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| Since I've gone a ridiculous length of time without updating, a full account of everything that's happened would take more time to write than I can afford. So, this post will mostly be about the most important events of the past 3 months: namely my marriage to Rebekah Bouas and our return to Korea.
So I got married last weekend. While I know that the wedding occurred (I was there, after all), there is still a surreal feeling about the wedding and everything surrounding it. In fact, everything since the 23rd of July is kind of fuzzy. On July 23rd, Cory and I finished packing up for our trip to the US, played one last game of Starcraft as we waited for it to be time to leave, and took off for the US and the biggest day in the rest of my life. From then on, my memory seems to be a swirling haze of "Hi!"s and "Welcome back"s, with flashing scenes of my family at the airport, reunions at HAUS, dinner at the Armstrong household, a wonderful reception at First Baptist Church Ferguson, great conversations at the Peters apartment, "Seal dismounts" off a pontoon boat, "I do," communion, reception, packing, airplane, unpacking... *deep breath* and back to school. Still pictures and short scenes have been playing across my mind's eye during nearly every resting moment since I sat down on the airplane to return to Korea, as if my mind gave up trying to take in the many profound moments and began storing them for later replay and processing. So many people poured so much time and energy into helping Becky and I put this wedding together and the result was beautiful. Though I don't expect the photographer's pictures to be ready for about a month, Sam took over 500 pictures on my camera, which Becky and I will get up for people to see as soon as we can.
As I was reflecting on the wedding with Becky, two aspects of the wedding were deeply moving to me. First, the deep sense of unity of belief and purpose among Becky and me, the wedding party, our parents and our pastor. In preparing the ceremony from beginning to end, Becky and I planned nearly every detail to glorify God. From our choice of vows and the wording of the inquiry and affirmation, to asking our pastor, Tim Juhnke, to give a message which was explicitly covenental and evangelical, we wanted our wedding to reflect our intentions for our marriage. In the same vein, I greatly appreciated the unity of mind and spirit among my groomsmen and myself. Cory, Gary, Bryan, Chris, and Colby have all been great encouragements in my life, dedicated in their pursuit of God and faithful brothers in Christ since I have known them. On D-day we sat around Gary's living room, suited up and waiting for our photographer, and had a small worship service dedicating ourselves and that day to the Lord. Cory led us in prayer, and together we recited the Apostle's creed and the Lord's prayer and sang Rock of Ages. I know that is probably highly unusual activity for just before a wedding, but it seemed fitting to me and it was really cool that we could all do that together.
Second was the number of people that travelled long distances to be at the wedding with us. Friends drove from Colorado, missionary family barely off the surgery table drove from Texas, while others came from Oklahoma, Tennessee and Florida. Becky's former host families sent cards and gifts from Germany, other gifts and cards came from Wyoming, France, Paraguay, and South Korea. It was truly touching how many people from so far away went to great lengths to be present or at least make their love known at our wedding.
I'm about out of time for this update, but expect another one either later today or this weekend describing the trip back and the first couple of days back in Korea with Becky. We're going to hold each other to writing regular updates for our friends and family back home. | | |
| Transliterated, the title of this post reads, "Yongo Sonsengnim; Hangukmal Namhakseng," or English Language Teacher; Korean Lanugage Student.
I started this post a week ago today but never finished so before I go on to today's post, here's last week's mini-post.
The Score for May 15, 2008:
Managed to take the bus to my school that's 30 minutes away.
Josh: 1
Upon arrival at work, I successfully negotiated the squatty toilet/hole-in-the-ground thing for the first time in my life.
Josh: 2
After these two grand acheivements, I went to the principal's to tell him good morning and interrupted a big meeting.
Murphey's Law: 1, Josh: 2 Not a bad day.
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Back to May 22.
