Sabbatical over

Back when I was working in manufacturing as a quality engineer I would have innumerable projects piled on my desk. Things to do – people to call – forms to fill out – problems to solve – stuff – stuff –stuff and more stuff. A couple times a year I would clear my whole desk, drag a waste can over and just sweep everything in front of me into the circular file.

I almost never regretted it. 23 years and I can only recall one maybe two times  tossing something that was really needed – and even that didn’t end the world. Well, that’s where I am with this blog. I’m ready to get started on it again but I am so far behind in my posts that I don’t know where to begin. Since my last I have been in Shanghai where I had wonderful and amazing adventures with Sara and Taylor Mali, Visited Gahanna Middle School near Columbus Oh – spoke to pre service teachers in Wooster, presented workshops at Indiana University in PA, visited Windermere Prep in Orlando (where the school gave us a four room sweet suite @ Epcot center, did a reading at Lix and Kix, witnessed the birth of a new puppy, upgraded my bicycle, attended a grade school talent show where my nephew sang a Weird Al Yankovich song, got a new teacher book in to the publisher, did a reading in a small art gallery and taught at a high school near Lancaster PA, and spoke at Madison High. There is no way I can give proper attention to all these events as well as the ones I have forgotten – so…

I’m clearing off the desk – starting fresh. I’ll try to get back to some more of the travel stuff we did – China was pretty outstanding but I’ll drop the stories in here and there along the way.

In the meantime here’s a few pics from the last couple months.

    

Taejon Christian International School

Had a great visit with the teachers and students at TCIS. Extra special thanks to Connie and Sungmee our librarian  and Chantal queen of the High School English department. We spent three days on the campus working with grades K through 12. Once when I was taking a break I even got roped into reading a picture book to an elementary class visiting the library.

 

During our residency we had a family literacy night where Sara and I did some poems for the students and their parents. We really like to have these evening gatherings when we visit a school because it gives us a chance to let the parents know what a couple poets are doing visiting their students. It gives us the opportunity to show the people paying tuition how bringing in a couple teaching artists is a good investment. We get to demonstrate how writing and performing poetry in the classroom has great practical benefits for all their kid’s communication skills. Of course we all have fun and many more times than not – we get a parent to come up on stage and recite a piece that they had memorized from their school days.

Connie warming up the crowd before the start of our Family Literacy Night.

Appreciative audience members.

A couple boys take to the mic to read a poem they wrote in the car on the way to the event (get that paper down from in front of your faces!)

A parent reciting a Robert Service poem.

Sara leads some ankle biters through a poem they wrote about soccer.

A very special part of this school visit was the fact that we stayed with a family in their home rather than a hotel room. This is always a daunting proposition because you never know what is going to happen. Well – if anyone had tried to tell us how welcoming and gracious the Choi family was going to be we would have thought we were being sold a bridge.

It was so nice to be a part of a family in the middle of this long road trip and as much as all the dinners out are special to us – that one meal before the Literacy night of home made spaghetti with sauce out of a jar and the kids around the table is probably the one I will remember most. Thanks TCIS and extra super duper thanks to the Choi family.

If you see the Buddha on the road shoot him (just don’t use your flash)

We all need an assistant librarian librarian in our lives. Here’s a pic of the aforementioned Sue – the co-librarian of the Korea International School elementary library. Sue was a cool customer – she had that Bond girl calm and collected demeanor greeting any problem or request we threw her way with a quick and thoughtful nod which meant whatever we needed  was as good as done. Sue was in charge of getting us onto the bus that was taking us to our next  destination – the city of Daejeon  a couple hours south of Seoul.

Our bus ride was completely uneventful which is how one would usually wish their bus rides to go. Once we got to the city of Daejeon the bus terminal was under renovation so there was a little confusion finding our contacts. Eventually though we met up with our new librarian team – Connie and her able assistant Sungmee (I’m tellin’ ya – we all need an assistant librarian in our life.)

Connie and Sungmee took us to a giant farmers market then to a nearby mountain where we hiked around some Buddhist temples. Hiking is quite the pastime in Korea and we joined right in with the throngs that were dutifully marching up the mountain paths. Along the way we saw stacks of rocks signifying the prayers of earlier trekkers and also passed a couple Buddhist temples. I climbed the stairs to one of these temples removed my shoes and stepped inside. The room was empty of monks or other hikers and I pulled out my camera and started taking shots of the shrine. No sooner had my flash gone off then a monk appeared and kindly, but firmly suggested that my camera and I continue on our way.

