Would you walk alone…?

So something happened in Korean class today that made me think.

A few months back, I heard about Yoon Lab, a place in Daegu that offers Korean classes. I was interested but with winter break and upcoming travel plans, I decided to wait until later to begin. So today was my first day. We had just finished learning one grammar point and before moving on to the next one, our teacher opened the floor to talk about whatever we wanted for a bit. She asked us about things we liked about Daegu, things we didn’t like about Daegu and then she asked if we felt safe. She asked these as general questions but when she asked about safety, she directed a specific question to me (the only female). She asked, in Korean, if I feel safe walking alone at midnight. I told her that I do. She seemed surprised and asked, though she didn’t know the phrase for it, if men cat-called or harassed me when I walked by myself at night.

Now, I have experienced a bit of street harassment here but not nearly as much as I experienced in America. I can count on one hand how many times a Korean man or a group of Korean men have harassed me while I’ve walking around on my own. One time, I was with Jeongwon (my host sister) and a man sitting outside of a restaurant began saying pretty inappropriate things about my thighs loud enough for both of us to hear. As Jeongwon understood what the man was saying much quicker than I did, she dragged me away. A different time, a group of college-aged guys kept bugging me as I tried to walk home. At first it was just a hello, then it was a more persistent hello and questions, then it was one of them following behind me until his friends stopped him. I wasn’t actually scared of these boys, more annoyed. I didn’t feel threatened, just irritated by the fact they couldn’t take a hint and leave me alone. There have been other instances of men hitting on me or checking me out, but largely I go unbothered.

The fact that my Korean teacher brought it up, made me think about how much Korean women probably face street harassment. On a regular basis, I see instances of harassment that people may not even consider street harassment. Outside of phone stores like SKT or U+,  sales clerks usually stand around and try to talk to people. Sometimes I notice that the men are very aggressive and often, they will stop Korean women physically by getting into their way and blocking them from being able to move past them. Every time I see this, I get so freaking angry. These men do it because they are under the assumption that women can’t physically overpower them and no one says anything about this being wildly inappropriate. They don’t do this to men. In a similar vein, clubs in Seoul will often have men posted outside and these men are trying to get women to come into their club. Sometimes these men do the same thing that the phone company guys do. They block women until, at the very least, they take the flyer. But I have heard stories of these guys actually grabbing women in an effort to get them to come into the club. And these are only things I’ve seen, so who’s to say there’s not more? I haven’t really talked to Korean women about street harassment or anything like that.

Cat-calling and/or street harassment pisses me off. I have had grown men yelling disgusting things at me since I was a pre-teen riding my bike around my neighborhood. When I take the trash out at my grandmother’s house, a man across the street cat-calls me while I’m only a few feet from my front door. I don’t like to walk places where I live because someone always tries to talk to me, and if I tell them to leave me alone, they often get angry or follow me. A man once screamed, “Fuck you,” at my little sister and I when he hit on me and I ignored him. I have had men follow me in their cars. Men have turned their car around to follow me. Men in their cars, have slowed just to yell things out the window at me. If I got a nickel every time some man on the street or in a car said something about my ass, I’d be rich. I hate cat callers. I hate that street harassment makes little girls grow up faster than they need to. I hate that street harassment makes girls feel like they have to cover up just to walk to the store. I hate that street harassment makes me think before leaving the house because I know if I leave at a certain time, more people will be outside thus increasing the chance that someone will try to harass me.

In Korea, I’ve been allowed to roam free unconcerned. I wear what I want to wear (though there is a standard of dress here that insists shoulders and cleavage be covered). I leave the house without worrying about the people outside. People don’t yell obscenities at me, people don’t try to corner me “just to talk”. Cars don’t stop in front of me or follow me.  Being “othered” largely means that people leave me alone. Sure, people stare, but they stare because I’m different. They’re not staring because they want to do things to my body. One of the things I love about Korea is my freedom.

