The Korea

Fulbright Review
2008

A Publication of
The Korean-American Educational Commission
The Korea
Fulbright Review

Publishing Advisor Mrs. Jai Ok Shim, Executive Director

Front Cover Jeju Island Stone Harubang

Back Cover Cheongyecheon lights

Contact Fulbright Building

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The Korea Fulbright Review is published annually by

the Korean-American Educational Commission


 Table of Contents
Braving the Cold...........................................................................................4
Christine Arrozol
Korean Lights...............................................................................................6
Becoming a K-Pop Fangirl........................................................................... 7
Anna Cesa
Higher Education and Regional Economic Development in South Korea:
Considering NURI........................................................................................9
Jennifer Chudy
Mountains................................................................................................... 12
Running in Korea....................................................................................... 13
Emily Durham
A Year in Lists............................................................................................. 15
Hillary Eason
Stone Grandfathers.................................................................................... 17
GlyptusAnn Grider
Without, and With...................................................................................... 18
Nicole Guarino
School Life..................................................................................................20
Why Not Teach Us Hwatu?........................................................................ 21
Konrad Lawson
Tradition and Music in a Globalized Perspective......................................25
Dr. Dan Margolies
Honoring Korean Independence Fighters at Seodaeumun Prison Seoul,
Korea...........................................................................................................30
Order In, Take Out..................................................................................... 31
Janaki O’Brien
What I Am to You and What You Are to Me..............................................33
Meghan Rimelspach
Revolution of the Table..............................................................................35
Amber Rydberg
Why I Am Here...........................................................................................36
Dr. Beth Salerno
First, September.........................................................................................39
Leah Silvieus
Petals and Leaves........................................................................................39
Reflections on Excursions, Conventions, and Connections......................40
Dr. Henry Sirgo
Piagol Valley...............................................................................................42
Alexis Stratton
Adventures on the 핑크돌핀: Finally Taking the Ferry to Mokpo.............43
Nika Strzelecka
My (Host) Dad, 우리 아빠 .........................................................................45
Laura Tschop
Contributor Biographies.............................................................................47


Braving the Cold
Christine Arrozol, 2007 ETA
Photos by Christine Arrozal

“I ’m cold!” I exclaimed to my friends

sitting next to me as we waited for our
bus in the snow. Each one quickly replied with
chimes of “Of course,” “Yes, we know!” or
“You’re always cold!” All of these statements
were coupled with faces, laughter, and light
jesting to further explain how my friends feel
about my constant reference to the cold weather.

Even though my grumbles are often met with

little to no fanfare, I cannot help but express
how I feel, especially with regards to the
weather in Korea. To be fair, Koreans often
seem to enjoy speaking of the weather and
other such pleasantries. When my American
friends have had enough of my observations
on the weather, I always joke and say, “Well,
I’m just trying to really fit into this culture.
Can you blame me?” This argument doesn’t Covered from head to toe with 6 layers of
always go over very well, but it’s the perfect clothes! I was still cold!
excuse for me to discuss something that affects
my day-to-day life here in Korea, the weather.
wardrobes for summer, fall, winter, or spring.
An outfit I wore on a bright summer day could
It may seem silly to others, especially those
easily be worn on a chilly fall day with only a
who have grown up in areas where there is a
light jacket or sweater, if that, for extra warmth.
four season climate. I, however, have not had
Until I came to Korea, I did not even own a single
much experience with such drastic changes
piece of winter clothing and most definitely not
in temperature. Growing up as one of four
a winter wardrobe. There was just no need for it.
children of military parents, there was no end
to the number of houses and towns I lived
From the start, I knew that I would have
in. However, possibly because of my mother
an interesting time trying to handle the four
and father’s own penchant for hot weather,
season climate that Korea is famous for. I
I grew up in places that were rather warm. I
knew that it would be a large part of this grant
spent my formative years living on the island
year and that it could hinder or help how well
of Guam, as well as in the Philippines, and in
I adapted to the other changes in my life. I did
California. In these places, weather was of little
not worry too much about spring and autumn
to no consequence for me because more often
as I was told that these times of the year are
than not, it was pleasant and sunny. Changes
pleasant and a great time to be in Korea. I also
in temperature from summer to winter were
guessed that I would have some trouble with
slight, and there was no need to have separate


the really hot summer conditions, but that I
could handle it well enough. However, what
I was really worried about was winter. Could
a person who has never had to deal with snow
and the cold on a daily basis, be able to survive
3-4 months of cold temperatures? It was in
fact, the question most posed to me as I was
preparing and leaving California for Korea.
How was I going to handle winter? Many of
my friends even felt the need to point out that
back then I did not own a single long-sleeved
t-shirt. Although I know they meant well and
were just worried, it was not exactly the best
way to assuage my own concerns with the
weather and climate I was about to live in.
The odd thing is that although I was so
worried about it, the weather has been my
constant companion while here in Korea. So
much so that I now consider it a friend. It has
opened my eyes to a lot of new experiences
and feelings. I now truly know that the
weather is directly tied to nature, and both can
affect my day and outlook. Living through
a whole year of varying temperatures and
weather has been an enlightening experience.
Although there were many challenges, it
has also provided me with many chances to
appreciate the beauty of Korea and its character
in a different manner every few months.
Each obstacle regarding the weather
that I was forced to face was equally
rewarded with an awesome
experience that has stayed with me. Spending two weeks in Hwacheon with the snow and ice
ended up being one of the greatest parts of my grant year.
I can still remember the
shopping spree I went on
the first time I really got a
chance to spend a few days
in Seoul in October. I was
desperate to buy everything
from tights to thick sweaters,
long socks to thermals, and
gloves to hats. I spent a bulk
of my stipend that month on
clothing, something I was
definitely not too happy about.
In contrast, I can remember the
excited feeling I got the first time it snowed
and I could see my breath in the cold air. I
remember feeling so refreshed and exhilarated
after having walked a while in the snow. I
definitely remember thinking that the cold
was worth it to feel that refreshed and awake.
Another change in my routine caused by the
weather was the extraordinary methods I had to
employ to stay warm. During the fall and winter,
I had to wear six layers of clothes coupled with
stockings, tights, long socks, jeans and boots.
I then had to throw on a warm jacket, scarf,
beanie, and gloves. It was definitely a chore to
get dressed in the morning and all my precaution
still did not guarantee that I would be warm that
day. However, I also recall the wonderful time
I spent in Hwacheon where I was surrounded
by snow at every moment of the two weeks I
spent there. Although it was so cold, it also
felt so peaceful seeing everything blanketed
in white. I recall one experience where I was
walking alone to school one morning. A light
snow was falling and I could see snowflakes
touching my skin and yet, I could not feel
any of it. It truly felt magical and I felt like
an innocent child experiencing something for
the first time again. There is no other word
to explain the awe I felt at that moment, and I
remember my jaw falling involuntarily when I
first realized how magical snow really could be.

 Even now, as the chilly weather and strong not exchange any of the wonderful experiences
breezes wrap around my body, and I can I have had because of it. The thing about facing
never guess whether I will be cold or warm new living conditions and challenging yourself
on any given day; I also see and appreciate the to try something new is that it can be difficult,
coming of spring. Everywhere I look, things and yet it can be so rewarding. This was a lesson
are blooming and cherry blossom trees are that I have learned time and again while being
appearing along every major roadway. The here in Korea this year, most especially with
long absence of greenery and flowers has made regards to weather and appreciating everything
me enjoy and notice its appearance now. I that a four season country like Korea can truly
know that had this been California, Guam, or offer. It is somewhat ironic considering my
the Philippines, I might not even have noticed. previous worries and complaints about weather,
but for everything it has given me, I am eternally
This grant year is almost over, and in the end, grateful to zero degree temperatures, strong
the only thing I will have left from this amazing spring winds, chilly autumn days, and any other
year will be the memories of great experiences. element that Korea will see fit to throw my way
Although, I will always complain about having before the end of this year. My experience
been cold for the better part of the year, I would would not have been the same without them.

