May 21st, 2024
Although the calendar still says it’s spring, the weather in Korea has been summer-like for a little bit now. The temperature has been consistently hitting high 20s/low 30s recently.
Last week, the run of May holidays continued with a 2-for-1 on Wednesday. Wednesday was both Teacher’s Day and the Buddha’s Birthday. Typically, both would individually be a day off from school, but because they happened to fall on the same day, only one day off was given (a travesty).
To celebrate the day off, some of my friends and I went to a Buddhist temple in Daegu to check out the birthday festivities. The temple was busier than usual, but other than that, the worship there seemed pretty ordinary. We did, however, get free packed meals, which is a Buddha’s Birthday tradition. We then went to a reservoir to try to spot some otters (we saw some movement but can’t be sure they weren’t fish) and then to a cafe.
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed that I didn’t get any cards or anything for Teacher’s Day on Tuesday, but on Thursday my fortunes reversed. One of my students came up to my desk and gave me cookies, saying in her best English, “I made these at home.”
On Thursday night, I went with friends to a place called Cheat Deli. It serves pretty authentic Western-style deli sandwiches, and its interior is cartoonishly American. It had been a long time since I had eaten a cornedbeef sandwich, which made it extra-satisfying.
Friday was my school’s sports day. I had to borrow pants from a friend, because I was told to wear athletic wear, but no shorts. This was ultimately unnecessary, however, because there was no teacher’s event like a tug-of-war (which some schools do). Although I was mildly disappointed I didn’t have opportunities to participate, I did still enjoy watching my students compete. Each class battled it out for points, with the winning class being given money to buy snacks for a class party. Events included cheer-offs, “centipede” races (like a 3-legged race but with more people), giant ball-rolling, jump-rope competitions, and more. The marquee event was the 800-metre relay, with each class fielding a team of 4 boys and 4 girls to sprint 100 metres each.
The day ended at about 1. Most of the other teachers left, but I had to stay because I couldn’t figure how to properly request the afternoon off on the Korean-language school administration website, and my co-teachers hadn’t been around to help me. While I didn’t actually mind that much, and I had a productive afternoon, it just illustrates how silly the bureaucratic systems can be here, and how you can face challenges because of poor Korean language skills.
On Saturday morning, I went to Jeonju. Jeonju is a historically and culturally important city a few hours to the west of Daegu. I had actually been to Jeonju before, all the way back during my orientation in my first week in Korea. We stayed at Jeonju University for nearly a week, and even had a day dedicated to exploring the famous ‘Hanok Village’ area. However, I had spent most of that time making friends instead of serious sightseeing, so I wanted to go back to really explore the city.
Although internal transportation is usually very good in Korea, for whatever reason, Daegu and Jeonju are poorly connected. Last time I tried to go, I gave up because there was no bus for hours. This time, I waited out the couple hours for a bus, and arrived in Jeonju at almost four. This still gave me a bit of time to explore on Saturday, visiting a historical shrine, a cathedral, a market, and some good viewpoints.
I also went to another mural village, similar to the one I went to in Daegu, with a variety of art styles.
For dinner, I had a Korean food that I had never heard of before, tteokgalbi. Plausibly translated as “ribcake,” tteokgalbi is a hamburger-ish meat patty, and it was very good. I’m surprised it’s not more popular.
On Sunday, I spent the morning walking around the Hanok Village. ‘Hanoks’ are the traditional Korean housing style. While I had visited a Hanok Village in Seoul, that one was made up of actual residential houses, while the Jeonju one is more touristy. The hanoks are mostly a mix of restaurants, gift shops, museums, guest houses, etc. Still, it’s a very nice area to walk around. The weather was nice when I was there, and along the sidewalk runs a little pool for children to splash around in. I visited a couple of museums in the village, but unluckily the one that I wanted to see the most, the royal portrait museum, was closed. I concluded my trip to Jeonju with visits to the Jeonju Historical Museum and Jeonju National Museum, which were both good, although a bit smaller than I expected given that they’re hosted on a sprawling campus.
Once back in Daegu, I took the subway to meet friends for basketball (we’ve been playing regularly with the Koreans for the last few weeks). While on the subway, I was sitting next to this adorable Korean girl, maybe 3 years old, riding with her mom or grandmom. The little girl was staring at me, and her mom told me in Korean to speak with her in English. I asked the little girl if she spoke English, but she was too shy to talk to me. I considered the conversation to be over, but her mom kept on talking to me in Korean, asking where I was from, my job, my name, etc, all in Korean.
Eventually, as these conversations sometimes go, she asked me, in English, “Jesus?” I said no, but she kept on trying to convert me: “Jesus. Jesus.” After a while, I told her “유대인 사람,” which means ‘I’m Jewish.’ Probably not the smartest thing to say, but Korea is very safe, and I was interested to see what her reaction would be. Unsurprisingly, she did not take it well. “Noooo, noooo, Jesus. Jesus!” At that point, I tried to ignore her, but she wouldn’t stop. She started ‘playfully’ poking me, saying “Jesus! Jesus!”
Then she started poking me with gifts, giving me individually wrapped snacks. First, a cookie, then a gummy, then another cookie, then another gummy. Each one she would shove into my side, again saying “Jesus!” I accepted them all, as refusing gifts can be rude in Korea. She then gave me a pack of wet wipes, which I tried to refuse. All of this stuff seemed better suited to her daughter than to me, but she wouldn’t hear of my refusal. Finally, she gave me an open bag of cookies, and got off the train.
Oh Jesus. People are too nice.