Today in class, I was pulled back to the reality that just because I’m not facing it now, doesn’t mean it’s not an issue still at large. People are experiencing it here, back at home and in places all over the world. If you face street harassment on the regular, I’m sorry and I feel for you. If you’re someone who harasses people on the street, I hope some day you can feel what it feels like. I hope that someone reduces you to an object for their use and on a daily basis reminds you that you’re barely human. If you’re someone who doesn’t harass people on the street, good for you for being a decent human being.

Last Class, Winter Camp and Japan

Hello all, it’s been awhile. As I write this I’m debating whether to make one long post or 2-3 short ones in order to catch everyone up to date. When last we spoke it was floating around Thanksgiving and I was pushing myself to appreciate the good things in life. Cliche but a healthy thought exercise. December rolled around and I honestly can’t remember too much of what happened. I was busy prepping for my last class of the semester with my first graders and my last class ever with my second graders. I felt like I should have been more sad to see them go but I found it really difficult to connect with my second graders. My school is really competitive to the point my students are often visibly exhausted, not just during certain points of the year, but rather frequently. Not only that, but my second graders seem to be the most afraid to use English. Many of them only speak in short phrases, rather than full sentences but I know they are capable of more because I have seen their writing and the skits they do for the English talent show. That is not to say I won’t miss them. My second graders were an overall well-behaved group and they were often willing to do the work. There are some of them that I will miss greatly and others that I wanted to chase out the door. I am excited to see what they are capable of in the future and I have told them to contact me if every they need assistance.

My last class for both first and second grade was writing Secret Santa Affirmations. Students were given time to anonymously write messages to their friends while I played Christmas Carols. For the second years, this could be goodbye messages as they may not be in the same classes the following year, or just well wishes. For first graders, many of the messages were small Christmas cards. Students were very thoughtful. In one of my classes, the boys banded together in order to make sure that all the girls got a card from them. The messages were really cute, examples: You are beautiful, You are the prettiest girl in class, You have a nice smile, etc.. Surprisingly students actually wrote me and my coteacher messages. I was very shocked to see a small pile for me. The messages honestly really helped me to see how the students saw me. Many of them wished me Merry Christmas and said they hoped I’d stay for a long time. It was very touching. One student even wrote that they respected me. I had a group of girls in one of my classes, bring me a letter they wrote me afterward because, “they didn’t have time in class to write one.” I really appreciated it.

After last classes, I had a bit of time off before winter camp. Vacation for me generally translates to going nocturnal and being super lazy so I don’t have a lot of updates for that period of time. At the beginning of January, I had winter camp. It was ten of my most enthusiastic (female) students and I was given free reign on what I wanted to do. I centered the camp on different speaking games: talking Jenga, Would you Rather, Picture Challenge, HeadsUp (phone app game), and a different version of Bingo. On the last day of camp, I brought one of my friends and was really amazed at how engaged my students were. They asked my friends tons of questions. I believe the first half of class was just them talking to her. I was very proud.

After camp, I went to Japan.

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I was in Japan for ten days. My friend and I flew into Narita International Airport. There we purchased a portable wifi-egg for about $10/day from ABC JAL. You have to give them a credit card that will work in Japan. (One of my cards didn’t, so be careful) It was very practical as my friend and I split the cost and we could link up to 5 devices on the egg. It was about an hour bus ride from Narita to Tokyo Station and it cost about 1000 jpy ($8.90). If I have any advice for someone going to Japan for the first time, it would be to go nowhere near Tokyo Station until you understand a little about Japanese public transportation. The place is massive and very confusing. At one point my friend and I rage quit and just sat on the floor, googling to see if we could figure out what it was we were supposed to do to find our hotel.