Korean Lights
Photos by Lauren Smith, 2007 ETA and Jason Lee, 2007 ETA


Becoming a K-Pop Fangirl
Anna Cesa, 2007 ETA
Photo by Noelle Easterday, 2006-2007 ETA
E veryone has secrets, and I’m no
exception. My particular dirty little
secret is known only to my family and good
friends. It tends to come out when I’m with a
group of people listening to music, usually your
typical mainstream pop. You know, Beyonce,
Justin Timberlake, etc. Sometimes a comment
will be made along the lines of “This song is so
addictive” or “I know I shouldn’t like this stuff,
but it’s fun to dance to.” And, if my companions
do not seem to be music snobs, this is precisely
when I often choose to reveal my secret.
I’ll take a deep breath and duck my head
down to avoid meeting anyone’s eyes.
“I was a huge Backstreet Boys fan in eighth
grade.”
I’m not proud of my past. But my excuse
is that I was young, only 14 or so, very much
interested in cute boys as a general rule, just
discovering radio beyond my parents’ oldies
station and highly susceptible to the musical
tastes of my peers. Put it all together, and
you’ve got a raging, obsessing, teeny-bopping
BSB fangirl. I’ve come over time to accept my
musical history as simply a part of my past, to
not be so ashamed of my secret. Many girls
my age were the same as I, whether the object
of their obsessions was the Backstreet Boys,
NSync, or even Hanson. I was young. I didn’t
know any better.
Now, at 23 years of age, I should know better.
And I thought I did know better.
Enter K-Pop.
My love of K-pop began with an earnest
desire to connect with my students. I was
frequently asked, “Teacher do you know
blahblahblah?” And truthfully, I almost never
knew blahblahblah. Faced with disappointed
expressions, I knew that I had to become
familiar at least with the popular groups if I
wanted to truly bond with these teenagers. My
host sister and our television set exposed me to
FT Island, Wondergirls, and Super Junior. Then
Big Bang and their song “Lies” entered my
life. With an insanely addictive chorus, “Lies”
became the first K-pop song that I downloaded
to my computer, and it wasn’t long before I
could sing the entire chorus in Korean, even
if I didn’t fully understand what I was saying.
In school my students and I talked about how
good the song was and debated which Big
Bang member was cuter, G-Dragon or T.O.P.
(since he was older, I voted for G-Dragon).
Enjoying this new level in my relationship with
my students, I began reading a couple Korean
pop culture blogs and became curious about
one group who was particularly popular with
my female students: TVXQ or Dong Bang Shin
Ki. I watched a performance of their new song
“Purple Line” on the internet. Good dancers,
decent singers, I thought. I watched the music
video. Entertaining, I thought. Still, with their
over-the-top costumes and hairstyles, I mentally
classified them, along with Big Bang, under
“boy band” and then turned on the Beatles (who
are, ironically, the original boy band).
The only problem was that I couldn’t for the
life of me get these Korean pop songs out of
my head.
I searched online for various music videos
and performances by my new favorite groups,
especially Dong Bang Shin Ki. I watched

subtitled interviews and variety shows and Plus, K-pop has actually helped me improve
learned to identify individual members of each my vocabulary. After exploring some of Dong
group, their personalities and their histories. I Bang Shin Ki’s older songs, I now know how to
played their songs on repeat on my iPod, dancing say “I believe” in Korean, and I probably still
and singing along the whole time. Thus, after wouldn’t know “lie” - an important word in any
eight years, I became a teeny-bopper all over language – if it wasn’t for Big Bang.
again. For a bunch of singers who weren’t
much older than my students. Maybe I’m just trying to justify my changing
musical tastes to myself. In any case, once I
At first I felt embarrassed about my growing go back to America my love affair with K-pop
obsession. I thought I had long ago outgrown will probably fade as a result of being out of
manufactured pop bands. Nevertheless, being direct contact with the culture in which it’s
a committed K-pop fan has definite benefits. embedded. So for now I’m putting away my
Anything that helps my students feel more guilt, warranted or unwarranted, and embracing
comfortable speaking to me is definitely a good K-pop, over-the-top fashion, and 21-year-old
thing. And at the end of a long day at school, boys with frosted flat-ironed hair. I’m a 23-
there’s nothing like turning on and dancing year-old American K-pop teeny-bopper, and
along to a song that’s just fun, pure and simple. I’m having a blast.

Korean group Epik High in concert


Higher Education and Regional Economic Development
in South Korea: Considering NURI
Jennifer Chudy, 2007 ETA
Photo by Nicole Guarino, 2007 ETA
Prayers at a temple for high scores on
the national college test
S ince the Joseon Dynasty, Seoul has been
the center of Korean financial, political,
cultural, and educational affairs. Approximately
twenty-four percent (or 10.3 million) of the
Korean population currently resides in Seoul
proper, with an additional seven million people
(totaling thirty-nine percent of Koreans) living
in the surrounding provinces. The City houses
most Korean government agencies (96%), top
corporate headquarters (also 96%), foreign
embassies (93%), and all of the nation’s stock
brokeragesi. With the centralization of these
resources in Seoul, it may come as no surprise
that Seoul is also home to some of Korea’s most
respected universities.
Though education has long been revered in
Korea under Confucianism, higher education
in Korea is a relatively recent phenomenon.
ii
Prior to the Korean War, there were only
19 universities in Korea—most of these
were private and concentrated in urban areas
like Seoul. During the War, however, the
government encouraged its Seoul institutions to
seek refuge in southern cities, and thus began
the groundwork for establishing a nationwide
regional higher education system. By 1954, there
was at least one university in each province of
Korea, totaling 13 comprehensive universities
and 31 colleges.iii Additionally, as the number
of universities has grown, Korean enrollment
rates have also surged. Especially within
the last thirty years, Koreans have witnessed
extraordinary higher education enrollment
growth.iv The size, scope, and expectations of
Korean Universities have changed dramatically
since the Korean War.
Despite growing enrollments, many
university students (approximately 45%) remain
geographically concentrated in the Seoul area.v
Though they offer both accessible and excellent
educations, regional universities have found it
difficult to position themselves as competitive
alternatives to Seoul institutions. Areas such as
the Jeolla and Gyeongsang provinces are being
drained of their talent while simultaneously
feeding the already impressive and educated
population of Seoul. This leaves provinces
with limited human and economic resources
further behind by pushing Seoul ahead.

 Regional universities, on the other hand, industries. By encouraging universities to form
have the potential to retain their graduates Regional Innovation Systems, entities linking
within their geographic areas by building government, business, and academia, NURI
functional relationships with local industries.vi promotes academic programs that incorporate
Indeed, some individuals have already credited regionally-specific skill building through
these universities with having contributed to components such as: internship components,
the development of Korea’s provinces in the lectures from industry experts, technical
aftermath of the Korean War.vii Many believe training, and even re-training for graduates.
that if universities can facilitate successful Through this regional specialization, NURI
relationships with industries, graduates will be aims to cultivate a” highly skilled workforce
able to tangibly relate their educations to the that the region needs, through...collaborative
needs of their communities. These students education programs with... partners related to
will leave their universities equipped with the regional strategies.”x
region-specific skills that will enable and
encourage them to work and live within their Despite NURI’s many promises, however,
regions. Regional universities, therefore, have it is not clear if the program can succeed in
the potential to serve as powerful resources to encouraging college students and graduates
create, incubate, and sustain future economic to pursue studies and lives outside of Seoul.
activity throughout all of Korea. The program is still in its beginning stages,
so though the Korean BNC (Brain Korea 21
Recognizing both the potential of regional and NURI Council) presents a very impressive
universities and the problems of further resource results recordxi of the initial investments and
concentration in Seoul, the Korean Government improvements (detailing faculty provision rate
has promoted the geographic decentralization and employment rate of graduates), it is hard
of Korean universities. Restrictive policies, to predict if these upward trends will continue
such as placing enrollment quotas on Seoul in the longterm. Indeed, NURI, though in
institutions, met with limited successviii, and many ways admirable, is also problematic
were therefore mostly abolished in the mid- ideologically and practically. Two of the
1990s. In 2004, however, former President Roh program’s most questionable are elements
Moo-Hyun attempted an alternative approach. are: NURI’s explicitly vocational approach
Consistent with his campaign agenda, President to education and NURI’s ability to effectively
Roh introduced a range of programs intended battle the historical and continued attraction of
to lessen gaps between the Seoul Region and Seoul.
other parts of Koreaix. Two programs, Brain
Korea 21, and New Universities for Regional Though many acknowledge that the
Innovation (NURI) explicitly identified higher emphasis on vocational secondary education
education as vehicles for coordinating and in the aftermath of the Korean War accelerated
encouraging regional economic growth. economic growth, it is not clear whether this type
of education would be appropriate for Korea at
Of these two programs, New Universities for this momentxii. Rather, somexiii articulate that the
Regional Development most actively sought to Korean education system should be reoriented
address Korea’s regional inequalities. Initially to include a broader, liberal curriculum. NURI,
funded in 2004 at a rate of W1.2 trillion over meanwhile, promotes mostly a vocational
five years, the program’s goals are to nurture education, which may serve only to maintain
regional universities in order to meet the needs present (and often suffering) industries rather
of local industry. Specifically, NURI disperses than encouraging the emergence of new
funding to both public and private universities sectors.
that have forged partnerships with local

10
 Furthermore, despite all of NURI’s efforts,
the program may still be too weak to keep
ambitious students from migrating to Seoul.
Given the country’s compact geography and
rich history, Seoul continues to be an attractive
and easy move for most Koreans. NURI must
compete against the centuries of historical
and cultural precedent that have encouraged
millions of Koreans to move to Seoul. It is a
challenging task—and many believe that such
efforts are neither practical nor even desirable.
Nonetheless, NURI is an impressive and
important effort, and is effective in promoting
further dialog and research on the link between
regional development and higher education
in Korea. Decentralization in Korea is a
desirable and neglected goal and without
deliberate efforts, like NURI, it will continue
to disadvantage those beyond the Seoul region.
Economic disparities are difficult to alleviate
with a single program; however, if the Korean
government remains financially and politically
dedicated to eliminating regional disparities,
it can better promote a strong economic and
social future for all Korean provinces.

