more from 이연주 (I Yun-Joo/Yi Yeon-Ju/Lee Yeon-Joo...):

독재자

내 일기책은 두 권 -- 반항과 복종
열린 마음인 양 한 권은 사무실 책상 위에
숨통에 꾸려 감춘 다른 한 권에서는
도둑질 같은 땀이 귄다

반항과 복종이라는 두 명이
나는 어른이 되었네
이스트를 넣어 부풀린 삶 속에서
밀 덩어리를 반족하듯 -- 일기책

반항적 남성은 복종이 기쁨인 여성을 지배한다
흐르는 강물과 사계절은
지하실 남골당의 뚜껑 깨진 푸른 단지

두 갈래 습관의 혓바닥이 쓰네
노동의 참신한 내 하루
도둑질 같은 땀을 훔치며
도망치는 보상없는 내 하루

두 명의 나를 길러 끌고가는 나는
집단심리를 제대로 쓰는 재벌 아닌가?
어느새 나는 민중이라는, 내,
독재자가 되어 있다.


The Dictator

My diary is in two parts -- resistance and obedience.
One is an open heart on top of my office desk
and the other is shoved inside a throat,
a cold sweat gathers inside.

Now I'm a grown-up
with a yeast-bloated existence
as if working dough.
The diary of two things -- resistance and obedience.

A dominant male subdues a female
who finds happiness in obedience.
A flowing river and the four seasons
are a blue jar with a broken lid in a crypt.

The tongue of divided habit tastes bitter.
My new day of labor, a day of loss,
running away in a cold sweat.

I drag along the two of me I've raised.
Could I be the corporate class
proficient in manipulating group psychology?
Already I've become the populace,
the dictator of myself.

They fucked up the second stanza real bad, this time. This is a word for word translation:

resistance and obedience the two beings'
now I'm a grown-up
a yeast-bloated existence
as if working dough -- diary

I'm pretty sure that diary is meant to be read as a possession of the two beings. I have no idea what the clearest/best way to translate this is, but I don't like the way they switched around the word(s) following the hyphen in the English translation.

"Crypt" in the third stanza is also inaccurate; "underground room" or "basement" is more likely.

There are probably loads of things I don't understand about the original poem and how it was translated, but I like it, especially the line "I drag along the two of me I've raised." And I relate to the resistance/obedience conflict, I think.

The new secretary at my school found me in the subway on Friday, and we sat next to each other on the blue line going north for a while. She's a kind woman who has never been anything but sweet to me, and I didn't mind her company at all until she asked me what church I go to.

It's not so unusual here, the assumption that because I am American, I am also Christian. I am always carefully polite when I say I have no religion, far more polite than I would be in Michigan if someone made the same assumption about me. Should I feel the need to be this polite? The people who ask me these things have, after all, made a somewhat racist assumption about me, somewhere along the lines of: "she's white! she speaks English! she must believe in God!"

But Christian missionaries from the U.S. are a strong presence in Korea, and may have been an even stronger presence in the past. Maybe the association of American<-->Christian is not so unreasonable.

I feel as though the religious pressure on me is increasing these days. It wasn't so long ago that Park Mi-Ran wanted to introduce me to a famous singer who attends her church, wanted me to come to church with her. She knows I'm not a Christian, and I told her that I would probably feel uncomfortable going to her church because of this. She accepted my feelings, and told me to think about it. She told me that I am young, and I don't know what may happen to me or what I may believe in in the future.

Park Mi-Ran is a reasonable woman; she's not going to put undue pressure on me to do something she knows I am uncomfortable with. She's essentially just left the door open for me; she's not going to pressure me, but if I wanted to, she would be happy for me to bring the subject up again.

I won't bring the subject up again, but neither am I angry over this interaction with Mi-Ran. It's true that I don't know what will happen in my future. Having been a Christian as a child and having long since decided that God is not something I believe in, I doubt that Christianity is in my future - but I won't deny that it is a possibility. Mi-Ran was not disrespectful of me, I was not disrespectful of her, and we are going together to eat (Korean-version?) Argentinian food and watch a tango show this Tuesday.

