me with my Korean, but she's really cute and I want to act more like an older sister to her. I don't want to forget about my new host brother and sister while I'm doing it though.

2005-12-05T22:44:00.000+09:00

Tonight I went out to dinner with a group of students from school. They are all third years at my high school, so they are the same age as me. (19 in Korea) I had not met most of them before tonight, but that didn't matter. I think everyone had a great night. First we went out for pizza and pasta. Then we went to a singing room. (I always want to write the words in korean, but this program, hello, is not compatible with posting korean script.) Usually when I go to singing rooms I feel akward and forget all the words to the songs, but today I sang a lot and got to listen to everyone else too. They sang many songs that I knew and liked, so it made the experience so much more interesting. I feel bad because I can't remember everyone's names. I have to see Korean names written down before I can memorize them, but I will definetly remember everyone's faces and personalities. I can't wait to hang out with everyone again. I'm going to go to insadong with Ahra (the girl in the black coat) on Thursday. I'm excited. I better go to bed though, it's almost 11 and I have a couple things to do before falling asleep.

2005-12-05T22:14:00.000+09:00

I've had some comments about the post that Torie and I wrote together. Mainly of what Torie worte. Sorry Tor, but I think you are a little off on the creation Myth thing. This is what the story that I got from a friend. Sorry that it is not cited, I don't know where it came from exactly.

THE TAN-GUN MYTH Once upon a time there was a divine prince named Hwan-ung, who was the son of the god of the heavens. The prince wanted to help humankind, and asked his father to give him the Korean Peninsula to govern. The wish was granted. The prince was sent to Earth with three thousand followers.

The prince appeared on Mt. Taebaek(Mt. Paektu)*, near a divine sandlewood tree. He took the title of Chonwang, and established Shin-si (The City of God). He set up a code of law, teaching people good from evil. He taught them 360 practical arts, including farming, weaving, cooking, medicine, and fishing. He created a government with three leaders in charge of the wind, the rain, and clouds. Then, he returned to his Heavenly home.

Well, a she-bear and a tiger lived in a big cave near the sandlewood tree. The bear and the tiger watched what the prince was accomplishing. They too wanted to become human beings. Every day they went to that sandlewood tree and prayed to the prince's father in Heaven.

Finally the god in Heaven heard them. He told them to each eat twenty bulbs of garlic (and some other disgusting things!) and then to hide away for 100 days. If they did this carefully, they would become human beings.

Well, the bear and the tiger ate the garlic and disgusting things. They hid in their dark cave. But (you guessed it) the tiger became restless. He left the cave after a short while, and tigers today still wander over the mountains and through the woods. However, the bear liked sleep, so the bear slept soundly. After only 37 days, the bear (surprise!) became a beautiful woman, soon to be known by the name Ung-nyo.

Ung-nyo was pleased, but she was lonely. The tiger had failed the test. Ung-nyo now had no one to marry her. She went to the sandlewood tree to pray for a child. The prince heard her prayers. He came down to Earth as a human and married Ung-nyo. It was Ung-nyo who gave birth to Tan-gun!

Tan-gun became the first human being said to be to be king over all of Korea. He called his kingdom Choson. He established his capital city at Asadal, now Pyongyang, in 2333 B.C., and ruled for l,500 years. Until recent times, Korean calendars and dates were figured from the time of Tan-gun. He was seen as a great teacher, a great leader, a great law-giver, and a unifier of all Korean peoples.

Some Koreans think of Tan-gun as a historic figure, others as the mythic progenitor of the Korean people. Whatever, the story helped all Koreans develop a sense of unity and pride of being a people with a long, distinctive history and ancient culture. Over the years, the myth has been the source of spiritual awakening and solace in times of conquest and crisis.

*Mt. Taebaekan is on the modern border between Manchuria and North Korea.

I moved Thursday

2005-12-03T23:19:00.000+09:00

I moved Thursday. I was told earlier last week that during the next three months I would have three different host families. My sister told me who those families would be, and I was really excited. I liked the people who I would be staying with. Then on Wednesday, November 30th, my Rotary affiliated teacher told me that I would be living with one family possibly even for the next six months. He only told me this after I approached him to find out who my family was and when I would be moving. He said I would either be moving that day or the next day. Too short of notice. This made me very nervous. I wasn’t packed; I had church on Wednesday night. I didn’t know my next family. Before I went to church on Wednesday, I left my host mom a note that said, “엄마, 교휘에 갔어요. (Mom, I went to church) I don’t want to move until Saturday.”