Endnotes
i
Kim, J. and Choe, S. (1997) Seoul: The Making of a Metropolis.  New York: John Wiley & Sons.
ii
Kim, Sunwoong and Lee, Ju-Ho, 2006. Changing facets of Koran higher education: market
competition and the role of the state. Higher Education, Volume 52, Number 3, October 2006, pp. 557-
587(31)
iii
Kim, S et al, 2006
iv
Kim, S et al, 2006
v
Equality, Quality, and Cost in Higher Education: Research Study on Republic of Korea by
Korean Council for University Education, UNESCO Bangkok 1988
vi
Baek, Yong Chun and Jones, Randall, 2005. “Sustaining High Growth Through Innovation:
Reforming the R&D and Education Systems in Korea,” OECD Economics Department Working Papers
470, OECD Economics Department
vii
Kim, S et al, 2006
viii
Kim, S et al, 2006.
ix
President Roh Moo-Hyun’s Inaugration Speech. 2003. BBC Online. 1 April 2008. <http://
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2797053.stm>
x
About NURI, 2006.
xi
i
Korea BNC (Brain 21 Korea Nuri Council) 2006. NURI’s Results. 10 April 2008. <http://bnc.
krf.or.kr/home/eng/nuri/result.jsp>
xii
Cha, Yun-Kyung. 2004. Education and Science as Strategies for South Korean National
Development. Geneva, UNESCO Press., 132.
xiii
Cha, 2004.

11
Mountains
Photos by Katie Dale, 2006 ETA

12
Running in Korea
Emily Durham, 2007 ETA
Photos by Emily Durham

I am not a model Korean child. I don’t play

the piano (although I did teach my host
sisters the duet “Heart and Soul”). I don’t play
and dropped
their balls to
gape.
the violin. I don’t paint or draw or sing. By
Korean standards I don't have a lot of talent.  Finding a
Sometimes I get the impression that the only gym became
thing Koreans think I can do well is exercise. my next quest, but nobody seemed to be able to
After all, most of my time growing up was help me. That is, until the day my co-teacher
spent swimming competitively. As a result, in took me hiking and brought me home late. I
Korea my introductions usually went along the was ecstatic about finding a mountain near my
lines of This is Emily from the US and she just house to hike and announced to my host family
likes like to swim and run a lot. This repeated I would be climbing it every day. My host
dialogue was always inevitably followed by family was terrified for my safety. The next
an awkward silence or nod and polite smile day I had a gym membership at the local youth
from the person I was meeting. I realized very center.
quickly that being athletic was not going to get
The gym, while not outstanding, had the
me very far in this country.
essential treadmill and weights. I soon became
Swimming, running, hiking – they’ve always used to being the only female really exercising
been a part of my life. The first two months I and wearing shorts. While the women next
spent in Korea, I never touched a pool. Quite to me walked slowly and gracefully on their
a feat for someone, like me, who started treadmills in their matching wind-suits, I broke
swimming competitively at age six and had a sweat running and sometimes even (gasp!)
never been away from the water for more than lifted weights. My elementary school students,
a week until this year. During Orientation, who hung out at the Youth Center in the
daily taekwondo classes in the sweat bath of the afternoons, loved to come in the workout room
Kangwon University gym satisfied my need for waving and yelling, “Emily teacher! Emily
physical activity. teacher! Hi! Hi!” Their new favorite question
to ask me at school was “Teacher, today un-
However, after moving to my home stay I dong-hae-yo? Running machine?”
began to go a little stir crazy after two weeks of
no “real” exercise. My only movement consisted It didn’t take long for treadmill running to
of walking from one end of the apartment to become the most boring thirty minutes of the
the other, bowing and nodding, and performing day so I jumped at the chance to run a Korean
the bowl/plate to mouth exercise over and over marathon. Well, only a 5K, but in Korea every
again. Finally, one morning I worked up my running race is called a marathon (you just don’t
nerve to go running. Wearing athletic shorts have to say how far you actually ran to friends
and an I-pod I jogged a couple of loops around back in the US unless they specifically ask).
our apartment complex. I felt like I was in a Plans for the race started a month before when
Nike commercial as little kids stopped playing the friendly music teacher at my school asked
me what I enjoyed doing.  When the usual do

13
you play an instrument/sing/paint questions wanted after a hard run.
got her nowhere with me, I told her I went to
the gym everyday. So the teachers decided we So, medal around my neck and bag of rice
should do a marathon together with Laura and in hand I walked in my apartment where I was
Rosie, two other Hongseong Fulbright teachers.  met at the door by my host-family who wanted
I was excited. to hear all about the morning.  My host dad
saw the rice, and declared, “Emily. Everyday.
Race day dawned and we arrived at the event Marathon.”
grounds wearing our matching teal blue shirts
we were given for entering. We looked like My running adventures continued with a
an undersized rugby team. I was under the 10K on my twenty-third birthday: a little closer
impression that we would be walking the entire to legitimate marathon distance. Besides, as
race. Leading up to the race-day, the teachers Laura’s co-teacher pointed out, if we ran the
had repeatedly told me that they never exercised.  longer race we got spiffy fluorescent lime-green
After the last 5K race they had entered, they jackets. The racecourse took us along the back
claimed they were “sore for weeks.” roads of my hometown of Hongseong. I passed
by one-story blue tiled roofed farmhouses. In
So much for not running the race! The music their front yards, bright red kimchee peppers
teacher took off running from the beginning. were drying in the sun on large black tarps. The
I thought to myself, "Oh this is fun, getting freshly cut rice paddies were golden brown in
a good start to the race."  But then she didn't the sunlight. While running down the last hill,
stop running!  In fact, she sprinted almost the I had one of those moments when you can't
entire race.  Rosie and I, gasping and red-faced, believe how lucky you are to be in that exact
tried to keep up with her.  Laura, who had an moment and place.  At the finish, I sprinted
unfortunate breakfast of greasy ‘good luck’ into the stadium and saw my three host sisters
chopchay, didn’t fare so well. This frantic pace jumping up and down yelling my name in
continued until the last half kilometer when the excitement. I couldn’t have been happier.
music teacher declared she was too tired and
wanted to walk the rest of the way.  I'd run that I realized after the race, while sitting on the
far, and I wasn't going to stop then!  So Rosie running track with a bowl of steaming hot kal-
and I ran together to the end.  guk-su, a cup of mak-keol-li, and surrounded
by my best friends in Korea and my Korean
After the race, we received our goodie-bags.  family, that I am not your model Korean girl.
In the US, you might get a granola bar and a But that’s ok with me. My host family sure
Gatorade.  In Korea, you get a big bag of rice doesn’t complain when I bring home the rice!
and the best part – a real medal that you can
hang around your neck and boast to others that
you won the race (nobody has to know they
give them to everyone!).

Lunch was held under the nearby tents.  We

were handed steaming bowls of kal-guk-su
and then stood in line to have an old a-jum-ma
wearing blue rubber boots scoop mak-keol-
li out of a giant red trashcan into a paper cup.
Until taking a big sip I guessed it was the sweet
nonalcoholic rice shik-yae drink. Besides the
fact that it was still only 10 a.m. in the morning,
mak-keol-li was not the Gatorade my stomach

14
A Year in Lists
Hillary Eason, 2007 ETA

A ugust 2007

RESPONSES TO THE QUESTION “WHAT COUNTRY DO YOU THINK I AM FROM?”

-Africa
-Los Angeles
-Uzbekistan

SUBTITLED AMERICAN MOVIES MY SCHOOL PURCHASED FOR USE IN MY

CLASSROOM

-The Deer Hunter

-Terminator 2: Judgment Day
-Cliffhanger
-Rambo
-The Long Kiss Goodnight
-Dances with Wolves (2)
-Highlander
-Apocalypse Naw (sic)

O ctober 2007

STUDENT RESPONSES TO THE PROMPT, “DESCRIBE JEJU-DO”

-many cars
- many beautiful girls
-many handsome boys
-exciting stones
-oranges

D ecember 2007

REASONS WHY GS25>FAMILY MART

-better candy selection

-more character, where character = small size, dirt
-more varieties of green tea in bottles

15
 -lower popularity allows me to feel as though I am in some sort of special in-the-
know club

J anuary 2008

KOREAN CLOTHES I HAVE BOUGHT THAT ARE NOT ACTUALLY WEARABLE IN

AMERICA

-All of them

M arch 2008

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES MY STUDENTS LIKE

-Barack Obama

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES MY STUDENTS DISLIKE

-Hillary Clinton

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES MY STUDENTS HAVE NEVER HEARD OF/THINK IS MY

GRANDFATHER

-John McCain

REASONS MY STUDENTS DISLIKE PRESIDENT BUSH

-Killing Korean farmers

-HanMi FTA
-Loves war, hates peace
-Old man
-Looks like monkey

A pril 2008

THINGS I WILL NOT MISS ABOUT KOREA

-kimchi (every kind)

