Welcome to Day 180 of living in Korea.

I can now tell you that I have officially completed my first semester of teaching here in South Korea!

I wrapped up my final week of term by teaching a 3 day summer camp at my elementary school (which was rather fun I have to admit). The purpose of the camp was really just for the kids to do something fun and incorporate some English into it at the same time. So, I taught them the Hokey Cokey. If you don’t know the song and dance, check it out (you might actually find you know this song, but that it has a different name in your country). I also taught them how to make strawberries and cream (ala Wimbledon), as well as Eton mess (well, as best I could with the not-exactly-correct supplies). We played some board games, watched a film and, for 3 days at least, I properly learned the names of 9 of my students (at long last!).

With teaching all wrapped up, I have been able to take 1 week of summer holiday to decompress a little.

However, my excitement of having days off over summer has been tempered by the fact that the temperature here in Korea during the day tops 35^oC and remains about 29-30^oC during the night. That is enough to kill off any idea of wanting to hang about outside for very long, let alone adding the 70-80% humidity rate to it.

Summer in Korea sucks.

It’s a well-known fact.

Even the Koreans hate it.

In the ex-pat community I’ve heard this season referred to as Joseon Hell. I confirm, this is apt.

With that said, I have tried to make some use of my time both indoors and out.

During my indoor days I have managed to read through four books, play D&D, start 2 new kdramas, and have found a Japanese anime to try. My outdoor days have included a beach visit, hiking, meeting some Korean people, and visiting the dentist.

So let me now ramble on in the way that I do and tell you about random bits and pieces from my adventures…

To begin, last time we met, I was still riding high from my head-exploding heart-stopping adventure of seeing Kyungsoo in concert. I know you know how happy my EXO boys make me. So I equally know that you’ll be just thrilled to hear that I have yet another very exciting event to look forward to in the shape of another solo concert – this time, for Chanyeol!

Yes, that’s right, another member of EXO is finally getting his first solo album released and along with it, an Asian tour starting in Seoul. While not quite hitting bucket list status, seeing Chanyeol perform solo is quite high up the list of amazing things to happen (now I just need to see Chen have his own concert and I’ll have the trifecta of my favourite EXO singers).      

In more down to earth news, as of yesterday I have now upped my tally of Wonju Trail hikes completed to 7! That’s now one third of the trail finished.

Although I hope that I might manage to sneak in another one or two outings over the summer, in reality hiking in hot weather sucks eggs. It’s certainly nowhere near as fun as hiking in cool or cold weather, and therefore as much as I want to explore on the weekends, I might try and be patient and wait for better weather so that I can enjoy my trekking experience more.

Case in point against hiking in the heat…

Two weeks ago I hiked in Baegunsan National Forest, which was far enough off the beaten trail I had to take a taxi to get there and back because I couldn’t work out a reliable bus. It was also my first proper mountain conquest since arriving in Korea this year. Technically the mountain summit wasn’t part of the hiking trail but, as usual with me, as I meandered past the sign for the peak, automatically my pace slowed and my brain began calculating how much time and distance it would add to my hike that day.

Well, I figured roughly 200m in extra height and an extra 2km would be the result of bagging a peak, and that didn’t sound too bad of an exchange to me, so back I went to the turn off and started climbing some stairs in 33^oC heat.

Let me tell you, the first 10 minutes I felt happy as I always do at the prospect of reaching the top of a mountain. That warm fuzzy feeling soon wore off. It was replaced by niggling frustration as the path suddenly turned into unnecessary climbs and dips. As the temperature began to rise, so did my temper.

I will level with you, this is the first time in a very long time I got actively angry hiking a trail. I was so mad at being hot, feeling my face burning from the inside out, the constant dripping sweat, and the trail just wouldn’t seem to end! My fury reached such a point that I was now just hiking to get to the top, simply so I could vent my anger at the mountain for making me hike it.

And then as usual, I get to the very last turn in the path where I can feel I am finally approaching the peak, and when I see the stone, the bubble of red across my vision pops, and I am just exhausted but happy I’ve made it.

I then take about 10 minutes to send video messages to lots of people to recount my anger (because misery and frustration must be shared widely whenever possible), but also laughing with the additional ridiculousness that there isn’t even a view from the top. The only reason to hike to this peak as I have just found out, is simply to say you’ve done it.

And even though I can still taste the frustration of that day while typing this (seriously, I was incredibly mad), of course it hasn’t tempered my enthusiasm for continuing to hike in the slightest.

