at Hwaseong fortress, posing with the "guards" there to answer questions and pose for pictures, i guess 

the family i'm living with, last weekend on our family trip to Hwaseong fortress in Suwon 

culture

When I started talking about moving into a homestay, everybody said, "Oh, you'll learn so much about the culture!" I thought, yeah, but I really already know a lot. I'm really just doing it to learn the language. While I know I'm gonna learn the language a lot faster, I've sure learned a lot more about the culture than I thought I would. I didn't know I'd be so surprised at so many things.

The kids, who are 10 and 12, don't usually go to bed until 12 or sometimes even later! Last night, I was doing my homework while watching a Korean TV program (now that I live in a place that has a TV, I'm watching Korean TV for the first time). The family came home from visiting a friend's house around 10 and they hadn't even started their homework! The mom asked me to go over their English homework with them, so I did, and then I finished my homework and got ready to go to bed. When I went in my room, the mom made the younger girl come in with me so I could read a few pages in her English book to her and then listen to her read. I went to bed a little after 12 and both of the girls were still awake. I asked the older one what time she went to bed and she said 1! She didn't even have a project, just normal homework. Then, the mom has to perform magic to get the kids up and dressed in the morning so they can eat their spicy stir fried squid and seaweed soup. :)

After school, I knew that all kids whose parents can afford it go to a hagwon (private institute) for every subject they consider important, but it is really pretty crazy to think how much time and money they spend on all that. The girls I live with have a private science teacher, violin teacher, and someone else who I can't remember who come to their house. They also go to two English institutes and a math institute after school. I think I might be forgetting one of the institutes, too. They are busy! I'm jealous of them, though, that they can play musical instruments well and already speak another language.

a magnolia-like tree with blossoms that appear in spring time...there's also a purple version 

a common site this past week...pictures under the cherry blossoms (with the common victory sign, shown in almost every korean picture) 

beautiful cherry blossoms on campus 

amazing spring blooms at my university...now a lot have fallen off and turned into snow like floating petals when you walk under them 

homestay...the first days

I moved in Tuesday evening, with the help of Donnie and Clint. Everyone, including me, was amazed at how much stuff I have, which is sad. It all fits in my room with the piano and a few other things they left in there, but still, I need to get back down to two or three suitcases. I'm gonna work on that. I took my bed with me and left the other furniture and dishes at my old apartment for Treavor and Alina to use. All they had was a bed, so they were glad to get the stuff.

So, living with a Korean family is teaching me a lot already! I am actually pretty surprised about how patient and unirritated I've been. Praise God! The whole family was there to help me arrange my stuff. The dad insisted on helping me move things around. He said a lot of things to me that I didn't really understand and the girls told him to use simple language. I generally understand the topic of what the parents are saying when they keep talking like that and that's it. But, I hope that with more time, that will get better.

On the first night, the girls didn't want to leave my room. They were looking at everything, from my Korean study books to going through each piece of jewelry and commenting on it to opening every drawer. The younger girl made me some labels in English and Korean for my dresser, then she taped them on. They've actually come in pretty handy. I was so tired that night after staying up until three AM, going to school, then moving and unpacking, that I think I was too tired to think anything. The older girl stayed in my room until after 11 looking at stuff. When her mom asked her to go to bed, she said she wanted to look more and the mom just said OK!

The hardest part about living here is eating Korean food every morning for breakfast. I was hoping that the mom just cooked the first few mornings and didn't usually do that, but I asked the girls and they said she cooks every morning. Wow. I'm eating kimchi, dried seaweed, all the other side dishes, rice and soup for breakfast every day. The first day it was fermented bean soup (dwinjang jjigae), the next day beansprout soup, then kimchi stew, and this morning it was something with mushrooms in it. It's really good food, and my stomach can handle it, but i just want to eat cereal or toast and jam for breakfast!

There's an oven here, so I used it on my second day to make cookies. I gave a speech in Korean about how to make cookies (hardly anybody in Korea bakes) and I took pictures of the process for my speech and then took cookies to share afterwards. Of course, the family here got some too and they were impressed. I'm sure there are a lot of things I'm not doing right culturally so far, but homemade cookies can cover up a multitude of errors. The oven in this house had never even been used before!