-people pointing at me and openly speculating about my ethnicity

THINGS I WILL MISS ABOUT KOREA

-everything else

16
Stone Grandfathers
GlyptusAnn Grider, 2007 ETA
Photo by GlyptusAnn Grider

stout winds blow the yellow dust; oranges fall from burdened trees
and spirits drift through open doors, beneath the moon, and out to sea.
with hallow eyes, the guards remain, ever watchful and erect.

written in sijo verse

17
Without, and With
Nicole Guarino, 2007 ETA

I found it curious one evening to see my

six year old host sister standing outside of
the bathroom completely naked and furiously
ahead of personal interests” (47). Part of the
character, 中 (joong), also means that “the spirit
of fairness and righteousness that is unfettered
drying herself with a purple hand towel, by private interests” (46). This translates
smiling. into many aspects of Korean culture and
society, including “the equal sharing profits, or
Her nudity only bothered me slightly. Even gyunjeom” (49). My host sister simply assumed
though I still didn’t feel entirely comfortable that I also practiced good 忠 when she rubbed
with the people I was now expected to call my purple towel all over her naked body.
my new Korean family, my host sister was
young. Plus, I had experience public bathing Clearly, this mentality applies to the everyday
with complete strangers and my closest friends Korean workplace, neighborhood, and family.
in Korea at the 찜질방 (jjimjilbang). Nudity My fellow English teacher friend has tried to
didn’t bother me as it once did. enjoy a tasty American snack, wrapped carefully
in a package from her American mother, in the
As she scrubbed the cloth against her soft skin, 교무실 (gyomushil), only to have her Korean
she laughed with pleasure in her work, almost co-worker stick out a hand for her share. I’ve
as if she knew she was doing. With each stroke, heard of toothpaste curiously vanishing from
she twisted and tensed my American cultural personal bathroom stashes and finding a host
recognition a little more; her smile growing and family member wearing your shoes and skirt
my restraint rising. Well, perhaps her taunting as they walk out the door. The egalitarian
was just in my imagination. What I did know, mindset shocks many Americans, even within
however, was why I couldn’t stop staring at her. the smallest microcosm of Korean society.
She was using my purple towel.
Soon after the purple towel incident, I safely
Anyone who is familiar with Korean designated my belongings away from the family
culture and society knows Koreans believe to ensure another naked-stranger-drying-off-
in egalitarianism, or the equality of everyone with-my-towel incident wouldn’t happen again.
(or in Korea’s case, within social hierarchies). I moved all my shower items to a “safe” shelf in
According to Rhie Won-bok in his book Korea the bathroom, meaning only my things occupied
Unmasked: In Search of the Country, the that space. Food that I brought from home to
Society, and the People, Koreans have been share stayed safely in my room. The first time
sharing with, and taking from, their fellow I went shopping with my host family, I tried to
countrymen for a long, long time. During buy my own drying rack, hangers, power strip
the Joseon Dynasty, farmers would help each outlet, and scissors, among other things, much
other on their farms and evenly divide the to my host mother’s dismay. I won the fight
profits to guarantee protection and a successful for my own drying rack, but my teenage host
yield. Rhie stresses that one of Korea’s main brother convinced me to put back everything
principles, 忠 (choong), means that in Korean else. Clearly, I didn’t understand忠 quite yet.
society, “the heart..places common values

18
 But I did understand that my host family was
trying to help me feel like a part of their family
by sharing their things with me. I decided the
first battle I would fight would be not to have
my own pair of scissors. I could just use the
family’s scissors, no problem. I even already
knew how to say “scissors” in Korean (가위),
so I could ask for them whenever I wanted.
Sharing will be easy.
Suddenly, everything needed to be cut,
sliced, severed, or trimmed: loose strings on
t-shirts and buttons, tags on new clothes, a
project for school the next day, letters that
were too big for their envelopes, loose fabric
on a journal, unbreakable seals, stubborn knots,
unbreakable thread. And it always happened at
1:00 AM when one of my family members was
fast asleep on the living room floor, or when
all the other pairs of scissors were suspected
to be infested with some sort of rampant e-coli
bacterial growth after being used some nights
before to cut our 삼겹살 (samkyeopsal) into
chewable pieces. Sometimes, my host brother
and mother wouldn’t know where the scissors
disappeared to, leaving my do-it-yourself cell
phone charm sewing kit of a flying pig in real
trouble. Every time I went exploring for the
scissors, I was in for an adventure.
Eventually, I became familiar with the scissors’
hiding places, which ones were the sharpest,
which ones were washed and unwashed from
last night’s dinner. My clothes started to appear
on my family’s drying rack from time to time.
I brought back food from Family Mart and
festivals for my family to share. One time, I
handed my host mother a dirty cup just as she
finished washing the last dish in the sink, telling
her, “미안합니다 (mianhapnida, I am sorry).”
My host mother said something in Korean to
my host brother. He translated. “My mother
says, don’t feel sorry for anything that happens
in our family.” Now, I understood忠.
Watching the forces of capitalism and
socialism wrestle in Korea is fascinating,
especially when it happens within you. Letting
go is necessary to become a part of Korean
society, and doing it in little steps has helped
me feel more comfortable in Korea and like a
member of my host family. Curiously, my host
brother’s toothbrush moved into my shelf a few
weeks ago, and my toothpaste is disappearing
at a much faster rate than before. I am OK with
this. My purple towel, however, still hangs on
the back of my desk chair, far out of reach of
small naked children.
19
School Life
Photos by Jason Lee, 2007 ETA, Christina Brittain, 2006 ETA, Sara Shin, 2006 ETA,
Noelle Easterday, 2006 ETA