I will say, the upside of wandering about in South Korea in the summer – the plants and wildlife. I have never seen a place with my own eyes more lush and green than the countryside here. The heat and humidity results in huge green leaves and vines, beautiful flowers, startlingly interesting fungi, and of course a plethora of bugs, beetles, and other insects I can’t name. And the dragonflies! I have never seen so many dragonflies in my life (and when I do see them each time it reminds me of a documentary I watched called Assassins of the Sky – dragonflies are seriously mean and deadly).

To counter all of the hills and greenery, I decided to make a beach trip this week to check out Gangneung, apparently THE beach city to go to during the summer (surfing here is supposedly very good).

It’s a 1.5 hour bus ride for me using the intercity bus to get there. Let me take a moment to sing the praises of the intercity buses here in Korea. I can walk down to the bus station and hop on a nice comfortable bus and travel pretty much anywhere in Korea for decent price. It costs me about the same to take a bus up to Sokcho (3-4 hours) as it would for a ticket from Southampton to Heathrow Airport (1.5hours ish). And let me tell you, the seats are far more comfortable – nice and wide, lots of leg room, recline so you can sleep comfortably. Far superior to National Express, you have my word on it.

Anyway, I digress. Gangneung. Hmm. It’s OK. Not bad. It was nice to see and spend a day, but to be honest, I’ve been lucky to visit far nicer beaches with much fewer people here in Korea. I will say they have a really nice lake you can walk around, it has some cute statues that tell a story, and along the way you can stop off at a wonderful pavilion with a cool breeze from the top for a much needed rest from the heat.

There is also a large hanok house complex which, and I‘m sure I am butchering its history here, belonged to one family and was expanded over the years to become the largest family home in Joseon outside of the palace. It appears to be a place where many writers and poets visited. Well, you know me, I can’t ever pass up a chance to look at hanoks, so I paid my dues and in I went. While the buildings themselves were wonderful to look at, I was a little surprised and disappointed to find that almost all of them you couldn’t look or go into because they are rented out for hanok stays. On the upside, there is a beautiful pond with lotus flowers in bloom, and a small museum that has the most enormous collection of wardrobes of any museum I have seen while visiting this country.  

On my walk from the beach back into the city to catch my bus, I stopped by a road stall where a group of ladies were peeling and steaming corn on the cob to sell. Now, I’m a fan of corn in general, always have been, but nowhere have I ever tasted corn like I have here in Korea. I’m not sure what it is about fresh warm cooked corn here that I enjoy so much, it’s not that it’s overly sweet or anything, but it is always amazingly soft and almost sticky to eat. I love it. Yet another small thing about living here I enjoy so much.

This week also saw me having to organise something more mundane, and that was a dentist appointment to have my teeth cleaned (something you get to do free here once a year on the national insurance scheme). I managed to book an appointment over the chat service easily with the help of Papago to translate, and once I arrived between my very little bit of Korean and a pretty good helping of their English I managed to indeed not only get my teeth cleaned but had x-rays, a check-up, and a consultation for some dental work (all for ₩25,000 – about £18 – you’d never get that on the NHS I can tell you). The only unsettling thing for me (as a Brit where we are raced through our dental appointments at lightning speed with no real idea what is being done or why) was the sheer horror at having plastered up on a 50 inch TV screen the x-rays and photographs of my mouth and having several dental workers explain to me very kindly why my mouth was a mess and what I should do to rectify it. Urgh. Embarrassment city. But admittedly, helpful.

Now that we’re almost up to date, I guess the last categories of things to talk about are socialisation and language.

I have decided to try a new tack regarding trying to meet people here in Korea, to just generally attempt to find a few people to hang out with a little bit every now and then. While I am sure the English teachers here are very nice and all, I haven’t really met anyone who I’ve thought ‘Hey, they’re my people! Let’s hang out!’, and so making friends here hasn’t really happened. I was aware before moving here that this is a common problem of living here in Korea, it was expected, but I had just kind of hoped I would have at least found one person who I wanted to occasionally socialise with by now.

Not to be deterred – I have taken a new approach – English study groups!

Yes, that’s right. I have joined two groups for Korean people learning English.

Why?

Because I can speak English and I am happy to help people wanting to practice their English skills.

Just to clarify, I am in no way teaching people. These groups are simply people who can already speak English to a pretty high conversational level and simply get together over coffee to discuss any topics they like using English to do so.