I was about 20 minutes late for work at 더걱 (Dogok) today as the 200 bus apparently decided that it was going to be 40 minutes late. Grr. Fortunately, the bosses at Dogok are understanding and I wasn't in any kind of trouble. As Cory mentioned in his last post though, it seems that orginization is not a strong suit here. Examples abound every day of last minute changes to class schedules, syllabi, etc. A day rarely goes by that Cory and I know who we will be teaching prior to class time, though we were both given class schedules upon arriving at our schools. One of my professors once said that no lesson plan survives five minutes' contact with students. In these schools' cases, no class schedule survives five minutes' contact with the faculty. The students do just fine following along the lesson plans themselves. It's mildly annoying, but those of you who know me know that this is basically how I function anyway, so I don't really have a lot of room to complain. Give me structure and I'll try to bend it to do what I want to do. Fail to give me structure and I'll feel weird not having to bend anything in order to do what I want to do. Meh.
In other news, I think I'm going to miss having Korean food when and if I ever leave this place. Kimchi, Sam, gimbap, etc are all really great foods and Cory and I were commenting just last night as to how quickly we changed our mentalities from, "I don't think I'll mind this too much" to "I wonder if we could find some Kimchi when we go to the US in August..." Seriously, it grows on you really quickly.
When I was in the US reading about Korea in preparation for this trip, I got really excited about the abundance of Presbyterian churches here. Upon arrival and asking around, it seems that "Presbyterian" is about as broad a term here as "Protestant" or "Evangelical" in the US. There are Pentacostal Presbyterians, Reformed Presbyterians, Baptist Presbyterians, Pentacostal Arminian Presbyterians (have fun figuring that out), but nobody seems to use any of the adjectives. They just call themselves presbyterians. At any rate, for the past two weeks we've attended a service at a Presbyterian church in Gwangju. It's an English language service, and about 50% of the congregation is South Korean and the rest are native English speakers mainly from South Africa, but with some from the New Zealand, the US and Canada. The pastor's name is Duncan Nortman, a South African missionary with YWAM (I think). Though I (and I think I can safely speak for Cory on this) miss Faith Community Church in Kansas City very much, I think we can find a place to both contribute to the body of Christ and grow in Him at this church. Ok, I know my posts never have the level of detail that I want to give them, but it seems that there is never enough time to report everything that I see. Suffice it to say that my head is forever swimming with new 한국말 (Korean language) and 한국 문화 (Korean culture), and I love it.
안녕히가세요 "Anyonghi keseyo" (Goodbye) | | |
| So it's been awhile, and tonight's update is going to be shorter than
I'd like as I'm pretty tired and would like to finish Abel Sanches
tonight. At any rate, with so few comments and what not I'm not even
sure how many people are reading this, but I'll continue to post anyway
because I'm hopeful that you are.
I'm currently experiencing my
first thunderstorm in Korea. With the mountains surrounding the city
and my third floor apartment in a pretty high part of town, the view is
dramatic. Lightning illuminates the surrounding foothills and outlines
the skyline, while the sounds of heavy rain and distant thunder create
soothing background noise. It the storm itself reminds me of those we
would get in Paraguay, but the backdrop of mountains and signs in
Hangul are clear differences. Monsoon season is not supposed to begin
until June, so I don't expect this storm to last too long, but I'm
looking forward to experiencing the monsoons soon.
Today, for
those of you who didn't know, is day on which Koreans celebrate
Siddhartha Buddha's birthday. If he was in fact born on this day of the
year, many scholars estimate that today would be his 2,408th birthday,
though guesses vary by 20 years either way. Cory and I were invited to
a Buddhist temple to observe and participate in the celebrations, but
opted instead to go on a picnic with a church we've just begun
attending. It was a fun trip, once we arrived at our destination. Cory
and I are discovering that many plans change at the last minute here.