20
Why Not Teach Us Hwatu?
Konrad Lawson, 2007 Fulbright Korea Junior Researcher
Photos by Konrad Lawson
F or many students language classes are a
chance to encounter the exotic. Maximum
effect is achieved when they are held in the host
country, where they also provide a therapeutic
outlet for students to voice their frustrations
about life in a place where much is lost without
translation, but wherever they are held in the
world, language classes can tear us away from
the familiar and temporarily plunge us into an
environment where we are repeatedly pushed
to the outer limits of our understanding. This
is most obviously thanks to the challenges of
the new language itself, but in many programs
there is another element which contributes to the
exhilaration of the experience which is based
on a fundamental assumption of difference: that
the language being studied is tied to a unique
and authentic culture; steeped in tradition and
rich in flavor. This culture is usually located in
both a people and a place, distinct from other
peoples and places, and it is almost always
located in a time: an immutable past. Far from
natural, this is a tragic but inevitable result of
the close tie, in much of the world, between
language, culture, and nation.
We can see this at work in our language classes.
Our teachers and textbooks present themselves
as a guide to the culture seen as attached to the
language in question and sometimes take more
pride in this role as cultural interpreters than
in their capacity as language instructors; the
career for which they are primarily trained. This
is an important fact we must recognize, since
many of us who study the Korean peninsula
or other regions in an academic context gain
our first exposure to a culture, or at least the
first staged opportunity to discuss features of
a culture through our language classes. In the
early stages of language study, the result of this
cultural instruction can often differ little from
an uncritical and pre-packaged tourist brochure.
No stereotype is left immobilized and no claim
to historical greatness goes unmentioned. This
goes a long way in building walls in the mind;
mental categories that we carry with us and are
often only overcome with difficulty.
Let us take one more concrete example
of what I’m talking about. There is often a
tendency to teach students dead culture, and
avoid teaching them living culture. Naturally
such stark terms are relative and often temporary
designations, but they are used here to show a
particular contrast. A horrible mess would result
if we attempted any kind of comprehensive
classification system. By dead culture I mean
those arts, customs or daily practices which have,
for whatever reason, lost their central place in
the lives of a group of people, but which may be
the target of a campaign of preservation which
is often motivated by national or a more local
community pride. Sometimes such campaigns
are genuinely successful in resurrecting or,
more accurately, recreating a dead culture and
reestablishing its popularity. Examples of this
abound. Off the top of my head we might point
to the widespread popularity of various forms
of Korean drumming, especially among college
students, and of forms of traditional music that
have come to occupy a proud place in political
movements. In contrast, modern reinventions
of Japanese taiko drumming seems to have
had relatively less success with a split path
of development; one leading to its revitalized
use in local festivals and the other with a more
distinctly fusion character in the ‘New Age’
or ‘world’ music scene. This latter strand is
arguably more popular outside of Japan than
domestically.
21
 Living culture is much harder to define
precisely because it is all around us. Its very
vitality and the sometimes rapid changes
it undergoes make it difficult to pin down.
Living culture is often messy, mixed up, and its
multiple outside influences often immediately
evident. This robs it of the kind of purity we
might casually associate with dead culture.
The powerful influence of the media in a
highly commercialized society also frequently
muddies the picture, as we wonder where
agency lies in creating, controlling and
developing much of this culture. The day is
surely far off, for example, when Pepero Day
will come to be regarded with the same solemn
reverence as Ch’usŏk. Yet despite the antiquity
of the latter, both are part of the living culture
of South Korea. Together with so many other
far more frequent cultural practices, these
celebrations are both part of what we will see
and experience when we live in South Korea
today. Korean language classes do, of course,
teach us all about Ch’usŏk, but this is mostly
thanks to its relatively rare status as a living
tradition. More often, however, we become
a captive, if unlikely, audience to cultural
preservation campaigns.
When Seoul National University’s Korean
language program took my class on a “cultural
excursion” in the summer of 2006, we were
bussed off to the folk museum to spend an
afternoon making Korean masks. Students were
delighted, of course, since most of us hadn’t
done anything quite like this since elementary
school art class. And yet, is this not true also for
Koreans? How often, we might ask, do Koreans
craft masks for a dance outside the enclosed
walls of their local yangban? Newspaper
reporters assembled for the occasion gathered
some of us together for group photos with our
masks, making sure to get at least one person
of every possible racial color pigmentation.
“Here are some foreigners learning about our
culture!” The revival of Korean traditional
masks and especially mask dances is, like the
revival of so many folk practices in the last two
hundred years, a nationalist project, but also
like many of these similar projects, it is part of
a rejection of an elitist, cosmopolitan culture of
the past. In the Korean case these include many
of the heavily “Chinese” tainted practices of
the yangban class. Instead there is an endless
search to find difference and a Korean essence
which locates the true and the pure arts among
the ‘people’ or minjung.
When Yonsei University’s Korean language
program took my class on a “cultural excursion”
in the summer of 2007, we spent an afternoon at
the National Museum’s education center to learn
how to make paper lanterns. Again, students
were delighted at such a rare opportunity, but
this might be just as true for Koreans for whom
the techniques of paper lantern making are
likely to be equally foreign. Before we began
working our lanterns we were subjected to a
dramatic video documentary on the illustrious
history of Korean lanterns and how they are
superior in every way to the incredibly similar
lamps one might find in a place like Japan.
There was a fascinating absence of history in
this presentation, as if lanterns have been made
in ways unchanged since time immemorial and
without any outside influence.
Again the celebrated culture in question is
chosen from among the arts of the ‘people’
rather than the elites. It would simply not
do, for example, to take us to a traditional
Confucian academy and show us how one was
taught the “Thousand Character Classic,” a
poem that served to teach hanja characters to
children all over East Asia for over a thousand
years, or teach us the landscape painting that
is also found all over the region. However, in
other cases, there has been a kind of downward
drift of culture, as the ‘people’ claim an element
of elite culture deemed sufficiently distinct for
national representation. The best example of
this in Korea is the hanbok traditional garb.
A trip to the Folk village in Suwon shows the
houses of peasants in the late Chosŏn period
but strangely shows the farmer wives working
inside dressed in colorful hanbok dresses not
22
found among their class.
While such cultural excursions are fun, and
there is nothing objectionable to the wonderful
efforts being put into studying and promoting
these arts, we would do well to put them into
perspective. In the case of cultural instruction
to outsiders in the environment of a language
program, I think we ought to shift the focus
to the challenge of teaching more, and indeed
celebrating, the living culture around us. The
same features of the elite culture of the past that
are avoided in an effort to celebrate the culture
of the ‘people’, that is, their cosmopolitan
nature and outside influences, are now a primary
feature of the vast majority of living culture
amongst the ‘people’ themselves. However,
like everywhere else, the daily practices, the
arts, and the myriad other forms of culture are
always found in rich variation and their very
combination of multiple outside influences is
more than sufficient to make them unique.
When we arrive in Korea and step into buses
or taxis, walk through parks, or turn the TV to
certain channels and hear the ‘trot’ (t’ŭrot’ŭ)
style of music playing over the radio. Many of
us might wonder why we were never told about
this before we arrived. While it is hardly as
popular as the Korean pop music of my own or
younger generations, it is still found everywhere
and is an incredibly important part of culture
here for millions of mostly older Koreans. The
trot style of old pop music is sullied, however,
by its origins in the Japanese colonial period and
is thus apparently an impure and inappropriate
representative of Korean culture. I find this
tragic, especially given the fact that Korean
songs and singers of this genre would go on
to become the most dominant influence on the
same genre in postwar Japan (called enka), in
what was an entirely unrecognized ‘Korean
wave’ long kept hidden by justified fears of
discrimination against Korean performers in
Japan.
What about that strange game with the red
and black colored cards you come across when
Korean friends start playing it on a long ferry
ride, or in a home on top of a bedroom blanket?
Why did I never learn this in my language
classes, so filled with culture as they are? I think
the reason this piece of living culture was left
out is again its ‘impure’ origins. The collection
of games based on the cards are called hwatu,
or hanafuda, and have Japanese origins. It is
thus disqualified from consideration for Korean
cultural instruction. Yet, in my three years of
living in Japan, I have never seen the cards
before. Though I’m told they still exist there,
first sold widely by a little company called
Nintendo over a hundred years ago, they enjoy
nowhere near as much popularity in Japan as
they do here in Korea.
On a bitterly cold February evening I sat on a
warm ondol-warmed floor in a small Buddhist
temple in a mountain valley in Kangwon
province watching an aging couple play hwatu
for money. Outside the snow was three feet deep
and continued to fall, while young conscripted
soldiers from the military bases found all
around the area were probably out clearing the
roads again in the freezing weather. My friend’s
mother lived in the temple with her beloved
companion, a jovial and talkative Buddhist
monk; living as his wife in all but name. This
fly-swatting and meat-eating monk spoke in a
language that courted the opposing extremes of
colorful vulgarity and metaphysical obscurity.
He lived in a modest house completely built
23
by himself and led an austere and deeply
contemplative life in the mountains serving his
flock of farmers and soldiers.

The following day he would give a talk on

ethics to a group of conscripts on a base an hour
away. Many of the soldiers were probably only
there to get out of other Sunday duties. To add
extra incentive for soldiers to attend his talk and
not those of the various Christian competitors
also speaking at the same time, he would bring
a bag full of fresh kimbap for the young men to
munch on.

As I sat and watched the monk and my

friend’s mother enjoy their game, I marveled
at the many contradictions I had witnessed
and couldn’t help thinking that this happy
scene was probably among my most precious
experiences in my time in Korea. The muddled
mix of cultures and life philosophies embodied
in that very household and the game they played
moved me to think again about what I had been
taught about Korean culture. I couldn’t help
wondering, “Why didn’t they teach us hwatu?”

24
Tradition and Music in a Globalized Perspective
Dr. Dan Margolies, 2007 Fulbright Korea Senior Lecturer
Photo by Dan Margolies

I t certainly is not hard to find telling

anecdotes and curiosities to capture the
often jarring essence of this rapidly globalizing
age we are in. The cascading transformations
of globalization are clearly written in broad
strokes across Seoul in ways immediately
apparent in signage, city structure, rhythm
and even individual style, just as they are now
across the globe. The examples are clear in the
transformation of space, place, and identity and
in the emergence of new global interconnections
and interdependencies. But understanding these Five Points Serenaders playing at
examples, and contextualizing these changes in Yeoojoo University, Gyeonggi Province
meaningful, historical ways—well, that tends
ranging approach. My principal research focus
to be a bit more difficult.
is on the historical development of systems
of political, economic, diplomatic, and legal
What is the best way to understand
power since the nineteenth century and how
globalization, and just what are the changes
these structured the American conception of
it is bringing? Coming here as a Fulbright
world affairs and foreign policy. My classes
Senior Scholar/Lecturer to teach courses on
explore how these systems were established
United States history, foreign relations, and
and their short and long term effects. These are
globalization primed my mind to locate exactly
the core issues, to be sure, as there can be no
such examples that capture the complexities of
understanding of globalization without a close
America's role as the core element (if not cause)
study of power. But capturing the essence
of many of these global transformations for my
of global transformations also requires new
students, and to make it both meaningful and
tools and new approaches. When teaching
interesting. How can we account for national
undergraduates especially, these alternative
singularities in a homogenizing, interconnected,
approaches to the topic also tend to make the
postmodern age? How is it possible to capture
abstractions of global transformation more
and express not just the narratives of the past
meaningful, comprehensible, and, therefore,
but the evolving tenor of a nation's culture
more lively and interesting.
embedded in a global context? Conversely,
what is the best means of complicating the
One such way is through studying music
understanding of the past and development of
and music making in newly transnational
the United States when global popular culture
contexts. Globalization, at heart an evolving
has produced such a vibrant, totalizing, and
system of exchange, must be viewed in broader
often weirdly static image of the U.S.?
transnational and cultural terms to be fully
understood. The core transformations of the
These are the kinds of questions that I ask and
current era of globalization can be found in the
explore in my classes, and they demand a wide-