And this seems to be a good fit for me to join in. I can speak with new people I don’t know on a range of topics that interest them, they can ask me cultural questions or my opinion on subjects, and they can ask for corrections or for ways to say something if they don’t know. This gives me the chance to have a pretty normal chat without the stress of worrying about not knowing Korean, or having to speak very slowly and at a basic level as I do when I am at school. I also have a great opportunity to listen to their ideas and opinions of the wider world from a Korean’s point of view, which is fascinating, without the worry of having to try and translate from their native language.

The two groups I have joined are very different.

The first group, there are just 3 of us. They are keen for our group to be a language exchange rather than just English study. This means they are doing their best to encourage me to speak Korean if I can. When we meet up, we talk about how our week has been, then we discuss a couple of news articles where I ask follow up questions to encourage them to speak more widely, and then they try to ask me simple Korean questions in the hope I might be able to answer. They’ve even been kind enough to take me to dinner!

The second group is purely English speaking practice. The group seems quite large and ever changing. There are meet ups suggested and whoever can and wants to attend does. This can be as little as 4 people or up to about 12 depending on the day. There seems to be no real agenda, people just come and have a chat about anything, in English of course.

One of the most interesting things I have learned, I heard just yesterday in the group. People were talking about their motivations for speaking English and one reason seemed to resonate with most in the group – that there is a freedom from the Korean way of life in speaking English. Listening to them speak, it seemed that everyone there (of various ages and walks of life) feels constrained and constantly under pressure by the hierarchal system in the country – how to meet people, address people, how to speak and act. I was honestly very surprised by everyone’s open feelings about this and made me really think about how stressful it must feel to live in a society like that. What made it more interesting was the fact that they enjoy speaking English as a way to counteract this – when using English they feel that everyone is on the same level and that their cultural socialisation norms can be pushed to the side. They also feel free to discuss issues they might not feel able to address when speaking in their own language. Some felt they were almost able to reinvent themselves with a different personality when speaking in English.

And I found that fascinating and enlightening.

I had never thought about using English (or any other language) in this way. As some kind of escape and freeing experience. Perhaps because I don’t come from a culture where there is that kind of self-conscious or guarded approach to other people, I never felt the need to overcome it through another medium. Had I not met the group, perhaps I never would have come across this insight. And right there is one reason why I shall try and continue meeting people in this new fashion.

Yeah, it might not be a perfect plan. It’s not the ‘join a club and meet people’ idea that I first arrived with. Or the ‘people in your neighbourhood will get to know you’ thought that briefly popped into my mind. But now having actually listened to how difficult Korean people themselves seem to find it interacting with new people in general, actually, this seems a pretty reliable way to meet others from around the city.

I supposed the only thing it doesn’t address is my severe lack of Korean speaking ability. Meeting people and living life here overall is good, but for the vast majority of the time, I’m still doing this in English. My Korean learning schedule these days is mostly filled with procrastination and a glum feeling when I even think about it. I seem to have hit the downward spiral in my desire to learn, and I can’t really decide why this is. I can’t tell if part of it is the general lacklustre-ness I’m feeling because of the heat (yes, this is a real thing), or just that regular working life makes me more likely to want to relax rather than learn in my spare time.

I know that I still find the language captivating in that in the moments I do study or I have a tutoring session or I try to speak to my students, I feel excited and happy and curious. It’s just all the moments in between and working up the enthusiasm to look at a textbook or make the effort to really listen to a dialogue when I’m watching TV that I am struggling with.

I am also on that wonderful roundabout where I am utterly despondent at the fact I still can’t easily make sentences when speaking which depresses me and makes me not want to put in any effort, but given the fact I don’t practice at all this is why I am not improving in the slightest.

Urgh.

But still, I haven’t given up. And if nothing else, I still hold my head high that when I speak Korean I am told consistently by those around me I have really good pronunciation, which is a great compliment, so I’ll take it.  

So as you can see, on paper, things in general seem to be still ticking along quite nicely. Life here is not the most perfect Instagram-able authentic Korean experience, it’s just life, with its good points, mediocre points, and hideous hot weather points. For the most part, I am content. And for me that is good. It’s what I’ve been searching for. I’m glad that for right now I have this.

And now, it’s time to gear up and get ready for the next challenge, for semester 2 starts tomorrow and it’s back to crazy weekly lesson planning, trying to get my high school students to at least fall asleep a little less, and to start singing with my elementary kids again.

Have a great week everyone and I’ll see you again soon!