Regardless of previously set details, plans as simple as picnics or as
important as employment contracts seem to be subject to change at the
drop of a hat. Though at times rigid and inflexible, agreements seem to
be, at times, meaningless. I'm still trying to figure out the patterns
or rules which dictate which decisions are final and which are
flexible. The contracts that Cory and I signed seem to be in the latter
category, as we were presented with new contracts last week. The new
contracts included about 2 more weeks of vacation time, but a $100/m
decrease in salary. I reminded my co-teacher, who has been serving as a
liaison between me and my school of the legally binding nature of a
contract. She acknowledged that this was a problem, but told me that
there had been a mistake on the contract regarding my salary. While I
still fail to see how said mistake is my problem, and while the
principle of the matter is intensely frustrating, the pay cut itself is
not going to hurt too much and I will appreciate the extra vacation
time. I went ahead and signed the new contract.
On a more
positive note, Cory's co-teacher and supervisor took us both on a
wonderful outing last Saturday. We began in the morning by attending a
Korean wedding in a town not too far south of Hwasun. The the whole
ordeal took place in a giant monolithic "Wedding Hall." On the first
floor was a large lobby lined with doors which led into separate rooms,
in each of which a wedding was in progress. The structural design
reminded me of a funeral home (though the atmosphere was certainly more
festive), with each room separated from the next by a thin wall and
separate ceremonies taking place simultaneously and overflow observers
from each room milling around the lobby. The floors above were occupied
by banquet rooms with buffets and tables filled with colas, beer, and
Soju (a rice liquor which tastes much like a weaker version of vodka).
After the ceremony we had lunch, which consisted of many Korean
standards that I'd tasted before; Kimchi, fish and Kimbap, and some
that were new to me; sliced raw beef, octopus, and something which I
still cannot identify.
After lunch we drove further south and came to the seashore. Cory and I have now seen the Pacific from the other
side, which is pretty neat to think about. After just a few minutes at
the beach, we hooked north and east and stopped at shrine to a Korean
general and a Dokcha (green tea) plantation. I've posted pictures of
the beach, shrine and plantation in a facebook photo album. The shrine
was dedicated to General Choi Dae Seong who, with his sons, helped push
a Japanese invasion out of Korea. The plantation was beautiful. The tea
is grown on terraces which form ascending concentric circles on several
hills. The province in which the plantation is located (Bosan, I think)
produces over 80% of all of South Korea's Dokcha, and from the top of
the plantation, nearly every hill I could see off into the distance was
covered in terraces of tea plants. The view was spectacular and though
I tried to capture the feel in my pictures, keep in mind that they
can't do the scene justice.
After visiting the plantation, we
continued north to a Buddhist temple. Darkness had fallen by then, and
the path to the temple was lined by lanterns, though they were not lit
when we arrived. There was enough moonlight though, to make our way up
to the temple, where a monk was saying his prayers in front of a huge
golden Buddha. Okjin (Cory's supervisor) invited us to pray in front of
the Buddha as well. We declined though, and sang the Doxology on the
walk back down.
After all that, we stopped for dinner back in
Hwasun. Most of the Korean food I've had has been from above average to
great, but this was really phenomenal. We had Sam yaep Sal, which is
essentially strips of pork (think Bacon, but much thicker and not
chemically treated) which were placed on a grill/hot-plate thing in the
middle of the table along with onions and garlic. This came with a
rice, three different kinds of Kimchi, lettuce, green chilis, sweet
pickled radishes, spicy soybean paste, Soju, and various kinds of
greens. To eat Sam yaep Sal, one cooks his pork on the hot plate in the
middle of the table, turning it with tongs or chopsticks until it's
done. Then he puts the meat on one of the large leaves of lettuce,
along with a bit of grilled garlic and spicy soy paste (and rice,
kimchi or chili pepper as desired), wraps the whole thing up in the
lettuce leaf, and stuffs the whole wrap into his mouth. It's not rude
to cram it in, in fact we were told it would be silly not to, as all
the food would fall out of the lettuce. This was just about the best
meal we'd had in months. Seriously, if there's a Korean restaurant near
you, go there asap and ask for Sam yaep Sal. Tomorrow.