My reaction to the kind-hearted and well-meaning secretary lady was just as polite, but I seethed for hours afterwards, maybe I'm still seething. After I told her I had no religion she proceeded to tell me that she wants me to believe in God, and that she thinks in 10 years I will be a Christian. I was never so happy to get off the subway.

It's acceptable for elders to interfere in the lives of younger people in Korea, I keep telling myself. It's acceptable for them to give un-asked for advice in all kinds of situations. I am a young person; she is my elder. It doesn't mean I have to follow her advice, but it does mean I should accept her input without anger.

But it makes me so angry. I have been working hard this whole time to accept the people who are in my life in Seoul, and to understand where they are coming from without judgment. It makes me (unjustly, I know) angry that they do not always return me the same favor.

Anyway, resistance vs. obedience. Most of the time I contain my resisting impulses and choose obedience - and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

**update: in retrospect, "rebellion" seems to be a more accurate translation of "반항" than "resistance".

god, I hate everything right now.

"European and American women are too arrogant for you? Are you looking for a sweet lady that will be caring and understanding? Then you came to the right place- here you can find a Russian lady that will love you with all her heart. Can't find a queen to rule your heart? How about beautiful Russian ladies that have royal blood and royal look?"

1 분 vs. 1 초

Someone put their hands on my head for the first time in over a month today, and then 3 more people did the same thing with varying degrees of firmness.

Then I cried (a little, a lot), the first time I've let anyone see me cry since I got to Korea 7 1/2 months ago.

Here are the reasons I can think of for needing (wanting?) to cry in front of U Young-Hee and I So-Yeon (gg#2) so urgently:

1. after school classes making me feel worthless as a teacher again, how can I manage this new environment?

2. guilt seeping in when you tell me you miss me, sometimes I wonder if I am a bad person for finding it so easy to leave Michigan and the U.S. and you, sometimes I wish I was the kind of person who found it difficult to leave things behind

3. I've been feeling a little fragile lately, as though I've perpetually just eaten tongue (@warmandbarky)

4. it's been a long time since I cried in front of someone, maybe it was time and maybe I knew that U Young-Hee and I So-Yeon were safe people to cry in front of and also that no one would think it strange if I felt many deep emotions while their hands were on my head

If I was still in BsAs I'd be going to sleep right now,

I guess I'll just blog instead.

When I walked out of the airport it felt like spring in Seoul, but the cold weather (read: 0-8 degrees C most days) is back now, I think that's for the best. For a minute I thought I'd skipped out on the end of winter, and was partly thrilled about it but also a little disappointed. I must have missed the cold weather, maybe I wouldn't do as well in a year-round warm climate location as I've always thought I would.

I spent the weekend getting over the cold I came down with mid-flight between BsAs and Johannesburg, and didn't really enter the world again until just this morning, the first day of the new school year at Seoul Electronics High School (Monday, March 1st was a national holiday - Independence Movement Day). For a long time I was completely calm about my approaching return to teaching, but I became incredibly anxious last night, briefly contemplated dropping everything here, flying to Chicago and spending the rest of my life crashing on Jamie's couch. Apparently I've returned to the pattern of my weekly Sunday night (or night-before-the-new-week-of-work) near-breakdowns. For some reason I thought my time away would change things in some way, I don't know how. But the old anxieties are still there, and I still feel infinitely calmer and happier at my desk at work than I do anywhere else in Seoul (except maybe at the top of a mountain, there isn't anything that makes me laugh the way the peak of a mountain does).

Everything's changed for the new year. Park Mi-Ran no longer sits beside me, and neither does Im Kyung-Hwa (frequently referred to as gossip girl #1). Shin-Jung seems to be stepping into her rightful place as my main co-teacher, and either I'll move desks, or Park Mi-Ran will no longer play as large a role in my life as I've become accustomed to.

I was expecting to be teaching 1st and 2nd grades again, but was told this morning that I'd be teaching 1st and 3rd grades instead. I start teaching Thursday, the new 1st graders were staring out the windows at me as I walked into school this morning and they either mumbled something to me in English or mumbled something to each other in Korean. I smiled and waved and stared back at them, they ducked back inside the window.