A plus side of Japanese public transportation is that Google Maps works PERFECTLY. Google maps was so good, it would tell us what floor stores were on inside of shopping malls and how much it would cost to go from point A to point B. A downside (to me, anyway) is that Japanese public transportation is not owned by all one company. This means that some lines are thoroughly separated. Transferring often means leaving one area of the station and going to another. There were various times that my friends are I were wandering around stations just trying to find the right line, especially in Tokyo. Another downside (again, to me) is that you are charged according to how far you go. Now, that makes sense (from the standpoint of companies wanting to make money) but Korean public transportation is not like that. Korean subways and buses charge a flat rate and you can transfer lines without additional cost. You can even transfer from the subway to the bus and vice versa. So Japanese subways seemed VERY expensive to me. Every time I was charging my card, I was putting 1000 jpy or more on it and it would still get used up quickly. Also, if you took the quicker route, it often cost much more than the slow route. The bullet train from Tokyo Station to Kyoto Station was very expensive: 13,710 jpy ($122). I was told that it is actually cheaper to fly (when booked in advance) from one place to another vs taking the bullet train. But it was a good experience. The trains are quiet and spacious.

After a few nights in Tokyo, my friends and I traveled 3.5 hours north of Tokyo to Gunma prefecture in order to go to an onsen. Honestly, this hot spring was my favorite part of the trip. The entire thing was amazing. Getting there we encountered soooo much snow. Being from the midwest, I miss snow. It’s beautiful but it rarely snows Daegu, and when it does snow, it doesn’t stick. A small van picked us up at Minakami Station and brought us to the onsen. As soon as we came in, they took our shoes and gave us indoor slippers and yukata to wear around. They had yukata that was actually long enough for me and pretty. The staff was very accommodating and spoke English. After first bathing, we went outdoors to the hot springs. They were very relaxing. I thought that it would be way too cold but it’s actually very refreshing. You’re only cold for the few seconds you are out of the water. Changing rooms are right next to all the pools so you strip down and place your belongings in a basket than run into the water. Men were naked and women had bathing cover-ups to wear. I do not know if these were mandatory or not but it seemed most women were wearing them. But when the pools are relatively empty, it seems like no big deal to take them off. Though I enjoyed the hot spring, I found that I grew sensitive to the heat and had to call it a night early. The food was very good but it did include a lot of sea food (which I’m not a big fan of). We were served in the restaurant vs being served food in our room (like some ryokan experiences) but we were still waited on hand and foot. I would definitely come back.

After the onsen, we went to Kyoto. It took us so long to get there from Gunma that we were exhausted and just ate KFC. Luckily, our hotel was right in the middle of downtown, so we could walk to almost everywhere we wanted. The next day, we went to this amazing parfait place. It had dozens and dozens of options. I had an apple pie and milk tea parfait. It was amazing. Afterward, we went to the Imperial Palace but it was closed because we were too late. The park around the palace was very large and open. A lot of people there were walking their dog or riding their bike. I think it’d be a lovely place to picnic or just relax and take a stroll. The park is very big too, so we didn’t even really see all of it. Next we went to the International Manga Museum. It cost 800 yen ($8). We got distracted by the wall of manga and ended up not getting very far. I recommend going early and checking it out, then sitting down and reading a bunch of manga. They have areas for several different languages: English, Korean, Chinese, etc. The next day, we went to Gion Corner, a place popular for Geishas but we didn’t really see any. Then we hopped on the subway and ran to Fushimi Inari Shrine before the sun set. I really like the look of the shrine. I loved the strong color and the structure of the buildings.

Afterward, we went to Osaka. The largest thing we did in Osaka was visit the castle. I thought it was beautiful and whimsical. I took the greatest selfie of my life in front of the outer moat. It’s an amazing place to just walk around. I also noticed that my friends and I encountered many Korean tourists in this area. Not only that but many signs were translated into Korean as well which wasn’t as common in other cities. Then we went to the Gudetama Cafe, which was more cafe than Gudetama but I enjoyed myself. I wish there had been a store inside the cafe. I really wanted a large Gudetama plushie but it wasn’t meant to be. But it turned out okay b/c I got a really cute kitty plushie. We ended the day by grabbing noms in Dotonbori. It was super crowded but I enjoyed all the options. We ended up eating okonomiyaki and yakisoba. I thoroughly enjoyed the okonomiyaki and now that I’m back in Korea I kinda miss it. Our final day in Japan it rained most of the day so we decided against going to Universal Studios and instead had a chill day.