Today, my favorite student (any teacher will be honest and tell you they have a favorite) shocked me again. Olivia is the happiest little lark I’ve ever met. She is about 5 or 6 years old, never frowns and has a bright round face with a perfectly infectious smile. She used to call me over to her table, “Teacher, teacher, come here.” She’d motion with her hand as if she had a secret to tell and look at her feet trying to remember why she’d called me over. Continue reading
Korea
Hump Day Soju
“Three is good, two, no good,” I said, at once believing myself and wondering why I mentioned how much I like to drink. Stopping in to my surrogate Korean mom’s restaurant so she could cook me my favorite pork cutlet with brown sauce and all the trimmings. I bumped into the bus drivers at my kindergarten. I forgot that they would most certainly ask me to sit down, and that they would even more certainly be drinking soju. Continue reading
Like…
“I don’t like him.” It hurt me to hear that; and I was completely unprepared how to stop the feelings from being hurt. The other boy quickly replied (unconvincingly), “I don’t like him either.” I could see from his drooping head that he felt sad. Kids are not nice, they don’t need to pretend they like someone because they work with them, or live near them, or have mutual friends, or need something from them. Kids tell others how they feel, when they feel it. They are filter-less, emotional creatures with terrifyingly simple opinions. Continue reading
Super Monday?
Super Sunday is a party day in America complete with gathering friends, extensive dip selections, cursing at the TV, watery beer, and the inevitable disappointment. The disappointment for me comes knowing it’s seven months until football season again, sometimes disappointment in a boring, lopsided game, and for others it is the disappointment of being the supporter of a losing team. For the lucky few who support the winning team, it is pure exhilaration of bragging rights for the whole year (despite having done nothing to contribute to the winning cause except second guess every 3rd down play and pretend to support the time they went for it on 4th and goal). As we know, all games need to have a loser (except in that rather excessively gentlemanly game of European football, where draws leave a sour yet satisfactory flavor in the mouth of its fans). Continue reading
Kim Jong-Gone
We were sitting at lunch, in a kindergarten basement in Seoul, when the school bus driver came in and said one sentence in Korean before leaving, “Kim Jong-Il is dead.” I waited for the translation and then assessed my feelings. Continue reading
Customs
Customs are the basis of a society. Customs are the routine of a people—the proper etiquette of a shared land. We learn in sociology about these things and how they are not to be compared to or judged by your own customs. We are taught that, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” Don’t take your idea of proper behavior farther than your own country. Continue reading
November Train
A hiking weekend in Gwangju with ten strangers who became ten friends. Five people dashing through an extremely crowded terminal with 5 minutes to make the train. Breathing deeply, I found a convenient seat beside a window and wrote what what I saw outside. Continue reading
The Best Reason to Learn to Read Korean
Fighting through a hangover early Monday morning, heading home to change and shower, I raced toward the subway restroom to heed the extremely urgent call of nature. Continue reading
Going to the Korean Spa
On Saturday, I woke up watching Rocky Balboa, which I love, and love even more when it’s presented in English among all the Korean infomercials of fish, heated mats, and belly-controlling spandex tights. Rocky is so philosophical in this one: “The older I get, the more things I have to leave behind.” I watched and enjoyed, and around noon, Skyped with my family and caught up with the events of Pennsylvania. I worked out for a few hours and then headed to the famous Dragon Hill Spa at Yongsan Station around 5. Continue reading
Seoul is Not Vienna
“Seoul is not Vienna.” They were some of the first words my American friend and I exchanged on our new Korean cell phones. Continue reading
William Sabia 