25
establishment not just of new networks of power wrote that "music can be used as a means of
but also of culture, particularly emerging hybrid transcending the limitations of our own place in
cultures, and in the newly created connections the world, of constructing trajectories rather than
between peoples, cultures, nations. boundaries across space."1 Certainly that fits in
well with the intent of the Fulbright program.
Contemporary globalization brings enormous Music helps to produce these connections while
and innumerable challenges to regional identity establishing a sense of personal and regional or
just as it does to national sovereignties. national identity.
Economic interdependence, the replacement of
local and hierarchical understandings of order Music is also useful to a scholar hoping to
with unstructured, global, network connections, broaden students’ understanding of a nation’s
and a broad and often intangible fluidity in culture and history. In the wonderful formulation
exchange of all kinds can act as a solvent of of ethnomusicologist Steven Field, “as place is
regional distinctiveness in some cases and as an sensed, senses are placed; as places make sense,
accelerant in others. sense makes place.”2 I followed Field’s concept
when creating a class on Southern regional
Transnationalism creates new experiences culture for the American Culture department
that have cultural, economic, political, gender at Sogang University in Seoul. In seeking to
and even spiritual dimensions on individuals create a sense of Southern place in my students,
and institutions which resonate in new ways I of course turned to music. It is impossible
within regional cultures. In this context, it can to study the South without also studying its
become exceedingly difficult to define and to music. Indeed, as country music historian Bill
sustain a sense of regional and national identity. Malone has argued, what the world defines as
I believe strongly that one excellent place to find American music should in fact be understood
these very qualities is in music, where many first and foremost as Southern music—a unique
aspects of culture tend to pool and flourish. hybrid blend of cultures and traditions from
African-American and white sources. This
Focusing on music cultures and music making unique fusion of cultures – a product of a much
as it is constructed and shared in transnational earlier wave of globalization and transnational
ways opens up new understandings of the acculturation that forged the United States as
ways people interact and the ways networks of a nation—has given the world jazz, bluegrass,
culture and communication are established and blues, Cajun, ragtime, Dixieland, rockabilly,
facilitated. Though it may sound like a cliché R & B, and rock and roll. The abstractions of
from a song, it is through music-making that true globalization and the malleability of regional
international understanding can be established. identities and cultures might not always be
To be able to pursue such an end in a scholarly the most riveting information to study, but this
and historical context as a Fulbrighter fulfills music immediately and enchantingly helps get
much of the vision and intent of the program. these concepts across.
As Martin Stokes has argued, music-making
has a unique power to establish and define a Being a banjo player of what is known
sense of place, as "the musical event…evokes as Appalachian old time music (traditional
and organizes collective memories and present Southern folk music), I also played music for
experiences of place with an intensity, power my class and others, and sought other ways of
and simplicity unmatched by any other social introducing these traditional music examples to
activity." Music can be a means for people to Korea. The five string banjo is a perfect example
define themselves as separate from the culture of the culture-blending results of globalized
that surrounds them or a tool used to forge new change, as it is in fact the only instrument
connections to the broader culture. Stokes created in America based on instruments

26
brought to the South by enslaved Africans.
Old time music was played by both whites and
blacks until surprisingly recently, and has stood
at the heart of a huge body of folk music across
the region. In many key respects the essence
of America’s cultural strengths (and of course
also its tumultuous past) can be located there
in the banjo —race, regional differences, and
social complexity; the absorption of diversity
into a new whole and hybridity in folk cultures;
and the centrality of globalization in the whole
process. With such a unique, complicated, and
fascinating history, bringing the banjo in as an
object of study is an ideal way to explore all of
the themes in Southern history.
And, playing the banjo in Seoul, or carving out
a transnational cultural space if you will, also
turned out to be an excellent way of bringing
Koreans and Americans together in a way that
only music can. I was fortunate enough to have
the opportunity to play banjo, along with two
friends of mine on fiddle and guitar in our band
the Five Points Serenaders, for a series of five
old time Southern music concerts in Seoul and
Gyeonggi Province under the auspices of the
U.S. Embassy. It is surprising to learn that
the State Department does not usually sponsor
traditional music concerts around the world, but
instead concentrates on jazz, a music usually
thought of as sophisticated and as representative
of “high culture.” Though rooted in the
American South, jazz is now a global style,
and it is not a rarity in Seoul; there are clubs
all over town. Bringing a different, markedly
regional and rural folk music to Korea was a
way of opening an understanding of a whole
other realm of American culture than is usually
experienced in Asia.
We presented and played the traditional music
of the South, including fiddle tunes, old Carter
Family Songs, and Delta blues songs. At Yeojoo
University in Gyeonggi Province we played to
hundreds of music students who study jazz and
popular styles for careers as professionals to
whom this music (and the banjo in particular)
was a novelty and a revelation. They were so
enthused we stayed and played much longer
than scheduled and even held an impromptu
square dance after the concert. The week of
shows culminated in a planned square dance
at the Embassy’s Information Resource Center
which I called. I called in English, which was
translated instantly into Korean for the largely
Korean dancers by the Embassy’s translator
named Kim Chi Young. There was a wonderful
surreality to having my calls repeated in Korean:
“you swing mine and I’ll swing yours” (당신은
내 파트너와 스윙을, 나는 당신의 파트너와 스
윙을 합니다) and “dive for the oyster and duck
for the clam” (굴은 잡고, 조개는 피하세요) . To
have people enjoy our music, and especially to
see them enjoy square dancing, was to witness
the power of music to effortlessly transcend
cultures and forge new links.
As it has turned out, Korea has been an ideal
place to explore how music plays a unique
role in global cultures in greater depth in part
because it has such a deservedly proud and
well developed sense of the importance and
vitality of traditional music making. Also,
importantly, the political decisions have been
made to highlight and promote this culture
and its importance. The decision to preserve,
showcase, and promote traditional musical
culture precisely at the moment that Korea
emerges as one of the principal economies
in the global system is both instructive and
impressive.
This emphasis is immediately apparent upon
visiting the Seoul Arts Center, which is an
expansive and beautiful complex of buildings
anchored on each end by two beautiful but
notably separate facilities for culture. One,
shaped like a traditional Korean hat, enshrines
the globally exported Western classical
tradition (the expected “high” culture) and
the other is the truly remarkable National
Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts
(making a new and vital claim to the same high
culture). This complex has no counterpart in
the United States. It is built to maintain and
promote the unique musical, dance, and folk
27

cultural traditions of Korea and, importantly, to
make them accessible not just to Koreans but to
foreigners.
As I was thrilled to discover, the Center
offers 12 weeks of inexpensive, English
language lessons in a number of different
kinds of Korean styles, including kayagum,
janggu, danso, and samulnori. I was one of
several Fulbrights who took advantage of these
lessons. I took the fall and spring sessions of
kayagum lessons, which provided a solid core
knowledge of technique and also taught several
standard songs. Once learning the basics
of the instrument and form in the beginning
class, the spring session intermediate class
focused on advanced kayagum sanjo technique
(on “Jin Yan Jo”), the extremely challenging
and abstract solo instrumental style for the
kayagum. These classes have triggered what is
sure to be a lifelong commitment to learning the
complexities and subtleties of playing Korean
traditional music.
At these classes, I have met other people in
these classes from Brazil, South Africa, France,
Japan, and the United States. The concept of the
lessons is to promote traditional Korean music,
of course, but in fascinating and important ways
they are also creating the kind of transnational
connections that, as Martin Stokes pointed out,
are really only accessible to people through
music making. Inviting expatriates to engage
in Korean music making is an important
step in both preserving and globalizing the
cultural traditions. Certainly language study
is the only other means of producing such
connections and resonance (though cooking
and eating must be a close third). I think most
would argue that music making is a lot more
fun than verb conjugation!
I had the wonderful opportunity to create my
own hybrid of traditional American and Korean
musics when I was invited to play a banjo set
at the 3rd CheonAn-GakWon International
Temple Music (BumEum) Festival 2008. The
setting for the concert was unbeatable: the
stunning GakWon Temple at Taejo mountain in
CheonAn, with the stage right in front of what
is supposed to be the largest bronze Buddha
statue in Asia. I played some old time tunes
from the South which were very well received.
The audience of over two hundred, many
of whom where Buddhist monks, had never
heard a banjo before, but they immediately
clapped along with the tunes and made me very
welcome. Since I had no old time fiddlers to
play with, I also played Korean folk songs with
a haegum (Korean two string fiddle) player. We
played the old Korean favorites “Doragi” and
“Arirang,” and the crowd responded by singing
along. I can not think of a better capstone to my
involvement in music while here as a Fulbright
than playing music in that concert.
In my classes I have attempted to produce
a sense of place for my students through one
critical American regional musical culture
and have in turn gained an utterly new sense
of Korea having begun to learn and play its
marvelous music.
Globalization may actually enhance regional
identity rather than dilute it. Recently, scholars
of southern regional identity have begun to
explore the ways that distinctive regional
coherence is shifting and evolving in relation
to new global forces. Anthropologist James L.
Peacock, in a new work considering the impact
of globalization on the South and its meaning
28
for southern identity and directly offering a
new framework of analysis, has argued that “to
ground globalism is to fuse a transformative
global identity to a sustaining regional
identity—a fusion that potentially enhances the
strength of both identities and their potential for
energizing action.” Peacock thus elucidates a
new, durable “globalized regionalism” centered
on “a globalized identity that subsumes regional
and national identities.”3
key way for us to gain a deeper and more
meaningful appreciation of the idiosyncrasies
of national cultures, a useful palliative to the
transformations of globalization that sometimes
seem all consuming. It is also a means of
creating new transnational connections which
might otherwise be inaccessible, and it provides
a means for people making music to appreciate
difference and singularity—and have a good
time doing it.

