The Next Journey

I can't read the signs! I'm in Korea with Jonathan, Robin & Win. I'm going to stay with Win while Jonathan & Robin go to Bangkok for a teachers' job fair. They are looking for new positions for next year and will interview with schools who are looking for an English teacher and a Technology Expert in Education. One of the countries they are considering is Saudi Arabia. Scary, eh? But the school is within a compound. Safe.The students are mostly international kids whose parents work in the oil industry. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out.

I came early enough so we would have time to do tourist type things. I loved the Korean Folk Village. It shows life as it used to be before South Korea became modernized and industrialized. I love the way they used natural things around them for building. The mud & rock walls had patterns. The roofs were constructed out of thatch if you were poor, but the wealthy family used tile. Jonathan and Win had fun making bamboo flutes.  It was interesting, but it was so cold the wind knifed through our coats till we were chilled to the bone! It's been years since I was that cold. Most of the exhibits required walking around outside so there was no chance of being where it was warm even for a few minutes--ah...that was the lure of the candy shop. Nice and warm and all those sweets!

The most frustrating part of being here is that I cannot read the street signs. Many  more street signs in Seoul include English, but here in Suwon, very little is in English. It is frustrating to me! I want to read and understand those signs! Compared with Seoul, far fewer people here speak English and that creates problems for Win. He looks Asian (he was born in Thailand and was adopted by Jonathan & Robin when he was a baby), but he speaks only English. When Win and I went out to lunch yesterday the girl behind the counter could not communicate with me. She turned to Win to ask him and I told her he speaks only English. It's very confusing. Once when Win was playing outside he was bullied by some boys who insisted that he speak Korean. I guess he finally convinced them he did not know Korean. Korea spent so many years dominated by other countries that their motto now is "Korea for Koreans!"

This post was written in Korea, but I'm posting after returning to the US because of difficulty with the Blogger site in Korea. When I signed on all the tabs and buttons were in Korean and I could not remember where the "post" button was. I wrote two entries but could not post because I can't read Korean! So here they are now.