 

After our hike we descended back down the mountain path and had dinner. Outside of the restaurant a woman was selling Beondaegi – the boiled silkworm larva that I mentioned earlier – it’s in the pot in the lower right hand corner of this pic. For whatever reason this particular batch was not as aromatically challenging as other roiling concoctions that we had come across – I took this as a opportunity to try these things out so I stabbed one of the buggers with a toothpick and popped it in my mouth. A little crunchy outside, kind of gooey inside and pretty much tasting like potting soil.

______________________________________________

 

Beondaegi

The boiled silkworm larva’s flavor is not as bad as its aroma.
It offends the palette in a completely different almost subtle way,
earthen, agrarian, like dirt.
It tastes as garden soil smells at season’s end,
thick tined pitchfork turning spent stalks,
wilted leaves, and fallen fruit beneath the exhausted rows
with hope of nourishing the plot for next season’s seeds.
The city of Seoul’s taxi drivers
refuse tips,
become offended,
even if keeping the change amounts to less than 88 cents.
The city of Seoul’s taxi drivers
display their licenses permanently affixed to the right side of the dashboard,
directly in front of the passenger seat.
Their photographs
stoically staring at their fare
are never updated.
Fresh and full of promise as a high school year book photo,
hair as black as a mockingbird’s back -
skin as clear and smooth as an Asian pear,
while the man clutching the wheel
through his thin white gossamer gloves
wears a road-map of liver spots across his nearly bald head.
And I wonder,
what he and his photographed self talk about
when driving alone.

Please take your shoes off before dancing on the table.

Okay – I am woefully behind in blog posts. We are back from Korea and China now for about a week and I am going to do my best to get caught up here. I may rely a bit more on pictures than text to try and synch timelines.

Here are a few pics from our visit to the DMZ separating North and South Korea.

Here is the opening slide from the orientation groups are given before going on the tour of the Demilitarized Zone. 

This is an excerpt from the waiver we had to sign before we took our bus ride up to the border. First time I signed off on the chances of a hostile enemy attack.

Here I am actually standing in North Korea when I took this picture.

This is a North Korean soldier looking at us through binoculars. Sara wonders if it gets under their skin that South Korea treats the place as a tourist attraction. Of course – South Korean citizens are not permitted on the tour. We were told that the urge to run across the border in order to reunite with long lost family members could be too much for them.

I was surprised by how many of the locals I spoke with looked forward to the day when the two countries would be reunited – as if it were only a matter of time. This is a populace that is familiar with being under the thumb of unfriendly forces and yet retaining their national identity – even in the face of those who specifically and systematically worked to wipe out Korean culture.

I’ve got to ay though – the tension up on the DMZ was real and while I hope the optimism of the folks hoping for reunification is rewarded –  I wouldn’t be holding my breath. The above picture shows the top of one of the tables in the meeting room we toured which is half in the North and half in the South. We were told that the footprints on the smooth finish are from North Korean soldiers who remove their shoes and stomp on the furniture to show their disrespect when they are alone in the room.

This is the bridge of no return. It was used for prisoner exchanges at the end of the Korean War in 1953. The name originates from the fact that prisoners were given the choice to remain in the country of their captivity or cross over to the other country. But if they chose to cross the bridge, they would never be allowed to return. 

Usually we would have been allowed to get out of our tour bus and walk up to it but on this day there was a dead dog – just barely visible as a white spot in this pic up where the right railing disappears into the brush – that had been there for a few days so we had to remain in the vehicle for fear of some sort of contamination.

So the dead dog just lies there. A South Korean crossing the bridge to dispose of the carcass could very well be committing an act of war (one of the most famous skirmishes on the DMZ began as a tree trimming) and it doesn’t seem that the North Koreans are in any hurry to clean it up either.

Sort of a stalemate isn’t it?

And now for the news...

Sealed with a KIS

The week long residency at Korea International School couldn’t have gone any better. Every morning the yellow mini van bus picked us up at the Hotel Gallery just a fifteen minute ride up and up the nose bleed inducing hill on which the school is perched. The kids were all well prepared for our visit and every class we walked into were expecting us and were ready to get to work.