For some reason the instant coffee I just drank tasted exactly like I'd just vomited in my mouth, I hope that never happens again.

and then he told me I was a god

6 Feb. 2010

I've been dreading this movement but now I am moving (because it is time to move) and it feels like coming home a little, somewhere along the line airports ceased to be confusing and unknown places and became something like my comfort zone. Once more I am not searched at customs, though I have a shaving razor in my carry-on and I'm carrying several hundred dollars of converted currency that I was really supposed to report. #privatemeat is a cheese "whopper" in the lounge outside customs, I guess I eat cheeseburgers now

if I still have enough ₩ for wine. On the bus from Seoul I teared up briefly - it felt like I was leaving Korea - I am leaving Korea. Passport control asked me if I was coming back to Korea and I said yes - that's true, and I'm positive I projected the vulnerability in her tone. How strange that there is even the option to not come back but outside of my job there is nothing really to hold me here and I don't know why I am cleaving so tightly to Korea when it was so easy to leave Michigan.

15 Feb. 2010

They'll serve my cappuccino after I finish my panqueque 55, they don't drink coffee with food here. Korea doesn't drink any beverages with food, unless it's alcohol (I'm thinking about Korea a lot here). I've only just found out that Argentina is usually considered a third-world country, I'm not even sure what that means. The fact of my American privilege more obvious than it has ever been before (more obvious than in Korea? where I am given a job only for speaking English, where even the oldest person at the table sometimes treats me as the honored guest. I have things these people do not have and have no expectation of ever having. (Not all of the people, I mean, I don't know what I mean.

16 Feb. 2010

("Oh! Girls from Michigan are beautiful!") I imagine that everyone who sees me and Audra together here forms the assumption that all girls in Michigan don't shave their armpit hair. I finally managed to keep my eyes closed the whole time with two of the leaders, maybe I didn't even want to open them

Told me I was so tall and beautiful that if I would only dance my height (instead of trying to fit myself to the height of my leaders) I would have the world at my feet because I am a god ("sos Dios"?)

17 Feb. 2010

"Hola Leo, dame un poco de tu fuego" -Oscar, I don't know what it is about me that makes all the middle-aged porteños think I'll respond to the most saccharine and obvious pickup lines they can muster. "La vida es corta" is another

FUCK TANGO IS THE WORST THING EVER FOR MY SELF-CONFIDENCE IS THIS REALLY WHAT I NEED NOW?

24 Feb. 2010

I wonder if Korea will feel like home when the plane lands. I feel like a raw nerve right now - we're on the highway out of BsAs, I don't know if I'm ready for my sense of reality to shift again so soon. Nelly Furtado "I'm like a bird" just started playing in the taxi, we're at the toll booth. I'll definitely blog about that when I get home.

There's a strong "tow wind" which has "decreased our flight time substantially" - to 8 hours! Originally, flight time was 12 hours between Buenos Aires and Johannesburg, or something like that (though I can't be sure, flight lengths and times have been blending together these days) and I thought: OMG! only 8 hours! what a relief!

Turbulence is a side-effect of the strong tow wind, they've told us. I like the turbulence when it happens, it reminds me that there is a world outside, that we do not exist in isolation in this claustrophobic space. Most of the windows are closed - the window across from me was still open for a while and I could see some sort of horizon through it (though it was dark out, and we've been above cloud-level this whole time - maybe the horizon was the line between our layer of clouds and pure sky?) I liked that horizon, but my window view is gone now. It's light out now, I can see a corner of someone's open window and the real light from it is a relief from the darkness of the cabin, though I'm the asshole who turned on my reading light while most other people are still trying to sleep - I'm sorry! I tried to sleep, really, but I couldn't and the darkness and inactivity was making my head feel too tight, I needed light and OH NO now I can't even write anymore if this pen dies.

[pen didn't die! don't worry <3]

26 Feb. 2010

I've gotten so comfortable in seat 38A, by the window, that I'm dreading leaving it a little, leaving it means I am getting terribly close to Korea, terribly close to having responsibilities again.

