Showing Respect

Last week, while walking around Seoul, with a friend we came across a rather large gathering of people paying their respect to the previous South Korean President whom recently passed away. The people were reading news articles about President Roh Moo-Hyun while also paying their respects by standing in a line to bow as a way to show respect.

On a side note, a friend of mine recently moved to Shaghai, China for an internship with a magazine on economics. Hopefully I'll be able to find the time to make a short visit before I leave in August.

This weekend is Memorial Day weekend, and I'll be traveling to another province to go nature trekking through a river. Should be relaxing. :)

Coffee in Corea, and Nukes in the North

I don't drink coffee, but I enjoy cafes, and Seoul has many of them. Most of the cafes are grouped together in certain districts of the city, as most things are grouped together in Korea. A couple of my friends are coffee aficionados so they enjoy tasting espressos from various cafes. This man roasts his own beans in a rather small, book cluttered, cafe.

Life in Seoul is much the same as before the North Korean nuclear testing of their bomb. South Korea is technically still at war with their neighbor, so they are quite used to the raised tension. Some of my fourth grade students painted some posters promoting peace and reconciliation between the two countries, and some were very creative. I'll try and grab a picture of a few and post them next week. Maybe there is hope that one day North Korea will rejoin the world instead of trying to provoke their neighbors.

blog.stevenswigart.com

My new blog is up: blog.stevenswigart.com

I will continue to post my experiences in Seoul on this blog. :)

Teacher's Day

Last Friday caught me off guard, because it was Teacher's Day. I was not really expecting anything from my students, but to my surprise I received flowers (real and fake), chocolate, and many letters. All of the letters were precious and fun to read. Most were in English, and a few were written in Korean where my co-teachers had to translate them for me. I was not expecting it to be such a big deal.

While waiting on some friends at a subway station a radio personality came up and interviewed me on what I was doing in Korea, the radio program being one that helps Koreans learn conversational English. Through the interview I learned that May is the month of family holidays in Korea, the main ones being: Children's Day, Parent's Day, Teachers Day, and a couple others I can't remember. The interview reminded me that I wanted to do some radio volunteer work while here in Korea, but I've managed to stay busy enough not to attempt it. But I imagine while in grad school I'll do some radio work again.

Later this week I'll have my Art, Tech, and Politics Blog up and running, and by politics, I mean general social issues and how they affect us. I uploaded it to my website earlier this week, now I just have to tweak it a bit and make my first post before I post the link here.

JIFF

Went to a film festival this past weekend, as it was also an extended weekend because of a few Korean holidays. The film festival was called JIFF, standing for Jeonju International Film Festival, and it was quite impressive. Last year I went to Pusan's film festival, but it was much more hectic, JIFF was more relaxing due to its more laid back country atmosphere. In Pusan it was nearly impossible to obtain tickets, but since JIFF is not as well known as PIFF it's much easier to get tickets. Yet JIFF still has that raised excitement and a nice crowd for the movies which is important for a film festival and probably has even more excitement and a bigger crowd than Atlanta's film festival.

One of the highlights of the film festival was being able to watch a Korean film with a talk back with the directors and the two actors after the film; the film festival would have people translate to English so that foreigners would participate in the talk back.

Jeonju is a small city with a traditional Korean flavor. It's known for it's bibimbap and small traditional Korean village.

Last Friday we had a sports day because in Korea they are about to celebrate Children's Day, a holiday where children, or teachers of those children, under 12 don't have to go to school. Which is one of the reasons why I'm only working Thursday and Friday of this week.

Brief April Thoughts

The weather this April has been beautiful. :) And it was nice having my parents be able to visit for two weeks, they were great travel companions. The amount of kimchi my dad consumed was amazing, especially coming from a guy who claims he does not eat spicy food. My dad before coming to Korea would say that too much pepper might be a bit to spicy for him. But in the midst of the Korean experience he ate and enjoyed more spicy food than I've ever seen him eat.

How fast time flies, before I know it I'll be looking out a plane window flying back Atlanta.

Living in another country has given me better insight into my own culture, which is probably the best part about living in another culture and country. Although, now I'm excited about going back and starting my education and continuing my career.

Grad School Acceptance, Busan part II, and Parents

My parents have now been in Korea for about a week, and have proven themselves quite adventuresome. While I'm at work, they'll be out and about exploring the large city of Seoul. This previous weekend we all went to Busan via Korea's high speed rail, the KTX. The KTX is a great way to get to the complete other side of the country in around 3 hours time, with trains running just about every 20, or so, minutes.

Busan proved to be just as interesting the second time, and my parents might have even loved it more than I. This is probably because my family started off in Jacksonville, FL, and Busan has a similar culture to it in some subtle ways. (The most obvious cultural comparison is that they are both cities on the beach) During this past winter, I was wishing I chose Busan over Seoul. My Korean literature teacher was from Busan, and I should have listened to her when she said that Busan has an extremely nice and welcoming culture, because it's true. :) Since it was an off season time for tourism in Busan we were able to stay at a nice beach front hotel for a reasonable price, which made our short stay even more enjoyable.

I found out a few days ago that I was not only accepted into grad school, but also offered an assistantship, which means I will be to attend grad school tuition free with a stipend. It worked out nicely to have my parents here to share the good news, as this is probably the best news I could have hoped for. The school is Georgia State University in downtown Atlanta, and the degree I will be working towards a MA in Communications in the department of Moving Images (Film/Video/Media) with a concentration on production. Atlanta has a growing production scene, and the cost of living is considerably lower than other cities with comparable production work, so it will be an excellent place to attend grad school, and I'm excited to meet the faculty whom I will be working with. GSU offers many great resources where I will be able to build on my previous experiences and create some interesting projects in the process of learning, and the faculty is composed both of research and production oriented members, which I find important. I've been spending a lot of my time in Seoul just doing some basic research, so I look forward to trying to apply much of the knowledge I have been reading about.

The transition from Korea to Atlanta will be an extremely quick one, but it will be a satisfying feeling knowing where my next step will be once my time in Seoul is over. And attending grad school this year seems to be the perfect time for me to gain more knowledge that will help me continue my career and potentially broaden my horizons. I finish teaching in mid August, and the grad program also starts in mid August, so these next few months I will be working towards a smooth transition. On a side note, GSU has a great library, so it will be fun to have that amount of resources at my fingertips again. I did not see myself going back to school so quickly after graduating from college, but after teaching in Korea, I really value the importance of education more, and am extremely excited about continuing my education at a University.