We did assemblies for the elementary, middle and high schools and a teacher professional development session our first day there followed by writing and performance workshops throughout the school for the rest of the week. we think this is the best way to start a residency – the kids get to see us before we come in the classrooms, allowing us to be student centered for the whole time we are working with them rather than talking about ourselves the first part of the lesson. Our hosts agreed and set our schedule to do just that.

Our poet wranglers – mine being Colleen, the sharp witted upper school librarian and Sara's -  Kris, the super smart and diplomatic elementary school librarian kept us on track, fed, watered and generally treated like royalty. I would be more than remiss not to mention our third support person – the steady and true Sue, the Korean born elementary librarian who provided translation with taxis, hotel folk, doctors, bus ticket vendors and could make anything we requested happen with a short tilt of her head and a firm nod. This trio made KIS one of our most enjoyable (and tiring) international school visits to date.

Kris had worked for two years behind the scenes to get us into the school. we had met her a few years back when we visited Kazakhstan and we are so very grateful for her confidence in our work.

We even ended the week with a staff party  and wine tasting in downtown Seoul ending with an open mic poetry reading which Sara and I emceed.

Oh yeah, a special note to Rich the headmaster i mentioned in my last post. I did try the boiled silkworm larva – you’re right it doesn’t taste like it smells!

Asking questions during assembly.

Writing away!

Teacher poetry reading.

Colleen and Kris.

Once again with a little Seoul

“The boiled silkworm larva doesn’t taste like it smells.”

“So, it tastes better than it smells? – ‘cause it smells pretty putrid”

“I didn’t say that they tasted better – I said they tasted different.”

So went a portion of my dinner conversation with Rich – the headmaster of the Korea International School where Sara and I have been visiting and teaching for the last week. We were handed off cold war spy swap style at a pancake house in Seoul by Chris – our librarian and poet wrangler at the Seoul International School, where we began our Korean adventure. Kris, the elementary librarian at KIS (whom we have dubbed Kris with a K) and her husband Sean assumed control of our well being at that point.

Chris (with a C) had graciously dragged us around Seoul after school Friday and all day Saturday. We started out by taking a bus to the to the yarn market where Sara was overwhelmed by the immensity and selection there. Imagine a six story warehouse with the circumference of a city block divided into ten foot stalls full of yarn, thread, drapery material, buttons and other goo gaws and thingamabobs.

The buses in Seoul cut through traffic like fresh oysters slipping from stainless steel chopsticks thanks to their own traffic lanes which are free of the bumper to bumper traffic of the rest of the road. The drivers take off from stops without the slightest hesitation as passengers mount the top step into the aisle causing one to break into a trot as you’re hurled by inertia into the vehicle. Buses seem to be the quickest way to navigate the city. We later also try the subway – which is as hot and crowded as it is clean and graffiti free. There are two types of cabs in Seoul – white and black – the black cabs are a little more posh and cost about 40% more than the white ones and neither have the advantage that the busses do with their own lanes.

Perhaps one of the most ubiquitous items on earth is a taxi driver’s beaded seat cover. Just about every cab in every country I have ever been have them. One other interesting thing about the taxis in Seoul – the driver’s picture on the hack license displayed on the dash looks to be taken once and then never updated. So the cabbies stoically staring down the camera from the laminated placard may have a full head of jet black hair and a smooth apple rounded face while the man behind the wheel sports a half dozen wisps of silver sprouting from a liver spotted expanse of skull and leathery skin wrinkled as a mastiff even though each is the same person. I wondered if looking at the picture made the driver wistful for younger days or if they believed they still resembled their photos.

As we ride along in our bus I notice out on the streets, where the temperature is hanging around 27 degrees Fahrenheit that Korean girl’s legs are pretty much impervious to cold - miniskirts and kill heels are the uniform of the young Korean woman. In fact uniforms are of all kinds abound. The parking attendants are resplendent in tailored jackets and white gloves which accentuate their interpretive dance like guidance of folks entering and exiting parking lots – shop keepers dress smartly almost in formal attire – the basement of the Lotte Mart (the country’s answer to Wall Mart) stocks racks and racks of prep school jackets but the epitome of job specific clothing trophy has to go to the bearded guards at Changgyeonggung Palace.