I could write more, but I'll leave it at that for now. I have some pictures to post, but I don't have internet access from my own computer, so I can't post them yet. Later, I'll post some pretty spring blooms and pictures of our family trip to Hwaseong fortress today soon.

내일 홈스태으로 이사 할 거에요!

For those of you who speak Korean, please correct my title if it's wrong. For those who don't, it says that tomorrow I'm moving into a homestay. I don't even know if homestay is a word we use in America. Anyhow, tomorrowI'm moving in with a Korean family. They are a friend of a friend. I met them at their home on Friday and they were really excited to have me. They are clearing out a room (everything but the piano in it) for me. They have two daughters: 10 and 12. The daughters both speak English. One of them I think even lived abroad for a while. The parents don't speak a lot of English, so I can practice Korean with them. That's the reason I'm moving. (Another reason is that I'm going to China for five weeks this summer and don't want to pay rent during that time.)

I told them the reason I want to live with a Korean family is that I'm learning Korean, but don't practice speaking enough to really get good at it. The dad, who is a funny guy, said "Well, fortunately, I can speak Korean very well." In the short time that I was at their house on Friday, he corrected my pronunciation a few times, and even made me repeat after him, so I think he'll be a good person to practice with. Of course, they also want me to speak some English with the daughters, but I don't think that will distract too much from the reason why I'm there, and they're not charging me anything, so I can certainly repay them in that way and other ways.

I'm actually supposed to be packing right now. It's getting late and there are still quite a few piles laying around my living room that need to be packed. I'm amazed again at how long it takes to pack my junk. I am convinced that moving often is really good for keeping your stuff to a minimum. I feel like I've been to the trash more times in the past few days than in the whole time I've lived here. I'm trying to sort through and organize as I go, but now that plan has pretty much been ditched as I'm just trying to get the stuff crammed into bags and boxes.

On to another topic....I hope to post a few good pictures of the cherry blossoms here. The difference between how the campus looked Friday and how it looked today is absolutely amazing. There are a bunch of cherry trees and other spring blooms all over the campus. I walked around a bit today after class just taking it all in. I was going to take some fantastic pictures for you, but when I turned my camera on, it told me it was out of batteries. Tomorrow I'll hopefully get some before all the blooms fall.

keh-na-ri is the korean name for this. i don't know the english name, but this is one of the first flowers that pops up everywhere to show that spring is here. i love it.  

korean girls are addicted to high heeled shoes. they wear them with jeans, sweats, capris, whatever... they have so many stores with only high heels that i might consider buying some except for the fact that i'm already too tall for korea and they don't sell girls shoes in my size. this is at the express bus terminal on saturday when julie and i were shopping underground to escape the rain.

오늘은 개교기념 이에요!

Today is our school's anniversary, so I have the day off. Yay! It's a tradition for schools to take the day off on the anniversary of their founding date. I've been in level three of Korean language for almost a week now. I am enjoying it a lot more than level two. Our teacher is really funny (our reading teacher is kinda scary, but we only have her for one hour a day) and we have a bigger class with students from all over. We have a French guy, two Russian girls, four Chinese students, two girls from Sri Lanka, and a girl from Kazakhstan (I don't know how to spell that one). I'm the lonely American, but that will make me speak in Korean more with the other students. The teacher pulled me and the Russian lady who took level two with me aside and asked us if she was speaking too slowly or going through things too slowly. She's actually much faster than our previous teacher, so we were really surprised that she asked us that. She said we wrote really well in our homework, so she was wondering if we were bored. I'm far from bored. It takes all my concentration to stay with her when she talks in class and take notes at the same time. That's really good for me, though.

The weather is getting warmer. We had a lot of rain on Saturday, then Sunday the sun came out and surprised us with a beautiful, warm day. Yesterday the sun showed up enough for me to go to the roof with my picnic mat after school and read. It was windy up there, though, so I was still in jeans and a jacket, but the sun felt so good. Last night and this morning, I did my taxes (just to get them done...I'm afraid they're not done very thoroughly, but I think it'll be ok since I think I just need to file so I don't get in trouble) and now I think I'll head over to the library so I can study and be prepared for Korean tomorrow.

random slices of Korea, perhaps funny only to me

Every day as I walk across campus to my Korean class, the outside speakers belt out some song. Usually Korean pop, but one day this week it was Celine Dion "My heart will go on." I think if that were played on loudspeakers at an American university, the students would revolt.

