A New Menu

               

One of my Host Mom’s favorite phrases has been “New Menu.” Anytime we eat dinner she asks me if the meal consists of a new menu item or if I have had it before. Most of the time, my answer is the former, especially last week when snail soup and (yes, unfortunately) dog meat were the new menu items.

                One night I was getting ready for bed and my sisters barged into my room and demand that they needed my help. Always ready to do something new with the family, I see everyone gathered around a mysterious red bowl on the kitchen table. My mom began to explain the contents: hundreds of tiny snails they had retrieved from the river. Our job was to take each and every snail out of its shell and remove the foot while we were at it. I felt like I was in biology class again, dissecting and identifying creatures of the sort. Taking a toothpick, we would grab the soft body from the shell and slowly twirl out the organism that curled up inside its once protective home. To my amazement, the snails were a gorgeous turquoise/blue marbled color. Carefully completing this delicate task, my Host Mom explained we would have a “new menu” with snail soup. During our conversation, she also pointed at the family pet Yorki, Gami, while saying dog food. I first thought that he was going to eat the snail soup too. It wasn’t until she picked up the dog and reenacted gnawing at his skin that I realized the other new menu item this week would be dog meat. Apparently dog meat is my host sister’s favorite meal, so she is the one to blame, not me! Although I am not ashamed to say that I am much more of a cat person than a dog person, I still had to embrace myself for this other new menu item. I must admit, dog is not the worst meat on the planet, although it’s not something I will crave too often. I’ll just call it a day and cross it off the bucket list of things that weren’t really on the bucket list to begin with.

  One thing I just adore about Korea, or at least my Host Mom, is that many people are super healthy with the foods they eat and the natural process of obtaining said food. When I say natural process, I mean hiking up the mountain across the river, digging up roots, scouting out mushrooms, and plucking off leaves in the nearby forest. My Host Dad came home the other night with this mushroom the size of my head. My Host Mom Google Translated “this has anti-tumor properties.” She’s speaking my language! Nearly every meal, she points out the anti-bacterial, cytotoxic, anti-tumor activity of all the seasonings, roots, leaves and vegetables. Even the turquoise color in the snails apparently has a “100% cure for liver cancer.” Not only do I now know the random Korean words for mountain, cancer, liver, and mushroom, but I also know where I will be sending my future patients instead of prescribing them manufactured medicine. 

A Comfortable Place

               Coming to Korea, I knew this year would be one out of my comfort zone. I guess I have also made some sort of subconscious decision to push myself to the limit and stretch myself sort of like Gumbi …. as if living in a new country with a different culture, in a new family, and taking on a role as teacher wasn’t enough. I’ve pretty much decided to take those risks, break out of any shell I still had left over from college – in the end I’ll be a better person because of it.

                Within the first two weeks of school, I have already broken down the barriers I held in place against dancing and singing. I didn’t even make it through the introduction part of my class before I had to break down my “no-singing-in-front-of-people” policy. I had been introducing myself and my state to every class which included a Youtube video of Take me home country roads. Of course, one of the classes failed to have any sound or Powerpoint capabilities. This would be my luck. In my head I thought, “Oh, yea, I’ll just skip the whole song thing – no big deal.” WRONG. My co-teacher turns to me and says, “We sing. Together.” I had no time to freak out since he had already pulled out his invisible banjo and was humming the tune to my oh-so familiar West Virginia song. Before I knew it, I had successfully embarrassed myself and tortured my students. But my mind is at peace because they now know about the Mountain Momma in a place that’s “Almost Heaven.”

                 Not to mention, I also do not dance. Needless to say, this year will probably end with me dancing a performance in front of the entire school or something – if it keeps heading the way it’s going. To start off, during Orientation I signed up for a K-pop dance class intentionally knowing it would make me uncomfortable, but also intentionally knowing that it would push my limits. I ended up doing the B-boy portion (aka – break dancing). I LOVED IT! Although I can’t keep a beat with my body nor are my feet coordinated in any sort of way, apparently I had the upper body strength to do some of the crazy moves and holds, putting me in the center of our choreography. I never would have dreamed of that in my lifetime. If a B-boy class or K-pop club opens anywhere near Hwacheon, expect my name to be first on the list.

                Settling in my home stay family, I have discovered this pattern of exercise excursions that occur about three to four times a week. These outings initially begin with my younger sister 하영 (Ha-yong) asking me “운동 해요?” (aka – exercise). Not knowing what exactly I’m agree to, I’ll put my running shoes on, and out the door we go – I usually have no idea where we will end up.  Thus far our excursions have lead us anywhere to playing baseball/Frisbee/badminton in a parking lot, to biking at night time to the Fish Island (yes, Hwacheon has a Fish Island) to play baseball and soccer, to power walks along the river. My favorite time was our power walk by the river. Heading out the door that time, I knew exactly where we were going – on a nice stroll around the river walk. Nothing more, nothing less. Boy, was I wrong. Our lovely stroll ended up at the youth center where all of the women population of Hwacheon above thirty-five were participating in some sort of yogo/zumba/stretching/dance-mix to American music. Since I’m not one to miss out on an opportunity – and also the simple fact that I’m in breaking-down-the-barriers-mode – we all joined in. I had such a blast, making a fool of myself, uncoordinated and all, but it was quite an epic scene. I plan on going back, perhaps the next time we”운동 해요.”

                All in all, I am loving this subconscious decision I made to leap out of my comfort zones. Every day on my walk to school, I have a moment where I just hold my breath, close my eyes and embrace myself for the surprises that day will hold. These surprises are what make Korea the awesome country that it is, and these surprises are what keep me on my toes, looking forward to the day and stories to come. 

A Walk in the Park

One night I went on a run and was not that far out when I got a text message from Julie, one of the other ETAs placed in Hwacheon. Living in the same military apartment complex, she was playing with her host siblings in the playground and invited me over. Turning around for a quick stop to say hi, I had no idea that decision would be one of the best I had made all week.

My pit stop started out with Julie and I standing off on the outskirts of the playground with her pointing out her new home stay siblings from afar. Although we stood out as the 외국(waygooks - foreigners), the children were far too shy to incorporate us into their games. However, that did not last long. Within five minutes, Julie’s host brother came our way and started “shooting” me with his laser pointer. It would have been against my personality and core beliefs to just stand there and laugh as a four year old beamed me with his deadly weapon. No, instead I over-dramatically swooned in a horrific death by the dreadfully painful sting of the human-killing laser pointer. As I fell to the ground breathing my last breathe, I began a new life as a celebrity amidst the children of the Desian Apartment Playground.

          In about 3.5 minutes, after my resurrection from the sunbeam murder, all the children had bombarded us one by one, attacking us with their mystical spider webs, make believe machine guns and real life tickling fingers. The hour ensued with tickle fights, follow the leader, some sort of monster tag, and fits of giggles. As Julie and I captured the attention of twenty children, we would just look at each other in disbelief that this was really happening. We were the center of attention for that hour. Although they were confused beyond measure that we did not understand their language, some of them soon got the picture and started miming the next game to play. Regardless of the thorough charades of instructions, all game requests essentially ended up in an endless game of tag. Needless to say, I got my miles in that day, and my endorphins sky rocketed as I laughed more in those sixty minutes than in the last two months combined. Julie and I surely made a name for ourselves amongst the below-ten-year-old community. If this is where I make the biggest difference with my year in Hwacheon, I would say I accomplished something.