That didn’t matter. My next host mom was ready for me to move on Thursday. I packed Wednesday night, ate some ramen, and sat around talking with my mom until about 1am. I had to wake up at seven for school, but I didn’t feel like it. That was my last night in that bed, in that home as part of the immediate family and not a guest and I wanted to cherish it. I asked and my mom said I could go back to sleep and not show up at school until 8:30, which is when the real classes begin anyway. During the home room period they were watching “Home Alone.” I only missed the part where they forget him at home. In Korea students are not supposed to come to school tardy or not come to school unless they are deathly ill. Teachers tolerate me though because I am a foreigner. The only times I have arrived tardy were Thursday and the day after Thanksgiving. It was still Thanksgiving in the US and I called my family to wish them a “Happy Thanksgiving!” Back to moving…I skipped Chinese Calligraphy on Thursday. I usually have that class after lunch, but I skipped lunch too and went home to eat with my host mom. Then I went to church, because I was helping tape a commercial for the Winter Retreat we are having in January. After filming I went home to get my bags and move. My head was back to the surreal feeling of when I left for Korea, but not as bad. At least I was already in Korea; I was just going to a new house (apartment) and a new family.

I was nervous. Especially the first night, because when I got here I found out that my room was going to be what was before the playroom. There was no closet and no drawers to put my clothes in. There wasn’t a bed with a mattress, just a foldable bed pad and blankets, which is normal for a Korean bed, but it was different. Also my desk was going to be a table on the floor and I wasn’t sure if there was enough room for my books. I think I was mainly just nervous because I had moved and didn’t really know where I was.

I slept really well. The night seemed much longer than normal. Then on Friday morning someone who is becoming a friend came to pick me up for school. At my other house I just walked to school. Now I have to take a bus in the morning and I had no idea how to get to the bus stop.  So he helped me.  School went basically normal. Torie was moving during the day, so she wasn’t in any of my classes and most of the classes were just studying for finals. (I think they begin next week, so I’ll have some more time off of school)  I had to call my friend to have him help me get home from school. On the way home he pointed out landmarks like a post office, a park and a gym, so that will help me remember my way next time. (my last house the bus stop to go where ever I usually wanted to go was right outside my apartment) When I came home, I took a shower, and then I took a nap. I was so tired from a very busy week that I slept for more than an hour. While I was sleeping, my new host mom brought me a coat rack for my clothes that need to be hung up and after I woke up I helped her move a bed from my host brother’s room into my room. The bed has drawers underneath to put all of my clothes in, so now I won’t feel like I’m living out of a suitcase. I moved things around to fit all of my books and I definitely don’t mind sitting on the floor to type. I’m what you’d call a floor person. The bed is also really nice. I like to do most of my studying, reading, writing and so forth on a bed. It’s really nice to just put your back against the wall, a pillow on your lap and stretch your legs out. Now I already feel at home in my room. I still don’t feel as comfortable in the rest of the apartment though. It is much bigger than the last apartment that I stayed in.

I am getting to know my family although I think that we are both shy of each other. After lunch I sat and talked with my host father for at least an hour about the United States and Universities. He has been to far more of the United States than me. He says probably 44 states. That’s more than most Americans. He speaks English well because he is involved in finding the money to finance urban planning. I don’t know the title of his work, but he travels to the United States quite often.  His daughter, Jennifer, was born Dec. 7, 1992 when he was studying to get his MBA in Philadelphia. That makes her not a Korean citizen, but a United States citizen, because Korean’s can not hold duel citizenship. I think I will get to now Jennifer pretty well as a younger sister. She’s speaks quite decent English, but I want to help her practice her English and she can help me study Korean. My host brother is eleven years old, but I don’t know if that is Korean age or American. He’s not an American citizen, but he also speaks English well. I think it will be fun to have younger siblings. [Bobby is getting pretty old and I’m starting to think of him more as an adult and equal than younger (at least in maturity). I have just started to take him places and get him gifts and stuff like an older sister though. Sorry kid that I always took you for granted before. Now I realize how awesome you are.] My host mom is really nice, but I haven’t gotten to talk with her very much. I know that she majored in Literature and Art at Yonsei University though.  And that she is a good cook.