The use of English is a continual source of entertainment. Recently, a woman on the bus was carrying a gift bag with this motto: "Please understand how I feels with this heartly present."

I'm constantly surprised by Korean fashion statements. A few weeks ago, there was a guy wearing jeans, a blue and white striped shirt, a short bright red necktie, and a purple velvet sports coat.

My level two Korean teacher would stand at the front of the class while she was talking to us and hit her rear end with her fist. It's pretty common here to hit yourself as a form of massage. When my Dad came to Korea, we were walking in the park one morning and there was someone repeatedly bumping up against a tree. Dad looked over questioningly and asked what the person was doing, but by that time it didn't look funny to me.

some girls enjoying their day off...sharing a package of chips in front of the main room of the palace 

two kids, encouraged by their mom to pose for us picture takers 

Val and the first blooms of spring at Deoksu palace. 

and tomorrow, back to school

It was an absolutely beautiful day. Today was the Korean equivalent of Arbor day. I went to the Seoul Museum of Art downtown with Val. I had some sort of longing to absorb some art after reading the books I've been reading. (I know, I can't stop talking about them, but tomorrow, I'll be absorbed in studying again.) Afterwards, we went to Deoksu palace next door and watched Koreans pose skillfully for pictures next to the first blooms of spring that appeared in random sunny spots. I wore my chaco sandals with jeans and a long sleeved shirt. I took along my sweatshirt jacket, but didn't need it. I love this time of the year when your feet are reminded of what air feels like, when the top of your jeans brush against your toes when you climb the stairs. When I got home, I realized my face had a little bit of new color in it from the sun. Yay!

view from the roof of my apartment building...apartments as far as the eye can see, and in the foreground, a park and the library 

my apartment building, seen from across the creek 

responding

I spent most of the day so far finishing my second book this week. I've had the time to spend on some other things than studying Korean, so I read two books (Chaim Potok's The Chosen and My Name is Asher Lev), watched a movie (Hotel Rwanda), and just made a little more space to think and reflect than I usually do. I don't know what exactly happened through these things, but when I finished the book this afternoon, I cried. It's a book about an artistic genius in a Hasidic Jew community. He's pulled between his dad, who wants his son to be a respectable Jew and not shame the family, and knowing that he has to use his gift. It's a complex story of family, amazing talent, and faith.

The two books involve genius and the struggles of the boys who have to chose between fitting in to their faith community and responding to the amazing talents they've been given. Their families struggle with the same things, going back and forth between thinking the gifts have been given by God or by "the other side." Because, why would a gift of God make them have to make the choices they have to make?

I remember having sort of the same reaction that I had to these books when I saw A Beautiful Mind. I've cried every time I've seen that movie. (Part of the reason is that, to quote my mom, I can cry at the opening of a Kmart.) But there's something about genius that requires sacrifice if the fullness of the gift is to be realized, and there is struggle. Not that I know this, because in myself I have a smattering of lots of talents and not a real concentration of any one (the result of a physicist and an artist who had kids), but I still identify with responding to a call. Responding to what you feel like is a call might require separation from family, friends, things you know and love. But it's not just separation. It's also fulfillment. Fulfillment in knowing you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, in experiencing and preparing for what you're called to do next. In finding joy in unlikely and lonely places. Some people see you as being selfish and others the opposite.

After journaling for a while, mostly just with questions instead of finding answers, I wanted some music. I looked through the music files on my computer and settled on a little sample of Beethoven that I think came on the media player and then Rich Mullins. There's something about Rich Mullins that identifies with what I'm feeling. A longing for what we can only taste in this life. Here's one of his songs:

The Love of God

There's a wideness in God's mercy I cannot find in my own
And He keeps His fire burning To melt this heart of stone
Keeps me aching with a yearning
Keeps me glad to have been caught
In the reckless raging fury
That they call the love of God
Now I've seen no band of angels
But I've heard the soldiers' songs
Love hangs over them like a banner
Love within them leads them on
To the battle on the journey
And it's never gonna stop
Ever widening their mercies
And the fury of His love
Oh the love of God And oh, the love of God
The love of God Joy and sorrow are this ocean
And in their every ebb and flow
Now the Lord a door has opened
That all Hell could never close
Here I'm tested and made worthy
Tossed about but lifted up
In the reckless raging fury
That they call the love of God