The Start of Settling into Life in Korea
- Jennifer Choi
- Apr 10, 2024
- 13 min read
Happy April, everyone! It’s spring time here in Korea (as it is in the States) and the cherry blossoms have bloomed~ It’s already been about seven weeks since I left orientation and moved to my placement. Since then, the school year here in Korea has been underway and I have been able to start getting a sense of what my life here in Korea looks like. Here are some updates and reflections from this past month (late February-March) that I wanted to share with you all!
From a trip to Busan/부산!!!
Reflections on Family
During orientation, we were not allowed to meet anyone outside of our program, so one of the first things I did as soon as I got to my placement was make plans to see my family here. My mom and my sister actually arrived to Korea around this time for a two-week visit, so I got to see them and spend time with some family on my mom’s side. Because I had never been to Korea prior to Fulbright, there were a lot of relatives who I had never met before. The first time I ever met my uncle/외삼촌 was when he came to pick me up from the bus station… literally the first time we ever saw each other was when I hopped into his car (don’t worry, I was given his license plate in advance so there was no stranger danger here LOL). He brought me to the first family dinner I had in Korea, where I was able to see familiar faces like my mom, sister, aunt/이모 and uncle/이모부 (이모 and 이모부 were familiar only because they’ve visited the States before, but even that was over a decade ago). Mixed in with these familiar faces was my 외삼촌’s wife (my aunt/외숙모), and their daughter, my 8 year old cousin, both of whom I met for the first time.
My mom’s visit was her first time in Korea in over 30 years. The last time she was in Korea, I wasn’t even born yet. Due to personal reasons I won’t share here, she felt like she couldn’t come to Korea even though she had long wanted to. It took a lot of convincing from my 이모 and 외삼촌, but she finally agreed to come this year. It was clear, though, that the Korea she left in 1993 was not the Korea she returned to in 2024. The tastes in certain dishes that she was hoping to rediscover in this visit, that she was never able to find in the States, couldn’t be found in her two-week visit here. At the same time, she was confronted with aspects of Korean life that were new to her, that didn’t exist when she had lived here. Perhaps there was a sense of mourning for the Korea that she once knew, but I think more than that, my mom was just really eager to reunite with her siblings - she hadn’t seen my 이모 (her older sister) in over a decade, and she hadn’t seen my 외삼촌 (her younger brother) since the last time she was in Korea over 30 years ago. In the time that we all spent together, stories about my mother were naturally brought up and reminisced about, stories of her youth that were proof of the life she lived here before I entered her life. While my mother’s return to her homeland was brief, I will always be grateful to have been a witness to it. I’m grateful that the Lord would have it so that my first time in the motherland could intersect with my mom’s return to her homeland.
With all the time I got to spend with family this past month, I found myself thinking a lot about how I was able to experience family in a new way here in Korea. Outside of my immediate family, I don’t really have any family in the States - the few relatives that are in the States are not particularly close. Growing up, I always found myself envious of friends who had big family gatherings on holidays and even just on normal days. I always wondered what it was like to have relatives nearby, to have grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins who felt just as close as my immediate family. I met some of my relatives in Korea for the very first time just a matter of weeks ago, but they have already shown me so much generosity and care and have given much of themselves, simply by virtue of the fact that I am related to them. From my 외삼촌 and 외숙모 offering to host me on weekends to my 이모 preparing side dishes/반찬 for me to bring back to my place, I’ve been able to experience a sense of family with relatives here in a way that I never fully got to experience with extended family in the States. As I reflect on my time with family in Korea so far, I am reminded of part of the vision that God gave me before I came to Korea, that is, to learn from the generations that have come before me. While the gestures of kindness I’ve received from my relatives have spoken much about their character, I am hopeful that I can get to know them more as beyond being just my 이모, 외삼촌, etc. As I continue my stay here in Korea this year, I hope to listen to more of their stories and appreciate them for who they are.