They have a print of Renoir’s “Mother and Daughter” (I think that’s what it’s called) in their dining room. Thank you Weber, because I saw the painting and asked, “Is that Renoir?”  Actually all of my knowledge from Humanities has been coming in very handy this year. Also the art that I saw on the Spain Trip this summer has been popping up in textbooks and magazines. I’m also proud to say that Claes Oldenburg’s “Spoon Bridge and Cherry” is in my art text book.

Since I have now diverted from the subject of my host family and it is 11:14pm I should probably post this and go to bed. I would also like to say though that IT’S SNOWING!! This is the first time it has snowed while I’ve been in Korea and it is so exciting. There should be quite a bit, maybe an inch, of snow when I wake up in the morning. I’m scared for traffic going to church in the morning, because Korea doesn’t have plows like Minnesota. Anyway, it’s really exciting and I have pictures. I’ll take more pictures in the morning, and then post some. Goodnight and sweet dreams to me and anyone else who is reading this before they go to bed. I’ll try to keep my updates more regular.

Torie and I are slackers

2005-12-01T22:38:00.000+09:00

Torie and I are slackers. As this blog continues we will be switching back and forth in who is writing, but since we are using my computer we decided that I should be the one to begin. We both have blogs that are supposed to be keeping everyone updated on our absolutely surreal lives in Korea, but for about the past month we have been getting D’s in the “documentation of my trip to Korea” subject. There are so many things to write about, and since we sadly but surely spend most of our time together we decided that this blog should be written together and posted on both websites.

Maybe I should start by describing how and why Torie and I are spending so much of our trip together. When we first came to Korea, and especially to Sejong High School, everyone thought that it would be best to pair us together, because then we would have each other to lean on and talk to when we didn’t understand Korean and when we were homesick. So, Torie and I began our life at Sejong High School in two desks next to each other and next to our host sisters at the very front of our homeroom classroom. When we chose our schedules we chose them together. This was easier for the school to just make one schedule and it was nice for Torie and me to begin our school year together. Then we joined Tae Kwon Do at the same gym. It was will elementary children, so if only one of us had been in Tae Kwon Do we would have no one to duel against. Later we found an English speaking church which helped bring me back into Christianity and served as a place for Torie to stay strong in her Christianity not because of the English speaking, but because of the fellowship we found in its members.

Since we were involved in all of the same activities and we are both exchange students from Minnesota many people began viewing us as one person instead of the two individuals with very different strengths, weaknesses, and personalities. Since we are already being looked at in this view it is very difficult to come out and show how incredibly different we truly are. We realize that we were sent to Korea together for a reason. We have spent this past three months getting to know each other inside and out because that’s what we were supposed to be doing. But, now it is time for us to separate. We have been working to make our own separate friends and find outside activities such as possibly yoga at separate gyms. (we both quit Tae Kwon Do in October for complicated reasons) In school we have always been sat in the front of the classroom where we can’t even see the rest of the students in our class, much less get to know them. In the past two weeks we have just begun making bonds with our classmates and one day I was even invited to go out for hot chocolate with two girls in my grade as an individual. Teachers always invite Torie and me to go places with them, but it is always as a pair. We are always looked at as “the foreign exchange students” and not “Torie” and “Kim”. This is only just beginning to change.

Something that scares both of us though is that we are changing host families in December. We haven’t met our families yet. I think we even have classes with at least one of our sisters, be we don’t know who they are. We are scared that the changes that are taking place in becoming individuals might relapse and we will be seen as one person again. Something that excites us though is that we might have separate homerooms. Then we will truly be able to be ourselves and interact with the other students in our class. It has been very difficult for us to get to know people so far no matter how much Korean we try to speak because people always assume that we just want to spend time together and the other is always there if we want to fall back on English.