WHAT ABOUT THE PUPA.

but Loretta used sugar cookie dough and hers was the best in all the land

I don't expect I'll be blogging much from Buenos Aires.

she nods gravely has had time to figure/I may have wanted better for her

I am a more neurotic person, I think, than I have ever given myself credit for.

I've been telling you guys that living and working in Korea has made me into a more anxious person than I have ever been before.

I don't think that's true.

It's true that I have a lot of anxiety about teaching. But my anxiety about teaching is a continuation of my ever-present desire to do my job (whatever it may be) well. This is not a new desire, and not a new anxiety. Why on earth did I care so much about my high school assignments if not because I wanted to do my job well? It definitely wasn't because of any high-flown respect for the education I was receiving. And why did I work so hard that summer I was at Target, or the next summer spent taking verbal abuse at HIO? It wasn't because I had much respect for the organization I was working for, and it wasn't because I enjoyed what I was doing or thought I was helping the world somehow by stuffing those envelopes a little bit faster. It was because I wanted to do my job well, and I wanted to please my superiors.

The difference is that in the past, I felt confident (most of the time) that I was doing my job well. Here, I have severe doubts about whether I have taught anyone anything in my time as an "English teacher," which has made my work-anxiety more apparent than it was before.

So, the anxieties I have here are not new. Neither is my psychotic avoidance/fear of the outside world that has me using all possible excuses to avoid leaving my apartment on days when it is not required of me. (Have I ever told you what I was like in London?) Neither are the deep-rooted insecurities that I've still let prevent me from seeking out the queer community in Seoul. Neither is the body/height anxiety that I still allow to frighten me away from tango with shorter men. (I don't mean that I think there's anything wrong with taller women w/shorter men; I think that's perfectly normal. And I have nothing against shorter men. It's anxiety about my own body and my own height that I'm talking about. Dancing with shorter men makes me extremely paranoid that they are frustrated at having to dance with me because of my height.)

I have a lot of neurotic body habits that I am too ashamed of to reveal even to those of you who have told me some/all of your neurotic body habits. That still stands; I'm not going to tell you about them. But it's a rare day when I don't bite my lips til they bleed at least twice.

I've spent a lot of time pretending to myself that I am not an anxious or neurotic person, but I don't think that has ever been true. I have overwhelming amounts of social anxiety, and I don't know why I'm only realizing this now, or why it's taken me this long to name it for what it is (though certainly some credit goes to @bird_esque and @andmyfeetare for making me feel less and less like neuroses were something shameful and not-to-be-talked-about).

I think I've been trying to create some image of myself as a strong person, because so much of my self-worth in centered on being able to do things and on being unafraid to do them. This is at least partly related to my constant need to separate my current self from my past selves, because I see more of my own faults than I used to, and I recognize my past selves as neurotic people.

I wonder if my "strong image" has fooled anyone. Realistically, I'm afraid of doing a lot of things. I once told one of my co-teachers that I was nervous about going to tango class because I had no friend to go with, and she laughed at me. "Coming to Korea by yourself is a lot scarier than going to tango class by yourself," she said. That should be true, right? Why was I able to make the decision to come to Seoul, but am consistently unable to make the decision to attend the everyday social events that should be filling my life by now?

And another thing: my mom's knee dislocation a year and a half ago made me realize way back then how fragile and how ableist my belief in my own strength is, when at any moment my body could change, could become unable to do many of the things (mountain climbing, dancing) that have come to be part of my identity.

How can I separate my identity from being able to do these things? How can I believe in my own worth without connecting my worth to the things I do well? How can I accept my neuroses and social anxieties without allowing them to prevent me from doing the things I want to be doing?

the man next to me on line 2 breathing heavily through his nose

1. makkoli and rediscovering my love of Andre 3000

2. "I want to shriek at / any identity / this culture gives me claw it to"

3. panic attack in the subway earlier, maybe because hungry, maybe because

4. "has nothing to / do with me or / my baby and never will"

5. and my principal is nice to me. that's

6. NICE.

7. meet gossip girl #2:

8. but how silly to be comforted by my own voice! as though

• a) I didn't miss the gossip girls like my masturbation hand

• b) I were some sort of constant in my own life!