This approach certainly seems vital for

the South as it is for Korea. Music is one

Endnotes
1 Martin Stokes, Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical Construction of Place. (Oxford:
Berg, 1994), p. 3-4.
2 Steven Field, “Places Sensed, Senses Placed: Toward a Sensuous Epistemology of
Environments,” in David Howes, ed., Empire of the Senses: The Sensual Culture Reader. (Oxford: Berg.
2005), p. 179; 182-3.
3 James L. Peacock, Grounded Globalism: How the U.S. South Embraces the World. (Athens:
University of Georgia Press, 2007), p. xi; 40-3, 175.

29
Honoring Korean Independence Fighters at
Seodaeumun Prison Seoul, Korea
Photos by Jenna Novaral, 2007 ETA

30
Order In, Take Out
Janaki O’Brien, 2006-2007 ETA
Photo by Janaki O’Brien

A recent lunchtime conversation with

Seung-hee, top student and expert on all
things worth knowing:
so expensive that the place would be guaranteed
to turn a profit. Preparation is basically limited
to grabbing an octopus out of the tank, giving
it a quick rinse, carrying it over to the table and
SH: Do you know what this is? snipping the thing into bits. No need to mess
Me: Yes, it’s cabbage. with extravagances like pots and pans. There’s
SH: If we eat a lot of cabbage, we can also the added convenience of the one-item
prevent cancer. menu. Most Korean restaurants are completely
Me: Um…maybe. (“Maybe” being the unlike American restaurants, involving lengthy
Korean word for either “absolutely not” or ruminations over whether it would be better
“this is undeniably true.”) to get the harvest salad with soup or really go
SH: You don’t think so? all out for the pasta primavera. Rather, you are
Me: Well, you know…genetics, seated, the waiter brings you whatever food
environment, there are so many factors… that restaurant happens to serve. This system
SH: But a very famous doctor said it. On is pretty convenient for people with limited
TV! Korean skills, far better than those situations
Me: Well, Korean people eat cabbage three in which a long, incomprehensible menu is
times a day, and many of them still get handed over and ordering becomes a leap into
cancer, right? the void.
SH: Yes, you’re right. It doesn’t really
make sense. I always knew we were going to the octopus
Me: (self-satisfied shrug) restaurant if I came home to find my host mother,
SH: What about garlic? Fresa, layering sesame leaves and lettuce into
plastic containers and wrapping up bowls of
Call them avant-garde: restaurant goers in steaming brown rice. It usually fell to me to
Korea have broken down the fourth wall. The carry all the food into the restaurant, and the
stuffy conventions I’ve observed my whole first couple of times I felt very nervous about
life, the arbitrary distinction between a home- it, furtively sidling in sideways in an attempt,
cooked meal and a eating out – these are things though now it seems a little counterproductive,
of the past. My host family and I didn’t go out not to attract attention. After a while I stopped
to dinner very often last year, but when we did doing this, though, as the waitress setting out
it was always to the same octopus restaurant, all of our side dishes, as well as the restaurant’s
the kind of place where they serve you a plate admittedly paltry provision of lettuce and
of writhing octopus, some scissors, and leave sesame leaves, never even seemed surprised,
you to do what you will. much less disturbed, by the sight of Fresa
extracting huge bowls of supplementary food
I can’t figure out why live octopus restaurants from her shopping bags.
aren’t more popular in the States; the day to
day costs of actually running a live octopus I suppose our waitress’s indifference makes
restaurant seem so low and yet the food itself is some sense. I’m sure an American waiter

31

would be very displeased if I started setting out
my own mini-baguettes and pats of butter to
munch on before dinner, but why should he be?
Under normal circumstances I don’t pay for all
of those breadbasket refills. Korean restaurants
are hit especially hard, I think, as a good
portion of what people actually eat at dinner
comes in the form of a multitude of side dishes,
served in little white bowls, endlessly refillable,
and provided for free by the restaurant. At the
octopus restaurant you might eat vast quantities
of pickled radish, spinach, cabbage kimchee,
radish kimchee, onion kimchee, mushrooms,
corn salad, steamed egg and lotus root while
only paying for that one, wriggling octopus.
Of course the restaurant wants you to fill up on
your own food!
Stranger, then, is the policy on removing food
from a restaurant. Here, where I am typically
very open about requesting food to be wrapped
up to go, my Korean acquaintances are far more
secretive, stuffing food remnants into little
disposable cups and squirreling them away in
purses with hidden pockets. Special care is used
when ordering a fresh new round of side dishes
and packing away the entirety to be eaten later.
I was made suddenly aware of this practice
while attending the funeral of a friend’s mother.
Korean funerals are a very different affair than
those few I’ve attended in America and those
many I’ve seen in movies about the Mafia.
Visitors first go into a little room where they can
leave money for the family (money they will
later receive back in their own time of need),
bow two and a half times in front of a picture
of the deceased and light incense as a farewell
gesture. The family stays in this little room
for the duration; it’s the first stage in a three-
day period of family mourning. After paying
their respects, though, visitors go into the next
room where they proceed to eat a tremendous
amount of food and get very drunk. They play
card games and shout and generally try to have
a very boisterous good time in order to remind
the mourning family of all the pleasure and
joy that life has to offer, as well as to celebrate
the journey of the deceased to the afterlife. (I
wasn’t entirely sure how to react one day when
one of the teacher’s at school told me, “I am
hung over. I stayed at a funeral until 1:30 am.
It was very fun, very enjoyable.”) I attended
funeral with four of the young, female teachers
from my school. After everyone had eaten as
much pork stew and rice as they could stomach
there was a hushed conference and then one of
the women got up to retrieve two more dishes
of dried squid, an extra bowl of peanuts and
a plate of candied ginger. These were quickly
poured into our paper water cups and tucked
into Minjin’s giant purse before we got up to say
our goodbyes. Stealing from a funeral service!
When I expressed my dismay Minjin just said,
“Maybe…not in America?” Maybe!
32
What I Am to You and What You Are to Me
Meghan Rimelspach, 2007 ETA
Photo by Janaki O’Brien, 2006-2007 ETA
W hen I found out that I was going to
Korea all of my friends seemed to have
little glowing Korea fun facts tucked away,
ready to share. I collected up the colorful pegs
of information and jammed them into a black
background making a lite-brite portrait of the
far off country that was soon to be everywhere
around me. Max informed me about huge
computer game tournaments, Konnie told me
about all of the Hello Kitty stuff for sale, Chuck
introduced me to a special kind of Korean
alcohol that is mixed with snake venom, Glen
gave me an article about a soccer fanatic who
killed himself to help the World Cup team,
Jolene and I discussed student activism, and
Amanda warned me about the lack of deodorant.
Needless to say, I was super excited to go to
a place where apparently everyone wears
Hello Kitty shirts and no deodorant while they
simultaneously watch soccer and play computer
games, after drinking snake venom, all before
participating in a big political protest.
I rounded out my knowledge of Korea with
some additional reading and a trip to a Korean
church, which made me feel like I had a pretty
good idea of what I was getting into. When
I began mentally and physically preparing for
Korea I tried to be thorough and think of every
possible situation that I would encounter. In
spite of this, Korea’s actual perception of me
was something I had not even come close to
fathoming.
I arrived ready to be a cultural ambassador
to whatever mysterious Korean community I
would be living in. However, somehow while
I was tripping over syllables and incessantly
bowing, I started to represent the wrong culture.
Karmically, while I had the kooky picture of
Korea in my head, Korea had also cobbled
together a collage of what America was and
I was nowhere included in their version of
my country. I am not entirely sure what an
“average” Korean thinks a “typical” American
looks like, but I know what they think a Russian
sex worker looks like.
One of the first conversations with my host
family, as we shot sentence fragment grenades
to each other across the language divide,
was about how I looked Russian. My host
mom felt the need to further clarify and she
incorporated her cell phone dictionary, which
was the third person in all of our conversations.
When I looked down at the small illuminated
square screen she said, “Russian women,” then
pointed to, “many pleasures.” It wasn’t until
strange strangers started to ask me to model for
them, hand me money (it seems my going rate
is about 100,000 won though that is negotiable
up to about 200,000), and lead me away to love
motels that I realized the full magnitude of my
mistaken identity. The first time it happened,
in my pleasant naivety laced innocence I just
couldn’t quite figure out why some random man
wanted to hand me cash, and why everyone
else around coolly turned the other way. When
another man asked about modeling, I thought
he wanted to know what kind of camera I had,
which was perfectly not what he was interested
in.
I have tried to wade through language barrier
slush to get to the bottom of my Russian essence
and see what it is about me that sends out the
sex worker vibe. The most common responses
are that Russian women are tall, thin, they have
small heads and small faces (they assure me
that is a compliment not an insult), and high
33
noses. With that description I feel more like
a sea monster or whimsical character from a
children’s book than Russian. Even with this
explanation I just couldn’t come to terms with
what I was being mistaken for. I don’t wear
lots of make up, high heels, or skimpy clothes,
which is what a sex worker is supposed to wear,
right? That’s when I realized that much like I
had arrived in Korea with an open mind that
was rimmed with stereotypes of Korean people,
we both had assumptions about what Russian
sex workerness is. During my time here I have
become interested in learning about Korean
culture through popular stereotypes.