All the side dishes/반찬 my 이모 sent me home with recently <3 Somehow I managed to lug this around on several buses lol
School & Life in the Boonies
As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I am in a very rural/시골 area in Gangwon Province/강원도. In Korea, the names of different cities, towns, etc. all end with a certain label that is indicative of its population size. For example, cities end with a 시, counties end with a 군, etc. I am in a 면 (XX면), which is very rural. When I tell people in Korea that I live in XX면, they give me a look because they realize just how rural my placement is. My place is so rural that food delivery apps don’t even service my area… I found this out the hard way when the only restaurant that popped up on my delivery app canceled an order I put in because they said my area was too rural for them to go to :’)
Me and my stomach because I can't order delivery food (jk I've been cooking a lot)
My school has ~35 students total, which is wildly different from the majority of my fellow Fulbright English teachers who have hundreds of students. I get to work with pretty much the entire school, from Kindergarten to 6th grade. The kids here are really adorable and sweet. They always greet me when they see me in the hallways! A lot of the girls have visited my office to say hi during break times, and some of them have been kind to give me little gifts like candy, handmade drawings, etc. Prior to coming to Korea, I held an assumption that all Korean students would be quiet, more respectful than American students, etc., and while I can see some cultural differences between my students here and the students I worked with in the U.S., I’ve been realizing that, at the end of the day, kids are kids. The kids here in Korea can also be loud, silly, and energetic - they all have different personalities. They have also all had different life experiences - I have found this especially true for kids living here in the boonies, as several of them have parents who immigrated to Korea from other Asian countries. God has definitely been challenging the preconceived notions that I held about Korean students, and recognizing this makes me that much more excited for what else He will show me through my students throughout the school year.
My office space at school + hand-drawn Snoopy and Caillou from one of my students~
The other teachers and staff have also extended a lot of warmth and kindness towards me so far. My co-teacher, who I mentioned in my previous blog post, has been so willing to help me whenever I’ve needed it and I really have felt so well-supported in my transition here so far. It’s been interesting navigating the work environment at my school as a Korean American. In the beginning, there were a lot of friendly jokes made by my coworkers about how I don’t look like a native English teacher, how I just look like a typical 20-something year old Korean teacher. At the same time, a lot of my coworkers have been surprised by how well I can eat Korean food. When I eat with my coworkers at lunch (Korean school lunches are amazing by the way), I’ll often get asked questions of “Have you eaten [name of Korean dish] in America?” or receive compliments on how well I can eat certain dishes, out of an assumption that I wouldn’t know how to eat them. Food, and particularly sharing meals communally, is a big part of Korean culture and has honestly sometimes been an area of stress for me as I’ve navigated interactions with my coworkers. At the first company dinner/회식 of the school year, I balanced nerves and anxiety as I tried my best to follow and not break Korean dining/social etiquette, which honestly did make it hard for me to fully enjoy the meal and conversations. As an introvert, my natural inclination is to keep to myself, but the Lord has been putting it on my heart to pray for a spirit of intentionality and openness towards my students and my coworkers. I really pray, even through the challenges that can sometimes come with language and cultural differences, that by God’s grace I can shine His light and His love and really just bless the students and staff at the school throughout the school year, as well as build relationships with them and learn from them, too.
Outside of school, my time in the boonies has been spent pretty quietly. Being in such a rural/시골 area, there’s not exactly a plethora of options for what I can do around me. I found this to be a really good opportunity to get into running, which I had started to pick up more during orientation (people who are on Strava, reach out to add me! I get so motivated seeing other people’s runs LOL). Thankfully, my area has a lot of nice trails and ground for running, which has been a great way for me to explore the area. I generally run right before sunset, which has brought me beautiful views in the 면. I like to think of my area as a beautiful hidden pocket of Korea. Moments like looking out at the views lead me to feel in awe of the fact that I am actually here in Korea. My running has been supplemented with occasional bike rides and trips to the local marts, as well as an instance of eating dinner at a local restaurant by myself. The only person-to-person interactions I’ve had after school during the week have been with the local community members who work at the marts and restaurant. When I first met them, they were really confused about the fact that I was the new native English teacher in town. In their words, they were confused because I looked like them and because I could speak their language. Some of them had even asked me when I moved to the States, assuming that I was born and raised in Korea before living in the U.S., and they were surprised when I told them I was born and raised in the States. I’m not sure if this is necessarily a reflection of my Korean language abilities as much as it might be a reflection of their assumptions that Korean Americans can’t speak any Korean, as my experience so far has indicated that this is a common belief amongst many Koreans. Nonetheless, the local community members have all been really friendly. I spend a lot of time by myself during the week, but as an introvert I’ve been enjoying it and have been valuing the blessing of having my own space in this season.
I'm still not over these views
Friends & Trips
While I do enjoy my alone time, I also got to meet up with some friends over the past month! One of my first hangouts after arriving at my placement was a friend from home. My friend Ben, who’s from my home church, happened to be visiting Korea, so we got to hang out in Chuncheon/춘천, the closest big city to me. At the time, Ben happened to be in the middle of a solo tour of different Asian countries and had just recently come straight to Korea from Thailand. I felt really inspired by Ben as he excitedly shared stories about the people he had met and the stories he had heard in his cross-country travels. It encouraged me to not discount the brevity of my stay in Korea with regards to the people that the Lord might connect me with throughout the year. I was also challenged by Ben in moments when he asked me questions that led me to reflect on things that I hadn’t consciously processed in the month that I had been in Korea. Ben and I laughed because it took us both being abroad to properly hang out outside of church, but even so it was really good to see someone from home who I could talk about familiar contexts with in the midst of settling into my new placement. Thanks Ben for taking the train into 춘천 to hang out with me!!
