Korea - Learning Korean

Anyanghaseyeo!  

Hello!

In 2005, I was offered a position with the US Department of Defense Dependent Schools (DODDS)  to teach French and Spanish to the children of American military at Osan American High School (OAHS) in South Korea.  I had applied with DODDS several months before because I had missed military life.  When I got the offer, I eagerly accepted.  I moved to Korea with my two youngest daughters.  Rebekah for her senior year of high school and Hannah was a new 7th grader.  Rebekah had taken three years of Japanese and had wanted to go to Asia.  Hannah had mixed feelings but was up for the adventure. 

Korea turned out to be a fascinating, beautiful, busy and at times overwhelming place.  We loved the culture, people, food, and country.  Although I'm a linguist, starting a new totally foreign language after the age of 50 proved to be more challenging that I had hoped.  Korean was so different from any language I had studied.  I studied the language and would do well in class but my retention was surprisingly low.  I felt like I had to keep learning the same basics all over again.  My daughters did much better than me.  Especially my youngest.

Rebekah graduated from OAHS at the end of our first year there.  She picked up a lot of Korean.  It was a great experience.  Our dear friends, Jodi and her two daughters, Alisha and Kristin, came over.  We all went to graduation, explored Korea, Jodi went to China and I took the girls all to girls camp where I was the Camp Director near my home.  Then we all went to Japan and explored Tokyo and Tokyo Disney.  Great fun!

Hannah was with me for all four years we lived in Korea.  She really mastered the language. She took some in school, we had a language exchange with a Korean family, but she picked up the most from her friends who had Korean moms who would talk to her and her friends and cook for them.  She really enjoyed being a part of their culture. 

My two older daughters, Sarah, Leah and her husband, Peter, also came over for visits.  We had a great time exploring the amazing mixture of the ancient and the new high-tech world of Korea. My daughters were often treated like celebrities when we would be out exploring.  Korea was 95% homogenous, meaning only 5% of the population were foreigners.  We traveled all over and often were in areas that rarely saw foreigners.  Leah and Sarah have blonde hair.  Rebekah has auburn hair and Hannah has ginger red hair.  They are all beautiful girls.   Koreans often asked me if they were movie stars and could they take their picture.  I would say no to the movie star and yes to the picture.  We had fun taking pictures with them too.

Our favorite places in Korea were Mt. Sorak National Park, Seoul shopping areas: Insadong, Naemdaemun, Dongdaemun and more! The temples and palaces and the aquariums.  We were able to go to Tokyo several times and explore the wonderful mixture of old and new.  Hannah and I also went to China and visited Beijing, the Great Wall, the Forbidden city, the summer palace and many markets and historic sites around the city.

One of my goals in going to Korea was to get a transfer to Europe afterwards. After all, I was a French and Spanish teacher.  I had hoped to live in areas where I could use those languages.   I was told that could take a year or two which sounded great.  After four years of putting in for a transfer to Europe, there still were none. The last year, Hannah and I had been really sick and the realities of being at a remote assignment with challenging medical access made me decide that it was time to come home and be near my other children.   I was offered a job back in the Seattle area and we moved back with mixed feelings.  We loved Korea but we loved being near my older children again.

We will always love and cherish our time in Korea.  We hope to visit again.  I highly recommend visiting Asia.  It gave me a deeper appreciation and understanding for the many Asians that live in my community here in Washington.  I love to go in to our local H Mart and feel a bit of my other home, back in Songtan, South Korea.