So, that being said, (hey, this is Torie, by the by) we should review what has happened to the both of us in the last month, as a tribute to the past, as we head into the future.
October was a great month. The weather here was warmer than MN. The leaves started to change, but at first they were a bit dull. As time went on they have gotten brighter especially in the mountains, where the trails for walking will shower you with leaves.

tangent: they have these plastic brooms that have green plastic straw things as the straw things. They are multi purpose as they can be used for dirt, leaves, snow. The funny thing is, that every city worker, apartment guard, and janitor has the exact same ones.

October was  (insert emails here, and edit them so that they flow with everything we have done in nice order)

Today is 11/ 21 and I am sitting here in Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf with EJ and Angela and Kim and Torie.  (do you know who is writing this?  Probably the person who would insert her own name into that group…. And spell insert wrong)  We just went to Flight …Plans… or Ajenda…. Or Process…. Procedure…. >  I have just been informed I am right.  “Flight Plan” with Jodie Foster.  * I have just been requested to write Flight Plan in Korean. (플라이트 플랜 )  okay…. I didn’t do it.  I couldn’t figure it out without the letters on the keyboard…(Kim’s compie).

Hi~ I’m Angela.. Kim and Torie are making me type something….. oh well~ I met Kim and Torrie at STEM so called Sarang Teen’s English Ministry. My favorite color is blue  and my birthday is October 18th and I love presents I will be always… I mean ALWAYS be willing to receive presents…. I’m loosing my English so I’m not sure if I’m writing all of this correctly…. ;;; I’m handing this to EJ

Hi, whoever gets to read this, Hi again! ( My name’s EJ, short for EUN JUNG, and I lived in Denmark for five and half years. That’s where I got to learn English properly.
To be continued…

The following is  part excerpts of emails that I sent,(as they are the only documentation, beside photos), and part me filling in the blanks.

Monday, Oct 8th,   was a small holiday of when Korea was made. It is an interesting myth, actually, because it starts off with a God that comes down to earth. He is the grandson of the God of the universe. Created the land of Korea, from an egg in the sea. Then he impregnated an ex- bear, and started the Korean royal blood line.  He at first was considering whether he wanted to impregnate a tiger or a bear, so he put them in a cave and told them not to leave for 100 days- and the tiger got frustrated and got out after a month.

Sunday evening, Oct. 13th I went out with a group of English Teachers from church, and we went to the Seoul Drum Festival. Some kids from school want to hang out, and take me places, but it gets kind of hard as there are language barriers and I am really busy.   In my free time I am reading. I have read so much.  I thought that a foreign exchange trip would be like summer camp, where you are able to fit in so many things during a day. Sadly, if I do something in Korea, it takes all day. I don't really have too much free time.
Oct. 24th- they asked me to say something for the school newspaper.  It ended up sounding something like this:
Oct Before I came to Korea, I had no idea what I was in for. I had attempted to prepare myself by packing everything that I thought that I couldn’t live without, and talked to as many people as I could about Korean life. Most importantly, I tried to keep my mind open.

    I was amazed in my first week how many similarities and differences there were between our cultures and as time went on, I began to notice the differences in languages. In English, there is a lot of room for mistakes, and so many different variations on pronunciation. English is spoken in England, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and the United States, all as native languages (well, sort of). Each one of those countries has their own accents, and different regional accents. Korean is a much more exact language. If you don’t pronounce one letter, then somebody else won’t understand what you are taking about. If we were talking about mouths, and I said ”짓솔”(jit sol), nobody would know that I am trying to say     “칫솔”(chit sol). However in English, if I said “twobrush”, it would be understood that I was trying to say “toothbrush”.

Sometimes it is really hard to know what I should be doing as far as customs go. I never know when I should just say, “감사합니다” or “감아워”. I never know how I should great someone who is younger than me, but who I respect greatly. It is also really hard to know sometimes when I should use American customs, and when I should use Korean customs.