Sara picks out some yarn and asks the saleswoman in the stall if they have a pattern for a particular shawl that is hanging at the front of the cramped cubby of a shop. The woman speaks no English and Sara no Korean so the lady grabs a set of circle knitting needled a ball of the yarn that Sara has purchased and begins knitting away – showing Sara the stitch used to produce the item. I have often heard that math is the universal language, or even music but I had not thought of knitting as a form of communication before I watched this. Two women from entirely different cultures understanding each other through the click, loop and pulling of yarn across a couple bamboo sticks.

  It’s these little epiphanies that make our trips so much fun – I’m writing this as we cruise along the freeway in a tour bus on our way to the DMZ. I wonder what we’ll see there – we’ve been promised a pretty good lunch which I assume will most likely not include boiled silkworms – there are still a few cultural idiosyncrasies that do not translate as easily as knitting.

 

Do you know LeBron James?

So asked the smiling six foot two eight grade boy in my public speaking class when I opened the floor to questions after the lesson. Sara and I have just spent two days with the eighth through twelfth grade classes at the Seoul International School here in chilly Korea.

 

We shook off our jet lag and talked with the kids about our lives as poets and globetrotting educators, did some writing exercises and even had some extra curricular discussions concerning  the Cavs trading away Z. As per usual in the international school system the students were attentive and hard working. A bit shy to start but brave enough to try anything they were called upon to do. In the end I think we were all writing and talking with a bit more conviction.

Seoul International was a great way to begin our two week tour of South Korean schools and I am really looking forward to the coming days here in this hospitable country.

 

Today we head out to explore the city a bit more with our librarian/hostess Kris – the epitome of hospitality herself having given up her apartment for our use while we visit in her school. In fact all the teachers and staff we encountered couldn’t have been more accommodating from writing cabbie directions in Korean making sure we got home with no surprises, sharing literary journals they have edited, to helping us order our barbeque chicken (even though the sweet sauce was every bit as fiery as the spicy sauce) we have been made to feel welcome in every way.

 

As for my future shooting forward’s question. Although I may not be a regular on the guest list at gatherings in Mr. James’ household it does seem the superstar and I hold some of the same ideals as important.

Seoul Train

Well the trip over was pretty uneventful – as uneventful as 28 hours of non-stop, zero sleep cattle shuffle and egg carton crated moving halfway across the globe can be. All our planes were on time, our baggage made it, there was a pretty good selection of movies on the way over, the food on the planes was edible and by some karmic reward Sara and I found ourselves the only occupants in our row on the plane allowing us to stretch ourselves and our various books, iPods, and laptops comfortably between us.

I want to indulge in a little aside here. one of the movies I watched on the trip over was a Bollywood flic called Aladdin. Now I am not a great fan of American musicals (most of which I  was exposed to on Saturday afternoon TV growing up in the 70s – they usually came on after all the cartoons were played out under the umbrella of Saturday Matinee or some other equally creative title) I don’t despise them either. Oklahoma, Annie Get Your Gun, The George Cohen Story, Singing in the Rain, etc.etc. I just never really got into the whole breaking out into song thing.

Then one afternoon I saw a a Busby Berkley movie starring Eddie Cantor filled with insanely intricately choreographed battalions of platinum blondes that gave a whole new meaning to the term suspension of disbelief. This is the quality that I love about Bollywood movies the sheer schmaltzy surrealism. So – this goes on my bucket list – I want to be part of a Bollywood dance routine that is recorded for posterity – I figure we will need at least a couple three to four dozen folks to pull this off – Oak Island vacation crew – you listening?

 

Anyway – we’ve landed safe and sound in South Korea, found our lost bag left on a bus containing Sara's passport, various electronics and cash intact wandered around a shopping area called Lotte World, watched young speed skaters in the ice rink of the aforementioned Lotte World, I bought some new eyeglasses and we had a couple meals. One lunch of a red curry  was so spicy I got a little dizzy while eating it!

This morning we begin working in the Seoul International School for two days then we will explore the city some more properly. I’ll be posting some pics (with our new camera) and ruminations as we get better acquainted with the city.