Because I had spent much of my first few weeks post-orientation with family in Korea, I hadn’t been able to meet up with my Fulbright friends for a while. Many of my friends happened to have been placed in the southern part of the country, which has made it especially hard to meet up. Thankfully, I did have the opportunity to go down south to see some of them a couple of weekends ago! I went to a city called Pohang/포항 which is in Gyeongsangbuk-do/경상북도. Up until that point, I had mostly been taking intercity buses to get to/from different cities, but I gasped as I found out that a bus ride to get to Pohang would take 5 hours… so of course I took the KTX, Korea’s famous high-speed rail system, which slashed my trip time in half. Unfortunately, because I am so far out in the boonies, it was quite the journey actually getting to Pohang - I had to take a bus, train, and subway all just to get to the KTX station that would take me to Pohang. From catching the local bus at 8am to actually arriving to Pohang at around 6pm, my entire travel time was 10 hours… but part of that was my fault as I had bought some of my train tickets last minute and had no choice but to take later trains (lesson learned for the future). Regardless, it was so nice seeing my Fulbright friends again in person after orientation and to be actually able to talk with people in English LOL. I felt really blessed to be able to gather with friends who were also navigating a new work environment, new country, new culture, etc. Pohang was really pretty, but next time I hope I can get there earlier so I can see it in the daylight LOL (fun fact: Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, one of my fave kdramas, was filmed in Pohang <3).
Church Search & Ministries
Prior to finishing orientation, I had this hope and expectation that I would be able to explore churches and find “my church” here in Korea pretty much as soon as I headed to my placement. I also thought that God would show me right away the ministries He was inviting me to step into (in addition to the ministry He has given me at my school). It turns out that this has not happened and that the process of finding a church has been harder than I had anticipated it to be. I unfortunately wasn’t able to check out churches for the first few weeks post-orientation due to spending extended time with family and timing not working out with traveling back home on Sundays. Also, I had looked into English-speaking churches closer to my area, only to find that the closest ones would be in Seoul or Gyeonggi-do/경기도, which is a different province from where I live. Asking other Fulbrighters who are familiar with my area confirmed that there are no English speaking churches near me. I felt discouraged, not just because I hadn’t been able to visit churches and get plugged in right away, but also because I knew that even if I did find a great church, say, in Seoul, it would be hard for me to actively serve there on a practical level because of the distance. Throughout the month, as I thought about church, I felt frustration over unideal circumstances and guilt about not being able to find a church as quickly as I felt that I “should have.” I also felt behind, anxious over the idea that I was already losing out on time. As time went on, I started to feel doubtful that I could find, get plugged into, and actively serve in a church in Korea.
I shared all of this with Soyoun, a really great friend, sister in Christ, and 언니 from home. Over video call from the other side of the world, Soyoun spoke the words I needed to hear - that it was ok for this process to take time, that it wasn’t something I needed to rush. As much as it is important to find a church in Korea, Soyoun helped me to see that right now could be a season for my own time with God, even if brief, before I find my church. As soon as she said this, I felt a sense of relief and knew that the Lord was once again speaking to me through Soyoun (because He has spoken to me through her many times before!). When I reflected on this conversation afterwards, I realized that I had perceived these unideal circumstances as a failure on my end, and this is because I had wanted to do things in my own timeline, rather than trusting the Lord with His timeline for me. Since then, I have been able to visit a church in Seoul, but I still hope to visit other churches before I make any decisions.
I had a similar conversation about church and ministry with my new friend Michelle, who is also from my home church, although we met for the first time here in Korea! Michelle has been in Korea for the past two years serving in a ministry that she has been involved in for more than half of her life. Michelle’s word of encouragement for me was that, even if God doesn’t have a church for me until, say, July, it’s not too late if that’s His will and timing. That might feel late for me because of my own ambitions and preferred timeline, but I have to trust the Lord in what He is doing and trust that in the meanwhile, He will fill my need for spiritual community in other ways. As she said this, I was reminded of the Fellowship & Bible Study group that I was able to co-lead during orientation. Since orientation has ended, our group has stayed connected with prayer meetings over Zoom, and we’ve talked about other ways we hope to keep growing together throughout the grant year. God has certainly allowed our group to help fill my need for spiritual community in this season, and I am excited for us to continue to walk with one another and to share testimonies of how God is moving at our respective placements. Even so, please keep me in prayer with regards to finding a solid church and investing in whatever other ministries the Lord may be inviting me into.
Thank you for taking the time to read my updates and reflections from the past month! Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or just want to connect!!!
God bless! <3 Jen
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