Anyway Cory and I walked home after dinner and promptly fell asleep into food comas. And it was a good day.
Ok,
now I know I've only written about last Saturday and left out details
about even that, but this is already longer than I expected it to be
and I'm still sleepy and have the previously mentioned book to finish.
There will be more later, though it's coming could be hastened by lots
of comments... | | |
| At the end of my first week day in South Korea, I'm thinking I really
like it here. Aside from the actual process of getting here, it's been
really great. The flight from Chicago was, as expected, long. We took
off from Chicago at ten minutes to 1pm on Thursday (CST) and arrived in
Seoul at about 8pm Friday (Seoul time, so 6am CST). Upon arriving, we
were to meet "someone" who would be waiting with our names on a sign to
take us to the bus station to catch our bus to Gwangju. "Someone,"
however, was not there to meet us when we arrived. In fact, "someone"
arrived at the airport 3 frantic e-mails and 4 hours after our arrival.
He
was a hired driver and took us to the bus station, bought our tickets,
wrote down the license plate number of our bus and time of departure
(12:50pm) and left. So here we were, two lost looking Americans among a
pile of bulky luggage outside a Seoul bus station in the middle of a
cold night, and a very drunk very belligerent old Korean man staggers
over to us and begins to speak. Imagine the male Korean version of
"crazy neighbor" and you've got the picture. My mother has a word for
this sort of situation. Cory and I were having an adventure. Drunky
McDrunkerson tries to board a bus for which he apparently has no
ticket. A bus attendant and a local businessman approach and ask him to
leave (at least, it looks to me like that's what they're suggesting),
but he shoves the attendant. The attendant again points away from the
bus and steps closer to him, while the businessman tries to coax him
away. While the show we were seeing was interesting, I hadn't eaten in
about 8 hours and was a bit hungry and, being the stalwart and faithful
friend that I am, I left Cory with the bags (and the drunk) to see if I
could find someplace in the station that was open and selling something
edible. I did, and was just finishing a bowl of soup and kimchi when
Cory comes in to tell me that we had to get on the bus.
A three
hour nap later (right about 4:00am Seoul time), we pull into the
Gwangju bus station where another "someone" was to pick us up. It was
at this point that it really sunk in for Cory and I that punctuality
does not seem to be a major priority around here. The someone we were
waiting for, Julie, arrived at 9:45 to pick us up, giving Cory and I
more than ample time to explore every bit of the Gwangju bus station.
Julie apologized profusely and bought us an awesome lunch as an apology
and had her brother drive us to our apartments in Hwasun. Though the
getting here was long, waiting around for rides was about the lowest
point in the journey. Things have been pretty great since then.
When
we got to our apartments, Cory had a gift back waiting for him. It
seems that an Aussie family got wind of Cory's coming but hadn't heard
that there'd be two "American blokes turning up." Anyway, they invited
us to go to church with them on Sunday. We spent most of the rest of
the day sleeping and unpacking, though we did walk around the
neighborhood a little bit. Hwasun is a great little town nestled at the
feet of a range of beautiful mountains (think foothills of the
Appalachians, not the Rockies). The teachers and principal at my school
have been friendly and patient with my poor (read: practically
nonexistent) Korean, and have been teaching me more and more every day.
I'll update more about work later, but for now I just want to get this
posted and take a nap. So I'll leave you with my mailing address at my
apartment, should any of you care to send me letters, cards, care
packages, etc. To send mail to Cory, replace the 301 at the end with
401.
Joshua Hastey
South Korea
Jeollanamdo
Manyeon-ri 519-800
Hwasun-gun-eup
Buyeong 3, 304/301 | | |
| So my last night before leaving is coming to an end, and it was good. I
spent it packing, talking to loved ones on my new Skype account, and
hanging out at an American pub drinking Belgian beer and talking to
Uruguayans who are on a world tour about their travels and my upcoming
trip to South Korea.
Awesome. | | |
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