This year, it is my goal to know the Korean culture. I want to be able to share what I’ve learned with everyone at home. This year will take a lot of work, and I will make many mistakes, but I am excited for its challenges.
Oct. 28
By the way, I am making up new words, since I no longer have English as my language. Some of the words that I want to use, sound like i am making them up anyway, so I figured, "why not?". Boon shinners, is when you have a noun, and you can't remember the name of it. Or sometimes I use it as gerand, or sometimes, also, as a describing word.   Instead of 'a book that  was kind of shaped like a boon shinner', you can just say "boon shinner book". Its really good. Speaking of making words, you can spread this one around- poi (say it in a frenchish way- poo-ah). It is for when you are about to tell a story, that really isn't a story at all, but more of a little useless information. Poi stands for 'piece of information'. So, instead of "do you want to hear a really good story", it is "do you want to know a poi?" I think it adds some class.
Today is Halloween, but you can't really tell. Holidays are not very big here- I think it might be because there is not enough space in Seoul. The only major holidays that a foreigner would notice is Chew- sok (thanksgiving which was sept. 18) and the Chinese New Year.  I had school today like normal. I had only an assembly and Korean today.   We have assemblies every other Monday, and they are televised, so pretty much it is an hour of sleeping through the school. I think the only people who congregate are the first years. We do have to stand up when we sing the school song and the national anthem at the beginning, and then we can do whatever from there.

I ended up dressing up crazy at Kim's house and watching saved the last dance. Pretty fun, but I don't think I had one piece of candy all day. For sure, next year, I am living every holiday to it's fullest- including the lame ones like Presidents Day.

Nov. 1
This afternoon I will be going to an English Speaking Festival with my school. I am not sure what is actually going to happen, but they told me to keep my schedule open. *** Actually, I we ended up not going, but I can’t remember why!

Nov. 2
I never see police officers in korea. I think the government only works to develop foreign policies, while I think people think of thier elders as police. If you are doing something wrong, soon, like in a small town, soon your daddy will know, and you'll get the living day lights kicked outta ya. I think that is why 'crazy ' is so bad. Like, fitting into the culture is a way to get honor for your family.

Nov. 3
Today, I sang infront of my whole school. It was pretty scary. Every Thursday morning, we have Chapel, and so the teacher asked Kim (the other foregin exchange student) and I to sing some English worship songs.  We sang "Every Move I Make" and "Santuary". I think everybody liked it. We sang Santuary into one mic, and it blended splended like. I was the harmony. Then we sang Every Move I Make, and my mic wasn't on! It was fine, because that time we weren't doing accapella, but they turned it on just in time for me to do the 'how can it be'5X fast part, and we did motions to it, and arms waving for the na na na nas'. I decided just to go up there and be an idiot and 1 of 2 things could happen: 1- they hated it. we had crossed too many cultural boundaries. people would stop talking to me at school and I could move onto a life of solitude and substance. or 2- they would love it. they would flock to me even more, and always ask us to sing again. Well, I've only had one day from the expericance, and I think it's a combination of both. They now think that I am a radical who doesn't care about cultural boundaries, and am really weird (remember I explained this word here), but amazingly enough, still cool. I would have thought it much better experiance if they followed along with the hand motions, but oh well.