9. "surely I have the right to say"

10. low for a "woman"

is it necessary to make this jeopardy game tonight?

can't I just blog instead?

some semblance of a plan w/o any semblance of motivation

Man, this is how it always happens.

I become sure of something without telling anyone about it, and then as soon as I let it out I start to question myself and my decisions.

Having told you all I'm thinking seriously about renewing my contract here, I am now questioning whether that's what I want to do at all, even a little bit. Haven't I felt inadequate and insecure the whole time I've been here? Haven't I been a more anxious person for the past 4 months than I've ever been before? Do I really want to sign up for another year of that? Can I even handle it?

Maybe it's just that I'm tired lately. I really need/want a vacation, I can't wait to leave for BsAs and not think about teaching for a whole month. (@warmandbarky let's never talk about teaching, ok? I mean, let's maybe talk about it just once, but then let's talk only about poems, ok?)

So I guess what I'm saying is: I've lost all of my motivation lately, all of it. I don't have the energy to study Korean, or to study the teaching methodology textbooks I borrowed from Park Mi-Ran just after Christmas, or to lesson plan, or to teach, really. And FUCK, if I don't have the energy to teach, then WHAT AM I EVEN DOING.

I'm also saying that I'm really hoping I get my motivation back after having a break. I really liked it when I was in love with learning Korean and teaching my students and never wanted to stop. I mean, I always hated lesson planning, but that's normal, I think, no one likes lesson planning. I just want to go back to when I didn't dread going to classes.

One more week of winter camp, then a week of no-classes, then a week of goof-off classes and graduation. Then 35 hours on 3 planes and flying around half of the world to get to @warmandbarky. I CAN'T WAIT, I THINK ABOUT SEOUL --> HONG KONG --> JOHANNESBURG --> BSAS ALL THE TIME.

새해 복 많이 받으세요!

Today was the first business day of the new year, which means even though most teachers are technically on vacation right now, a lot of people, and especially the head teachers, were supposed to come to work today. There was a celebratory lunch, with persimmons and rice-cake/dumpling soup and sake and wine, and all around me, all day: 새해 복 많이 받으세요! (sae-hae bok manee badeusaeyo! = Receive a lot of luck this year! = Happy New Year!)

Winter classes commenced this morning, as did approximately 30 cm of snowfall - which is highly unusual for Seoul. I've been told that the last time Seoul got more than 10 cm of snow TOTAL over the course of an entire winter was 10 years ago. 30 cm in one day is absolutely unheard of. But despite that, very few schools canceled winter classes. Since the roads were horrid and nothing was canceled, the subways were a warzone. I've gotten pushy about my subway etiquette, but twice I had to let a crowded train pass and wait for the next one. People propel each other on and off the trains, I was being pushed forward so quickly that I lost all balance or control of my steps, and had a moment of panic when I realized I was crossing The Gap Between the Train and the Platform and not able to Mind it in the least (i.e. I couldn't see where I was stepping, but knew that somewhere down there was a gap big enough for my foot to fall through). It was terrifying, and it put me in a really bad mood. Luckily, there was a 10-minute walk through the snow to calm me down.

3 students showed up to students' English camp, which technically starts at 8:30 am but doesn't really start until 9 am. That means 13 students woke up, saw the snow, and decided it wasn't worth it. I don't really blame them.

But only 1 teacher was absent from teachers' English camp, and that was fun. A few teachers that I truly didn't know could speak English are attending, and their grammar is perfect and their vocabulary is huge and I really can't figure out why they haven't spoken to me before, since their enthusiasm today showed that there are a lot of questions they want to ask me (about English, about life in the U.S., about my life in Korea, etc). Anyway, it was fun.

I haven't written on this blog in what feels like ages. I guess ages = one week when I'm addicted to telling you all everything (not everything, never everything, but I try) about my life here. It doesn't feel right for you to not know what is happening.

I just realized this is going to be a long post. Prepare yourself, or give up now, whichever you prefer.

