Last week, all the teachers at our school went out for our last dinner together. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but teachers here are only allowed to stay at one school for three years, then they must move on to another one. This dinner was not only a "thank you" for the year, but also a farewell to those of us who weren't going to be returning next year. It was a really nice last dinner that had more celebration than it did tears. You could tell everyone was just happy to be with each other one last time and even though they knew that it was all ending soon, they were enjoying the moment and the time that they had with each other, including myself. I generally didn't enjoy these dinners, mainly because they would get sprung on me at the last minute or we'd go somewhere that didn't have very good food, but this one was actually a lot of fun and a nice way to start the "goodbye" process.
All week at school definitely felt different last week. I didn't really have any classes, because everyone was preparing for the next school year, which starts next week. After lunch, the school would get eerily quiet, lacking the usual backdrop of student laughter and playing, because they had all gone home. It just kind of felt like the end. I had many students, especially the younger ones, pleading with me not to leave, which obviously just turned me to mush. There's nothing I'm going to miss more about Korea than those kids. They are so innocent, fun-loving and worry-free, and brought a smile to my face every single day. Even when they wouldn't listen and drove me crazy! Of course I hope they learned some English from me, but more than anything, I hope that through their interactions with me, they learned that we're not as different as maybe they've been told we are. There's still a lot of prejudice that exists in Korea. Prejudice towards the Japanese, the Chinese and those of us from English-speaking countries. Prejudice towards women and those of a lesser stature in the country. You see and hear this mostly from the middle-aged citizens and a bit from the younger ones as well. This is a country that actually didn't want foreigners there, even as tourists, up until the Seoul Olympics, to preserve their heritage and culture from outside influences. My guess is that a lot of this thinking was a direct result of the many invasions and colonizations that Korea suffered through its history. After the Korean war finally allowed them to be free, they didn't want to chance any further infringements on their culture. This is just my opinion though, and it's not an educated one, so take it for what it's worth. It just makes sense to me. Anyway, these children are the beacon of light for change. Though some of them have already been taught to hate Japan and China, (I've been told about how bad the Japanese are and how dirty the Chinese are many times by my students) and not to trust foreigners, we English teachers have a chance to change that and influence them differently. I feel pretty confident that the students walked away feeling good about me and America. I think over time, as more and more foreigners come to Korea and share their language, traditions and customs, it can only be good for the country's social and economic growth. I hope that I was at least a little part of that process.
Saturday was the official closing ceremony and graduation for the sixth graders. During the closing ceremony, they recognized the teachers that were leaving, and we each were to go on stage and give a small speech. I thought it would be fun to give mine in Korean, so I wrote what I wanted to say in English and had a friend translate it for me. I've included video of the speech below. Only me and one other teacher ended up giving a speech, so apparently it wasn't mandatory like I was told, but I'm still happy that I did it. It was nice to get a final goodbye in to the whole school. After the ceremony, the school staff went out to lunch to celebrate our vice principal's retirement. This was definitely a more emotional affair than the dinner a few days earlier. A few teachers gave speeches about the vice principal, and one in particular brought him and most of the people in the room to tears. By the end everyone was smiling though, and even went off for some norebong after, which I respectfully declined.
The day after the closing ceremony, I attended my first and probably only Korean wedding. Brent had actually been to a couple before and told me about them, so I had somewhat of an idea of what to expect. The ceremony itself attempts to be very formal, held in a nicely decorated room with the bride wearing white and walking down the aisle. The person presiding over the ceremony is very genuine while giving his speech and the bride and groom even cut the cut the cake with a sword! The problem with the whole thing is really the people in attendance. They're talking, answering phones, sleeping and basically doing everything except paying attention to what's going on. It was really strange to see and all I could think of was how pissed an American girl would be if that was going on at her wedding. There definitely doesn't seem to be as much work involved in planning weddings for Korean girls though. To me, all it seems like they have to do is book the wedding hall, get a dress and send out the invitations. These wedding halls hold weddings all day and are already decorated, so it's never personalized for the couple. Then after the wedding, you're handed a meal coupon for wherever you're going to eat and then you go eat. There's no formal reception or anything. It was very interesting.
The next couple of days were filled with "goodbye" hangouts with all of our friends. We hit our favorite spots and just enjoyed spending time with them for the last time in a long time. We really did meet some good people here and they will be missed. Our friend Soo came back from Canada just a couple days before we left, which was only a bummer because we didn't get to spend as much time with her as we would have liked to. We were still excited to see and hang out with her again though. The morning that we left, most of them actually came to the airport to see us off, which was a really great way to leave. They showed up so early in the morning to see us go and it was just a very special feeling to have them there. I couldn't have imagined a better way to go.
With the year behind me and thinking about all that I experienced and learned, I just feel so lucky to have been in the situation that I was in. There's so many foreign teachers there who had horrible co-teachers or bad apartments or just problems in general with their school, and I didn't have any of these. As much as my co-teacher would annoy me sometimes and as far away as I would feel in my apartment, I actually had it really good. Looking back, I wouldn't have changed a thing. It was such a risk for me to leave my job last year and come here and do this, but I'm so glad that I did. I would have always regretted not doing something like this had I not come and it's just an incredible feeling to be here now with this year in the rearview mirror. This is a year that I will never forget and will always be glad that I did. The icing on the cake is that right at the end, I was lucky enough to land an amazing internship with MLS that I start in a few days; truly a dream opportunity for me.
The Korean people have definitely come a long way since the end of the Korean War. For as far as they've come technologically though, there is still a lot of room for growth in the social aspects of their society. Like I mentioned previously, there are still many prejudices prevalent and some just very archaic ways of thinking. It's almost as if they're on the cusp of social revolution, but are unwilling to let go of certain things that most developed countries have long recognized as "wrong" or "unfair." They're getting there, it's just going to take a lot more free thinking and openness to get them over the top, and as more and more Koreans travel abroad and more and more foreigners come to Korea, the process will move along much quicker.
In closing I just want to thank all of you that followed my exploits over the last year. I know some of these blogs got much longer than you wanted to read and I sometimes used this as a place to vent, but I enjoyed sharing my experience with you. It was always nice to hear from people about my blogs and get requests for new ones when it was taking me too long to update. Being your window into Korean culture has truly been an honor and I thank you for following along. Though I won't be keeping a blog of my goings-on anymore, I hope to keep in touch with all of you as I embark on a new set of adventures in my life.
Thanks for reading! 안녕히가세요!
At Gimhae Airport getting ready to leave.
Young, Ji Won, me, Soo, Brent, Betty
The last bar we went to took these polaroids and put them
up on the wall. Who knows how long they'll be there, but it's still cool.
I will miss them the most.