Nov. 5.
Originally, the Rotary Club was having district conferences, and so they told us to prepare a 5 min. speech, and I thought, "what on earth could I talk for 5 min. about?". After I wrote my speech and translated it, it ended up taking about 10 mins. I kept trying to do it faster, and pronunciate better, but it was still uber long. So, last min., on the bus to the hotel, my sister and I took out a pen, and crossed off the unneccisary sentences. It was about a 6 min. speech. Each time I read it though, my brain would be cooked. Finally we got there. It ended up being a bigger deal than I thought.  About 400 people were there from Korean and some from Japan. We were supposed to go on a 5 oclock, just after a group of adults from Minnesota who were here for one month got done talking. (they had a translator)- but after them, they passed out awards, so I was worried that they forgot about us. Finally, then they announced Kim and my name and Eli and Alex (IN, and IL). So we all came forward, and stood there on stage, waiting for some one to go first. Then the announcer  called Kim's name, and she stepped forward. Her speech ended up being about 8 mins- and it was good. While she was talking, I looked at the other student's paper. Mine was neatly typed on two pages of computer paper. It had about 6 paragraphs in size 15 font. Both of the other students were written on lined paper ripped out of a notebook. The closer was in pencil and took up about half a page. Oh man. I over pre-pared. (When do I do that?)  And then I got nervous that maybe I couldn't say thank you just right.   So I kept saying it in my head. Over and over.
It sucks, because, in English, public speaking comes with ease. If I were preforming, it would still be easy. Infact, looking out at the crowd was not a problem. I wasn't nervous about the people, heck, I wasn't even nervous about being understood or not. I was petrified that I would not be able to pronounce thank you. I have used that word three times a day every day, and if I couldn't say it right, I would have been a complete loser.
So, after Kim's speech, they called my name. I inhaled one long deep breath as I scaned the crowd. I bowed my head in the traditional way and began, (this will be written now as if I were attempting to speak English, for your sake.) " Hello.   My name is Victoria Scovill.   My nick name is Torie. I am from USA, MN, Wayzata. I am nine art in, its,"  my mind started to blur. All I could see was each individual syllable instead of words.   My eyes skipped lines as I began to blend words. "It's nice student host in my hool". I started to panic. "Opps." I admitted. " I am nineteen years old" my eyes corrected themselves for one high moment, as though an eye of the storm. " I art sim hool fannary... ah, family".  I sighed.  At that moment, I knew that I'd been beat. They was only one way not to loose. I dropped my speech and said," I am learning Korean." deep breath. " Thank you." - and I said it right.  A wide smile of champions swept across my face.  I got laughs and claps. I think my speech showed them more of who I am then I could have planned.
On Nov. 8th, we went to go see the Korean-version of the CIA tomarrow. Kim's host dad does something mysterious for them, and it seems to be "take your host daughter and friend to work day", so that will be cool. I don't think I can bring a camera, but I'd really like to. *** That ended up being an extremely cool visit.  They were all secretive with guards and cameras and James Bond.  I’d tell you more, but then I’d have to kill you.  In the end, Kim, May Kay, and I all got these super cool plaques with the photo of the building and a photo of us with our names.  They also gave us this really heavy little silver case thing that  ends up holding a manicure set.  It has a seal on it and looks quite impressive.
Thursday (11/10) Kim and I are went out with David to get our hair cut. How fab.  David had these two “free protein hair treatments” that he wasn’t going to use, so it worked out nicely- and the hair cuts in korea are really really cheap.  I have super thick hair and so it took two people a really long time.  Kim, in fact was done by the time that they set the treatment and rinsed it out  and started to blow dry my hair before cutting.  Then the stylist guy “shagged it”, which I learned was a technique developed in China.  They chopped off probably 2/3 of my hair, and it fell to the ground it a  huge pile.  I have no hair.  (David later informed me, since he speaks Korean, that they were talking about making a wig out of my hair)
Ah, food. I went to Costco. They have three, and it seems like everybody goes there. It has like 8 floors, and is just massive. I felt like I was being hugged the whole time- well, from both the crowds, and from the sheer joy of seeing so many western things in one place.

Now, here it is Kim’s turn:
Lucky girl who writes emails, huh? If I find the time to write it is usually on my blog, in my journal, or letters home. Plus I talk to my parents on the phone more often than her, so the stories only get told to them and then lost in the depths of history.
Since this blog is already six pages long I’ll give you an abridged version of what I think needs to be said.
So at the beginning of this I touched on Christianity. On Sundays we spend basically our whole day at church. By the way, David, the person who she was talking about with the haircuts is another of the seniors in high school at our church. The day begins at with 9:30am STEM (Sarang Teen’s English Ministy) service with all the highschoolers. After the actually service ends, we meet in groups according to our grade in high school for bible study.  Then sometimes we go to lunch. We used to go to a new members class, but now we have bible school with young adults from 2-4pm. That’s church all day.
I really have to post this now. It’s been such a long time and I just moved host families today so there is so much new stuff to talk about. I promise to keep you updated on a regular basis. So does Torie. If you’re reading mine check the link to hers.

