Newbies in Jangheung

Pronounced Jawng-huhng, Jangheung has served as a lovely new hometown this past week! We have unpacked, moved furniture, bought groceries, and met up with other Jangheungers to figure out just what this "little" South Korean town is all about. We describe it as "little" because of the comparison of its size to other towns in the province of Jeollanamdo (Jull-uh-nahm-do). Boasting a humble populationof about 50,000, whenever we bring up Jangheung's size in the classroom, our students just shake their heads at the statement. "Jangheung not big!" was one that I got this week when showing my "About Me" PowerPoint to the elementary school kids and comparing teeny-tiny Fowler (of about 5,500) to Jangheung.

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Our first week

So far we have comforted our homesickness (which thankfully has not been as great as we were thinking it would be, thus far) with nightly walks down the street to the mart for groceries, meeting up with new friends, situating our house with internet and Wifi(no easy task, mind you!), and cleansing our over-spiced palettes with mochas whenever we have the free time. Today, actually, we were given the day off because of the Labor Day holiday (granting contracted workers the day away from work), and so will probably head down to the cutest little Western coffee shop you ever did see. It's called One and Six and we already are quite fond of the place (it doesn't hurt that they make chocolate truffles from scratch):

The baristas at One and Six know that all the foreigners in town like to stop in and often set up shop for a while, so they are very kind and give us great service (and sometimes free chocolate!!!). Delicious coffee, mixed coffee drinks, and in-house homemade chocolate! (There is a chocoateur who is a goddess there and makes sweets for days!) Needless to say, we are thankful for this tiny little space of comforting tastes and sights and sounds.

Our schools

In addition to trips to the mart and One and Six, school has started this week and so far, we are working at two different spaces for sure! Ed is at the local high school and is loving it. His walk to and from work is comprised of breathtaking views of nearby mountains as his school is atop a hill on the eastern part of Jangheung. 

His students have so far been enamored with his visually-pleasing PowerPoint presentations, YouTube videos, and funny gifs (not to mention the numerous pictures of his lovely wife ;). He has been drawn to use these in his classes to jazz up the subject of English for these grades 1 and 2 (sophomores and juniors in the States). Testing has been going on the last few days as well so some of Ed's students have been more into napping than learning apparently. A choice I think anyone can understand:

But! Ed has enjoyed the high school experience thus far and it has not been as tough a job as it was perhaps painted for the middle school and high school teachers at our orientation.

My school, at the opposite end of the spectrum, has been non-stop teaching and energetic kindergartners, 5th and 6th graders! Theschool, just a 3 minute walk from our house is a brightly-designed place with over 800 elementary students! There are always children playing outside our gate and from our windows at home, we can hear lots of play going on at the soccer field in front of the school:

Every Monday afternoon, Kristen walks from the elementary school to the kinder building to teach 20-minute lessons to the kindergartners there:

As odd as it sounds, the 5 and 6-year-olds in the kindergarten classroom portray an accurate picture of what we feel often, walking around Jangheung and trying to communicate with the locals. As many stares greet me as I walk in the room to go over the ABC's with the little ones, so Ed and I have felt like little babies when taking in the newness of language, culture, food, and people around us in our new town.

Language

Just this morning, we had a representative from an Internet company come to the house to set up our Wifi and it was pretty interesting how things played out, with us only knowing a few signature Korean phrases and he, having the same grasp of English. We ended up relying heavily on Google Translate as well as friends of the rep's, who he called and had them translate for us, what we wanted to have done with the Internet. Happily, by the end we had the wifi set up and Ed and the rep were laughing together on the front porch (he had translated the phrase "I need to learn to speak Korean very badly" and the rep got a kick out of it).

As we continue to immerse ourselves in the culture and live with the language, we will hopefully pick up more and more to communicate with in order to respect the community we have chosen to join. Language can be a very tricky thing if there is a ways to learn it, but we have our books and are doing our best! We are finding this out the fun way! :)

Our home

Our humble abode we are slowly growing accustomed to-and loving it! Yes, we want to spruce up the outside a bit (DIE SPIDERS, DIE!) with a small garden and indeed some raking ("A lot of raking," Ed says), but with the furniture the way we want it now and the kitchen slowly being filled with the aromas we love, it is feeling more like our home every day. As we continue to cozy ourselves inside, we will post more pictures but as it is now, white walls and bare shelves, we are just thankful to call it ours! 

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So, as it stands now, we must head out for a bit o' coffee and a dinner out with one of the Native Chinese teachers in town, so thanks for reading and we will chat soon! Gamsahamnida!

Love,

E + K