Looking in vs. Looking out

So I'm heading down the freeway yesterday withthe homestay family, on our way to Wochulsan National Park, and I got to thinking. Studying a different culture from abroad is like peering into diorama; you look, you inspect the intricacies and marvel at the detail, but you never really get to know the little figures, their lives, their thoughts, or really how they live. Just like anyone else, I can take a class on Korean culture and learn about the food, the daily routine, the history that "defines" the people--and I might know things, but I'll never really understand until I jump in head first and actually live life on the other side. I bring all this up because, well, I spent thelast few months looking in...getting ready and cramming my brain

with whatever I thought might help me get by over here...and now I'm looking out. Modern Korean history doesn't matter now. Sure, it puts certain emotions in context: like when my host mother tells me that Japan's youth is forgetting what happened during colonization (we had just gone to a modern history museum), but Korean people will never forget because all mothers explain these things to their children. Before, I was learning about Korea and trying to see the facts in real life. Now this is real life, and I try to put the facts in context. But then again, some facts do not need context. Why do Koreans eat kimchi and rice at every meal? Because they do. Why do mothers push their children so hard, make up homework when the school doesn't assign it, and send their elementary school children to

Hagwons (basically, after-school school) until 9 at night? Because they care? That assumes American mother's don't care, and I like to think I turned out alright playingbaseballand basketball every night instead of memorizing vocabulary words. No, so many of these things just are; not better or worse, just different. And the fact that they're different is what makes living in another culture interesting. Living in another world, surrounded by a different set of values, both changes the way I understand life--by nibbling away at my worldview--and fortifies the values I had before I ever came. I mean, how can I really know what I do value, if I can never understand what I don't?

Well, getting back to the beginning: I spent all of yesterday with the homestay family, hitting up a National Park in the morning and checking out some Mokpo museums later on. I've finally posted a couple pictures of the troupe for your viewing pleasure. First we hit up a small Buddhist monastery, then toured some Korean tea fields (pretty cool actually, although I dont

really know why). Then I took a nap on the rocks of a mountain stream while the tikes frolicked around in the water. Ahh, better yet, I added a new first during lunch: mudfish. Not alive thistime, but both fried whole and ground into a soup. This was another one of those joints that specializes in one thing, AKA like every other restaurant. Now, what makes a prospective proprietor come to the conclusion that mudfish, not beef, pork, skate (each of which has a number of sub-specialties) is the right call, I will never know. I think this fits into the worldview discussed above; i.e. don't ask questions, just eat. Regardless, the tub (or more like a trough) of live mudfish in the doorway, squirming around before a hoard of hungry businessmen swallow them up, speaks a thousand words.

Looking forward, this week I'll finally get a chance to travel around on my own. I'm off work after tomorrow (Tuesday) because the students are going on various field trips. I had the

option of traveling with the first year students...of which I *politely* declined. With all due respect, I get plenty of these kid's sass 3-4 hours a day that being a chaperone on an "educational tour" just didn't quite speak to me. But I digress...I'll instead head North, first to Cheongju to sit in on a few of Jing's classes--apparently they're dying to see a white person, a particular niche that I was born to fit. That should lead into a night of debauchery with the Cheongju Cherries, followed a brief spurt up in Seoul to greet David after his GRE. Give 'em hell, David, give 'em hell.