So after too many hours of moving standing sitting waiting, here I am in South Korea. Jeonju University, which is not in Seoul, as I thought, but in Jeonju. Of course. I seem to forget that the obvious could be true here, since so much is uncertain. I am not the only EPIK teacher who doesn’t know my destination. Turns out, of the 340 of us in this intake, a good chunk of us only know our province. The big metropolitan cities are their own province, and everyone destined for Busan and Daegu are stoked. I call Gyeongbuk our mystery province. We have no clue—that’s one big blob on the map we could be scattered through. Keepin my fingers crossed for the coast. It’s funny how much of our interactions—we English speaking strangers—keep coming back to the anticipation of where we’re going. Who cares about where we’ve been? Even stranger is where we are now—this odd cultural limbo. Unmistakably in Korea, but not completely out of the West.
Processing all of this comes most obviously through food these first days. At the airport I was overwhelmed at mini marts where plastic wrapped sushi and mystery sandwiches were right next to the obvious hard-boiled eggs and bananas. Then there’s freeze-dried squid and sardines with little cartoons of the live versions glaring at you a bit. I wouldn’t be happy to be sliced up and laid flat in plastic with all my innards showing for the perusing snacker either, I guess. But also are completely unrecognizable items likes these little squishy pink or white balls (I later find out are rice filled with a bean curd paste, dessert). And yet, even in a slightly altered form, there they are: starbucks, pepsi, kellogg. Keeping to my principles, I avoid them, opting for a coffee from a small café and a small Korean version of Crustables with strawberry jelly and cream? in the middle. Alright snack. And at the truck stop I learn everything here is sweetened, even the garlic chips I bought—and later even the spaghetti we are served. And definitely the coffee.
Coffee here is the worst adjustment all of us are complaining about—presweetened powder or cold in a can. Instant. No black gold here.
We get three buffets a day. Guaranteed rice and kimchi (LOVE the tang of it), watery soups—broccoli, soy, etc. Haven’t figured all the options yet. Then some sort of curry style mix of veggies, and one with meat. And, assuming to accommodate us and ease our stomachs into this mix, are macaroni salad (can’t lie was my fav), corn flakes, spaghetti. Lots of fish, lots of ham, some green veggies, very little dairy.
Last night we feasted. It was AWESOME. EPIK even made a cake and we sang for all the birthdays this week. The spread was tables and tables long, and luckily they still gave us forks. Rice, kimchi, stir-fry, gobs of things in so many colors (I hope to figure out), and tons and tons of seafood. Beautiful. And the most colorful dessert table ever: tiramisu meets cream puff tacos and cakes and spikey little lychee fruit. And then in the middle chefs were fresh-frying crab, squid, veggies, soups. It didn’t seem to end. And it hasn’t really, because I am still full this morning, getting ready to begin our training.
Perhaps that meal was our first real step onto Korea, Korea’s first real step into us. I’m looking forward to being more adventurous and trading in my fork for chopsticks (not as scary since they still use a spoon).
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