I have 2 important things to tell you:

1. I've decided where I'm going for my 3-week February vacation: Buenos Aires, Argentina, to meet Audra-friend and be silly and dance tango together. Financially, I'm being a little irresponsible, and setting myself back about a month-and-a-half paying back my student loans, but I've been working hard here, and I have both the time and the money to make the trip, and a good friend to spend time with while I'm there, and I don't know when all those things will coincide again, and anyway what I mean to say is I just really want this, and so I'm going. I've bought the ticket: Feb. 6, Seoul --> Hong Kong --> Johannesburg --> Buenos Aires, 35 hours total in transit. I can't wait.

2. I was talking to Park Mi-Ran the other day, and she was telling me about some changes our school might be making to their admissions process for the 2011 school year, which would allow students from all over Korea to apply, whereas right now only students who live in Seoul can apply. In theory, that would mean that instead of admitting a group of underprivileged and largely unmotivated students who have done poorly in Seoul's middle schools, my school would admit a group of students from rural Korea who have never before had a chance to receive a big-city education and who would (probably) be highly motivated. It would be exchanging one group of students who never had much of a chance in the Korean education system for another group of students who never had much of a chance in the Korean education system. But Park Mi-Ran really hopes the change happens, because she is excited to be able to see the students working hard and to be able to watch their English improve. With our current group of students, it's sometimes hard to see improvement. With a few exceptions, they're not very motivated to learn English.

Anyway, I am getting close to the important thing I have to tell you. About half-way through my conversation with Park Mi-Ran, I realized that she was telling me about these possible changes to try to convince me that I should renew my contract at Seoul Electronics High School. It made me really happy to know that she wants me to stay, that she wants to continue working with me. What she doesn't know, and what you maybe don't know, is that with or without the projected changes to school admissions, I really really really want to stay, I think, I really really really want to renew my contract. The time hasn't come to make the final decision, yet, and it won't come for at least another 5 months, but you should know that I'm seriously considering staying in Korea for another year beyond my current contract, maybe even longer. I'm in love with my school, both the teachers and the students, and I have a lot of goals here. I don't think I'll be ready to leave until I'm satisfied that all of them are complete: 1. become proficient in Korean, enough that I can carry out any necessary conversation without resorting to English; 2. become a confident English teacher, to both high school students and adults (subgoal: get my TEFL certification); 3. travel the Korean countryside extensively, climb a lot of mountains; 4. travel to places that are more convenient to travel to from Seoul than from other places I am likely to live in the future: China, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, New Zealand, maybe India.

In conclusion, I feel (and have felt for a while) that I am in this for the long haul. That feeling is subject to change, of course, as my time here continues and my perspective shifts, but right now, I'd put the cap on my time here at somewhere around 3-5 years.

Are these 2 important things I have told you making you unhappy? I hope not. Realize that I am doing both of them not to hurt or avoid any of you, but because I feel that these decisions are what's best for me right now, these are the things that are making me happy.

Finally, some real snow.

Finally, my boots slide when they hit the road. KBS News says we're getting 1-3 cm, and that's a big deal, believe me. I'd realized it was snowing early on in the day, and felt irrationally cozier in my apartment because of it, but I just made a run to the convenience store on my street and realized we actually have a little build-up! Borderline temperatures mean that it will get icy soon, and if the snow stays long I'll definitely tire of it. But! I'm definitely taking a nighttime walk tonight. I'm definitely reveling in the crunchy-and-slippery that will probably be completely mush by morning.

I face my own mortality once every week or so at Namtaeryeong Station

It's not often I take the blue line home (it's only a 20-minute
walk to Sadang, and after all the bus is faster)

but at just after 4:20 pm Namtaeryeong is deserted, the trains
come only every 15 minutes or so,
I like that, and the escalator goes down that
unbearable distance between the tickets and the platform.

Walls painted like the pastel
anus of the 70s, anywhere else
I'd walk. Everywhere else the escalators come
in blocks of 20 or so, but Namtaeryeong is deep. It's

best if there's no one else in sight, it's best if I'm wearing
heels that day. I stand still, the wait is unbearable. It will take
my whole life to get to the bottom, and then where will I be?
It will take my whole life for a train to come. I like that.

It's best if a middle-aged woman
stares at me from the other end of the platform. It's best
if I have a clementine with me that day.