Cultural Exchange

Today I spent my break at school in a rather atypical fashion. A cultural exchange between Japanese students from Fukuoka and my own Korean students here at Donga middle school took place, encouraging tittering students to spill from their classrooms, assessing neighbors from the most similar of other worlds. The girls took the approach of immediately befriending them, in the amount that both of their limited English would allow. Cards were exchanged with phone numbers and email addresses. Pictures were taken, girls wrapping arms around each others' waists, smiling shyly with the omnipresent "V" sign. The boys situated themselves on opposing ends of the room, staring at eachother, a few expressing distaste at being in the same room as Japanese. Ignorant racism remains embedded in the Korean psyche, a deeply set anger at the former atrocities of Japan against Korea. It's not an unfounded anger, it's just exceptionally unhealthy and continually perpetuated. Some of the boys expressed their aggression by challenging eachother to arm wrestling matches, chanting the name of their country as they battled.

I found myself in a uniquely advantageous position today. No Korean students spoke Japanese, apart from a few pleasantries the school taught to prepare them for their coming. And I would assert that no Japanese students speak Korean becuase, well, who bothers to learn Korean outside this country? So I was displayed like a prize by my students when introductions were made. "This is my English teacher," said the girls. "Talk to them," they told me.

As I made valiant attempts at conversation with Japanese students, I discovered that their level of English is even lower than that of Korean students. I was so surprised walking into one class (the Japanese students were evenly distributed through all nine second grade classes) to be told that only one girl speaks good enough English to be able to converse. The introduction between myself and a Tashimi Yogoshaki was done by Park Jisung, and I realized how strange the girl's polysyllabic name sounded compared to the trisyllabic names to which I have become so utterly accustomed in Korea.

As I watched interactions between students, questions being asked and answered in unsteady English, I felt peculiar at finally being privy to dialogue at Donga. Being the only foreigner, it occurs rarely here. I took advantage of it, chatting with my students and going from picture to picture. Hopefully Eunbi, one of my favorites (don't tell!), will send me a few. It would be nice to have pictures with these students.

I've also come to assume that Korea and Japan are vastly different cultures; after two years here, I figure I am now in a position to note major differences between Koreans and Japanese people. But as I stood surveying the throngs of my students and our visitors, all dressed neatly in their different school uniforms, I realized that this was one of the few differences I could note. Apart from that, I could spot the typical Japanese hair cut, a shaggy cut that borders uncomfortably close to a mullet. Possibly the differences are more distinct as they age. I noticed that their teachers have a different look from adult Koreans; there is something unexplainably more attractive about a Japanese face.

As the Japanese students left, departing Korea after expressly visiting only my school for three hours, they marched between the lines my students made, cheering and waving at them as if it were a parade. The attention was completely unfocused from me, the lone westerner here. Fascination was caught up in the Asian foreigners. This voyeurism in others' lives that westerners are subjected to so frequently in Korea is a part of all of us, I noted, watching the teeming crowd of students and teachers below. It is a driving force in the desire to travel and live abroad.