Goodbye, Again

Not to my blog, though. Don't worry about that. It may have been more than a week since I've written last, but I've been a little busy traveling up and down the country.

My travels took me from my home near Fort Smith to Little Rock, from there to Tulsa, from there to Dallas, and from there back home again. That involved a fair amount of driving - and a fair number of visits to the gas station where I had to fork over an unfair amount of cash - but it was worth it.

To Matt, Owen, Anna, Spring, Chris W, Chris L, Cassia, Joel, Mandy, Jen, Sarah, Mary Beth, Chad, Laura, Mr. & Mrs. Neale, and Mr. & Mrs. Carr: thanks for welcoming me back to the US just as I'm about to leave again. I guess it was a bit of a homecoming and a bit of a farewell mixed together.

And now: packing. I'm leaving here around 7:30 tomorrow morning, and I haven't even started putting my stuff in my bags! Well, I've always managed to round everything up before, so I suspect I'll get it done once again.

Next stop: Taiwan!

Where Do I Go from Here?

Korea, of course.

But some people haven't been satisfied with this answer. They like to know about those nasty things called details. They are unusually fond of asking hard questions. They want to know my reasons. And my whereabouts. What gives them the right, I could easily ask?

Being the pushover I am, I've put the details below along with a helpful map:


July
20: visit Owen in Tulsa
22: visit Matt, Spring, Chris, and Sarah in Dallas
24: return home, begin packing
26: watch Camelot, the musical (local Fort Smith production)
27: eat a Korean meal with my parents in Fayetteville
28: fly to Taiwan to visit my uncle John

August
3: return to Korea! arrive in Seoul
4: catch a bus from Seoul to Pusan (also spelled Busan, which incidentally is beating out Pusan on google hits by about 2 to 1)
6: start teaching kids again at a summer camp(this offer good for a limited time only!)
17: finish the camp and return to Seoul
18: start looking for a place to live

September
3: start my classes at 서강대학교 (Seogang Daehakkyo) - Sogang University.

You'll notice that toward the end of August my meticulous schedule becomes a little...open-ended. This is because I'm not entirely sure what will happen after that time. Never fear! Not only am I pretty sure that I will indeed do something, but I also have this blog, with which you can stay informed.

~David

PS - What's this about a kid holding up a sign written in some illegible script surrounded by some panting dogs?
In Korean, it says: "Please don't eat my friends."

[picture taken from The Marmot's Hole, a Korean blog]

Saving the Best for Last, or on the Seventh Day, God Made Korean Food

Today's Sunday, and I did the usual thing that people in the south do. Went to church. As I predicted last Sunday, I went to the local Korean service.

Once there, the usual things happened. I guess that might not mean much to those who haven't been to a Korean service before, so here's the rundown:

1) Singing in Korean

2) Praying in Korean
This goes on for quite some time. On this occasion, the woman praying was so emotional that I didn't really need to understand what she was saying to detect how deeply she felt about it. Which is a little fortunate, since I didn't understand most of what she was saying anyway.

3) Preaching in Korean
It was about the greatest commandment. I got that much of it at least. Of course, I also had a Korean-English Bible to refer to.

4) Giving tithes and offerings
Since they weren't using Korean currency, I don't really feel honest adding "in Korean" here.

5) Stretching
No, not horizons, or credibility. Just stretching arms. Left, right, forward... Seriously, this was part of the service. I thought it was rather considerate, actually.

6) Ku ku pal pal i sam sa (definitely in Korean)
This is the 9988234 chant I described on my other blog.

7) Eating Korean food
Including:
steamed spinach
turnip kimchi
And lots of this

Best of all, I got to take a heaping plate of leftovers home! Three weeks from now, I won't have to depend upon church potlucks for my Korean fix. I'll be having it three meals a day. And that's some food for thought.

I Have My Reasons

I really do, as much as you may wonder why in the world David is off to another country - and not Europe, mind you, or Canada or some other reasonable place - teaching English, learning Korean, leaving his friends and family behind and dealing with numerous inconveniences. There were the two months with no hot water, and diplomas submitted and not returned, and taxis that wouldn't pick up foreigners. Why put up with it all? Why stumble into law offices where hardly a word of English is spoken and try to get a document notarized that costs 50 dollars extra simply because - it's in English?

You might look at it a different way, though. Why live out your life in the ordinary way, continuing after a relatively uneventful, mostly successful cruise through college to the obvious grad program? Why idle away at home or in an easy career, thinking the same ideas and repeating the same words until the groove they wear in the mind is smooth and too deep to scramble out of?

Korea is, for me, another way to explore myself. It offers a history influenced by but distinct from the West, a people receptive of Western ways but uncertain of Westerners. It offers a language more challenging than those studied in American high schools because it is unrelated to English, a language bewildering because it reflects the intricate system of formality and courtesy ingrained in Korean society.

To learn it well, I have to try hard, and to keep on trying longer than I've ever done. I am a meddler and a dabbler, a prince of dilettantes, and no sooner have I started a new project than I've set it down again. This time, though I'm going to find my follow through. I'm going round the world again, and - this time - I'm not coming back until I've finished what I started.

More Soon

I've just gotten this blog going, but as you can see it's mostly skeletal. A bunch of scaffolding around the mere frame of a work, hardly begun.

See: Title.

Later, you'll be able to learn all about my continuing efforts to learn Korean, as well as miscellaneous observations about life, literature, culture. I.e. what you no doubt expect from blogs. But here language comes first.

Hope you'll keep me company as I learn.

David