Lost in Translation: September 2010

Last week our school was given 4 days off to celebrate a traditional Asian holiday known as Chuseok. Chuseok is the celebration of a good harvest where typically, Koreans spend their time with cousins, grandparents and the rest of their extended family feasting on traditional Korean cuisine. For the foriegners, however, Chuseok is merely time off work to vacation, party and absorb the last of the summer weather. On Tuesday morning, I, along with 12 other native teachers, departed Gwangju and headed to the beautiful Island of Bigeumdo. Before I continue with what turned into an eventful camping adventure, I must inform you of the prior incident which occured Monday morning, my very first day of vacation.

Going to sleep sunday night I was thrilled not having to set an alarm and work 8 hours with children who barely understand a word I say. Since every workplace was closed on Monday, the bar scene Sunday night was pretty hectic. I eventually crawled into bed around 6am and fell deep asleep, excited for a workless Monday to follow. At around 9:30am i heard a strange singing noise that almost immediately became part of my dream (which I later figured out was my doorbell...that I didn't even know i had!?) About 10 minutes later the same irritating noise went off but this time my enclosure light turned on as well. The light I have inside my enclosure area is automatic and only turns on by motion or movement. Clearly, someone or something was standing in my apartment just behind my second (unlocked) door. At this time, I was half asleep, with a pounding headache, still undecided if this was a dream or if there was actually a stranger standing merely 7 feet away from me, in my own apartment. Before I even had a chance to come up with potential scenerios of who was going to walk through my door, uninvited, the handle turned to the right and 5 Korean men holding drills walked confidently in a single file line, through my door, past my bed and into my kitchen. Their confident stride was so bizarre that it almost seemed like they had been here before and were just routinely walking into their office, a place where they are comfortable and familiar with. It seemed as though they didnt even realize I was lying in bed or that they had just abruptly let themselves into my home without my knowledge or consent. Behind the 5 men, stood a short, middle aged Korean woman who quickly tip toed over to my bed (where I was still lying, confused and disoriented) with her arm extended out towards me, holding a cell phone. Judging by her body language, I assumed she wanted me to talk to the voice on the other end, which is exactly what I did. The voice was my Korean secretary/co worker who I was hoping would give me some clarity as to what in the world was going on.

So now, let me paint a more clearer picture for you. At this very moment, I am still lying in bed under my covers, while there are 3 Korean men on their knees drilling something in my kitchen and the other 2 men are standing to the right of my bed. The petite Korean women is screaming at one of the workers over the noise of the drilling and I am trying to talk with my Korean co worker, in bed, in my pajamas, barely able to even hear myself think. Oh yeah, and it's 9:30am on my first day of vacation!!!!!!! I don't know if I was more angry, confused or hungover, but all I knew was that sleep was imperative at this point. My co worker had informed me that I had a drainage problem that needed to be fixed immediately. Never would I have thought a simple plumbing problem would require 6 Koreans, 5 drills and a burglary but nevertheless I have learned that things are done much differently here and VERY last minute! Once I was caught up with this faux break-in and completely aware that not a single one of these Korean workers spoke a word of English, I decided to do the most reasonable thing; throw my covers over top of my body/head, pop in my earphones and pretend this was all some sort of bad dream.

So I guess you can say my vacation really began with a bang! Tuesday morning a group of us left for Bigeumdo Island where we first boarded a bus to Mokpo and then took a 3 hour ferry to our final destination. The Island we went to is famous for its heart-shaped beach. It is absolutely breathtaking and was a perfect place to camp for 3 days. There were a lot of firsts for me on this Island, which include setting up a tent, helping start a fire and trying to find shelter during a typhoon that hit the second day we were there. The rain pourned down pretty hard our first night and by morning 2 tents were down and others flooded. Luckily mine and Anna's tent managed to survive the harsh wind and terrential downpour but it was most definitely too small for all 14 of us to use as shelter until the weather cleared. So together, we all came to the conclusion that breaking into a log cabiin in the woods was probably the most logical thing to do. We stayed in the cabin (filled with cob webs and mud) for a couple of hours but kept ourselves busy playing cards and participating in back and forth exchanges of some humorous work stories. Finally, once the rain died down, a few of us walked over to the beach where we noticed the waves were easily the highest and most aggresive ive ever seen and immediately all decided to partake in the fun. Overall, this camping trip was a great little adventure that I will never forget!

Setting up our tent!

The beach

The first sunset

Bigeumdo Island. Notice the heart-shaped beach?

Our crew!

It's somewhat amusing to compare my 2 camping experiences, one with all foreigners and the other with all Koreans. The way in which Koreans go "camping" is not at all what us Westerns consider the definition of the word. About 3 weeks ago Ryan, my co worker and I went on a "camping" trip with about 5 Korean teachers from our school who had planned and organized the whole weekend. All we knew was that we were going to be camping on a beach but didn't need to bring any tents as the accomodations were already set up for us. When we arrived in Namhae, the city where we were giong to be stationed for the next 2 days, a Korean man picked us up from the bus stop and with all of our luggage the 7 of us piled into his pick up truck where he dropped us off at our paradise beach home. I couldn't believe the word "camping" was even used to describe what we were about to endure that weekend. We stayed in a 2 bedroom bunaglo with a full kitchen, a television, our own private pool and the Ocean just beneath us. We didn't have to make a camp fire because the camping grounds provided us with a full barbeque and we didn't need to use our sleeping bags because the house came equipped with blankets, sheets and duvets. The bunaglo we stayed in is actually a traditional Korean house known as a minbok which has no beds or chairs or any real furniture for that matter (the television was stationed comfortably on the ground). We ate all our meals on the floor and all of us slept in one big room which we layered with thick covers and pillows. The trip was a great bonding experience with my Korean co teachers and I was even given an authentic Korean name; Min June, which apparently means long life. This was definitely a unique sort of camping experience (if you would even call it that) but again, differed greatly from my more recent camping quest to the heart shaped beach.