2005-11-18T20:50:00.000+09:00


	I love my host sister like a sister

	Some people think that when students stay in another country with a host family that their family is just a group of people who they live with maybe like a land lady or something, but that is not it. For a long time I did feel as though I were just living in the house and not exactly part of the family. I think it is because very often at home, even in my home with my biological family I tend to be introverted and spend a lot of time in my room. I focus on what is going on in my life, but don't usually learn very much about the lives of my other family members. About a month into my homestay I had begun to stay out late and spend time outside of the house. I wasn't ever doing anything that I wouldn't want my family to know about, but sometimes I would forget to send a message or call and tell my mom what I was doing. Or better yet, sometimes there are things that I know I should probably ask my mom before that I say that I can go do something with friends or a teacher, but I just forget and agree to plans. My mom was feeling that I wasn't treating my family as a family and I felt like I wasn't fitting in as part of the family. When I was at home I was usually just sit in my room and study without progress. She said, "I am your mother not your land lady." That really hit me, because I felt like that's what things were becoming too. Since then, I have been watching more TV with my host family (there is one drama that I really like that's from 10pm-11pm, then I got to bed), my host mom has been helping me study Korean and even giving me homework from a book that I bought, and I have been spending a lot more time with my host sister. She began coming to church with me on Sundays and is really enjoying it. She's learning english and becoming closer to God at the same time. Last night and today were probably the closest that I have gotten with her though. Last night we stayed up until one o'clock talking about boys and life and we could really understand each other. We learned a lot more about what each other are really like. Then tonight I went out with two girls from school and when I got home she said that her boyfriend had broken up with her. I gave her a hug and told her to come sit down and eat some chocolate. Then I played one of her favorite cds for her. Since I have been in Korea my sister and I have had some really hard times usually when it comes to cultural misunderstands. I think that we've both made each other cry. And at home we sometimes spend time together, but usually give each other her own space. Lately we're learning to be close. Like sisters we know that usually the other one needs to go her own way, but if she needs help with something like homework or relationship problems, or just doesn't understand life at the moment, we can be there for each other. Some people ask me when we are seperated, "where is your friend?" but I don't think of Myung Hae Chung as a friend. I think of her as a younger sister who I will hopefully keep in touch with for the rest of my life.

2005-11-13T22:09:00.000+09:00

Okay, I know that this picture is really creepy, but I posted it for two reasons. 1. Koreans have dark brown eyes and usually no fold in their eyelids. I am always being told that my eyes are so beautiful because they are so big and lighter colored. The most common graduation gift for a Korean girl is plastic surgery for her eyes so that they will look more like those of westerners. This makes me sad. I wish that everyone could just find beauty in themselves and not always wish to look different. I truely believe that the inside is what counts and feel terrible when people can't look past my outside. I like to be told that I am beautiful for my actions rather than my appearence. 2. When I post things on my blog there are many things that I overlook as part of my everyday life. I usually only tell you about extraordinary events. Please send me comments asking about little things in my life and I will try to find the time to write about them. To the people who have already given me writing suggestions that I haven't acted on, please be patient. I forgot about them for awhile and am just now finding time to start writing again. I will answer them first.

2005-11-13T22:01:00.000+09:00

Isn't this just a fun picture? Sometime back in October Torie and I went on a church retreat to Anseong which is a suburb of Seoul. It is kind of in the country. At least it is a retreat from city life. This picture is of a man made lake and each of the chairs is for if you want to go fishing, but you have to pay to go fishing. At the retreat I spent a lot of time singing and getting to know people. I even got to play 500 with an american football and some Canadians, a Coloradian who grew up around the world as a missionary's son, and a fellow from Great Britian. Quite the game if I do say so myself. I also spent a good amount of time by meself hidden in the woods writting and reading. The most amazing part of it all though is that I got to see the stars. I hear about movie stars all the time, but people in Korea don't have that desperate ache that I get when I look into the night sky and only see the moon. I do love the moon, but on this night I could see my favorite constellation (I don't know the name, ask one of my best friends to point it out), the big dipper, Casiopia, and maybe a 10th of what I am used to. Still it was amazing.

2005-11-13T21:48:00.000+09:00

This is my school through the eyes of first year (about 10th grade) art students...

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2005-11-13T21:45:00.000+09:00

This is what the school actually looks like. Above are paintings by students in past years. I am using them as my inspiration. If someone else can do the project that well then so can I.

2005-11-13T21:43:00.000+09:00

I hope that this doesn't ruin anything for the final product, but this is my next art project in process. I took a picture of it before I began painting, because I'm scared of my painting skills. So far it has turned out very well though. The object of this project is to paint the school or something on the school grounds. When I began these trees were absolutely gorgeous, but now they are nearly bare. I'm not sure if I'm painting them with leaves or bare. Wish me luck.