So I am faced with an extra step. Every

time I want to represent America, I have to
first convince the inhabitants of my Korean
bubble that I am actually American. Korea’s
assumptions about me have given my experience
here a whole different perspective and taught
me a little bit about a part of Korean culture that
I would not have otherwise been interested in
or exposed to. While I am still stocking up on
Hello Kitty stuff, trying to find a professional
Starcraft player to date, trolling around bars
trying to find snake alcohol, playing soccer
at recess, importing deodorant by the metric
ton, and watching out for FTA rallies, I hope
I have been able to teach Korea at least a little
bit about my country, since it has taught me
so much about itself. Even if all that I have
shared is that not all Americans look the same
and some are even tall, thin, small faced, and
high nosed.

34
Revolution of the Table
Amber Rydberg, 2007 ETA
Photos by Meghan Rimelspach, 2007 ETA

F ood is everything in Korea.  Asking

someone if they have eaten is a way to
greet people.  Making sure your guests enjoy the
was too busy – my
home-stay dad (Min-
goo) stopped eating
food and have enough of it is crucial.  Kimchi meat every day, my home-stay sister (Yoo-jin)
and rice, the staples of the Korean diet, are realized she loves mushrooms, Italian salad
always on the table.  And, with any luck, there dressing, and pepperjack cheese, one aunt
is some sort of health benefit associated with started making homemade yogurt for both our
the food you are ingesting.  For example, X is families, and my home-stay grandmother started
good for your eyes, Y is good for stamina, Z is cooking up lots of vegetarian side dishes.
good for your stomach, A will prevent cancer,
and B helps you look younger longer.  Since moving in with them, my home-stay
mother (Seong-joo) has told me on several
Food is important to me, too.   I love eating occasions that she's enjoyed the "revolution of
well cooked meals.  I love to cook for myself.  the table" that has occurred in both her nuclear
There's only one catch: I don't eat red meat, and extended family.  What does she mean by a
pork, poultry, or seafood.  That, and I am "revolution of the table"?   To put it simply: the
allergic to shellfish.  addition of lots of fresh vegetables, fresh fruit,
yogurt, cheese, tofu, various bean products, and
I knew before arriving at my home-stay milk to everyday meals, and the elimination of
that maintaining my vegetarian eating habits most meat, poultry, and seafood.
might be a struggle.  And I had no intention
of forcing my food preferences upon my poor, This "revolution of the table" has in no way
unsuspecting home-stay family.  I just had diminished the importance of food in my
hopes that they would accept my eating habits home-stay family's life, though.  If anything,
for what they are, not pressure me too much to there is now a greater emphasis on food, with
change them.  To complicate matters, because much more thought put into what appears on
of my shellfish allergy I can't eat kimchi.  I our dining room table.  What we eat is always
feared that my not being able to eat kimchi colorful because of the vast array of vegetables
might put a strain on my relationship with my and fruits served at a given meal, but more
home-stay family.  importantly what we eat varies from day to
day.  Seong-joo is constantly searching of new
My home-stay family, however, is amazing vegetarian foods to purchase or dishes to make
in all aspects, especially in the nourishment on her own.  As my home-stay father told my
department.  Apparently, they wanted to change home-stay mother: "I know Amber really likes
their diets long before I appeared in their tofu soup, but we can't eat it for breakfast every
doorway.  They wanted to lose weight, become day.  It's much better to have variety in what
more active, and feel healthier. It was upon my we eat."
arrival, though, that they were given the extra
nudge to begin to make the transition.  Seong-  Of course Yoo-jin and her dad still love meat
joo started to cook more – before last August, – thus Sundays have evolved into their "meat
she rarely cooked for her family because she eating" day.

35
Why I Am Here
Dr. Beth Salerno, 2007 Fulbright Korea Senior Lecturer
Photos by Beth Salerno

Part I (October 2007) share that Americans are even more afraid than
Koreans to speak a foreign language with native

I think anyone who travels to a foreign

country at some point asks the question,
“Why am I here?” Perhaps they do not ask it in
speakers. To explain what Americans mean by
“Asian” to people who have been controlled and
invaded by China and Japan and thus do not see
week two of a 40 week stay, but after 5 straight themselves as inherently similar to either.
days of rain and three days of trying to arrange
an internet connection with minimal Korean, I Personally, my job is to experience - to
am asking. simply experience. That is hard for a type A
personality, always focused on the outcome,
The easy answer is that I have always wanted the product, the result. So I went to Seoul
to live in another country, experience another last weekend because I wanted to “check off”
culture, and the Fulbright program gave me that some of the places on my list of things to see -
chance, complete with safety net. The Fulbright Namsangol’s Choson dynasty houses, Myeong-
Program was established after World War II to dong Catholic Cathedral, and Doksugun, one of
promote international peace and understanding 5 Royal palaces in the city. I walked a city of
through academic exchanges and I am proud to 12 million people (and far too many cars!) and
continue that tradition in my small way. Rather gawked. Four lane highways packed with cars,
than being a tourist, I get to be a productive twisting alleys full of shops, and everywhere,
member of South Korean society, supported people breaking into English to help me find
by the U.S. State Department, the Korean my way.
American Educational Commission, and
Pyeongtaek University. Other than a family from India and a couple
from Germany, I was the only non-Asian I
My official duties are remarkably light. I teach saw all day. Thousands of school children in
one course this semester - Race and Gender in identical uniforms, dozens of older men and
American Society - and I am currently setting women out walking in the rain, a few young
up two study groups where students can meet couples (probably tourists from other Asian
with me once a week, talk about America and nations), but no single caucasian women.
practice their English. Students are hungry for People stared openly until I greeted them with
chances to speak English with a native speaker Annyeong Haseyo (hello) and then they broke
(though less hungry to ruin their GPA by into smiles and bowed. School children, male
actually taking my class!). and female, giggled and practiced their English:
“American?” “photo please!” “Good morning -
What I’m finding, however, is that my how are you doing?”.
unofficial duty is to talk with people - to be a
civilian American in South Korea. To listen I realized that at least for some people that
when a faculty member takes the risk of day I _was_ the experience. Even as I played
speaking English to a stranger and tell them tourist, my willingness to be stared at, to stop
honestly that I understood every word. To and speak English, to try speaking Korean - all

36
mattered in a way I had never expected. I was paradigm. Students say writing for me is
told often before I left the United States “to “hard,” “new,” “challenging,” “exciting,” “the
simply be open to the experience. It is not what best,” “a lot of work,” “not what I am used to,”
you accomplish there, it is who you are that and “what I need for life.” I can’t ask for more
matters.” So I am being me. For the moment, than that.
that is why I am here.
Nor could I ask for more willing guides to
Part II (April, 2008) Korean culture. Through students, as well
as colleagues, friends, neighbors, travel and
When I wrote my Fulbright application, I listening, I have learned a great deal about
stressed three goals for my Fulbright experience. Korea: ancestor worship at Lunar New Year, to
First, I wanted to think about American history ancient Korean history, to modern politics, to
from an “outsider” perspective, to see my home teenage relationships, to academic hierarchies,
nation through another nation’s eyes. Second, to changing power relationships in marriage, to
I wanted to explore the teaching challenges of food (and more food), and of course, norebang
a Korean classroom, which is so fundamentally (private karaoke rooms).
different from a U.S. classroom. Third, I
wanted to better understand Korean culture, But in my heart of hearts was a completely
which is overshadowed in the U.S. by better- different reason for applying for a Fulbright
known Chinese and Japanese cultures. in Korea. I wanted the status and I wanted
the adventure. In a reduction of all the good
Now I know better. reasons one could want a Fulbright, I wanted to
hear two things over and over: “Wow, you got
Oh, all of those things were important. And all a Fulbright!” and “Wow, you lived in Korea!”
have been central to my Fulbright experience. I I wanted something to write in the Alumni
now think about America differently – as “us”, Magazine that went beyond the hard-won and
but also as “them” and always in a comparative happy accomplishments of “associate professor,
context. Here every class involves comparisons small liberal arts college, one book”.
of Korean and American politics, race relations,
or gender systems, not to see which is better but The nice part about such an unacknowledged
to better understand both. I require students to goal is that it gave me the impetus for so many
make new arguments based on what they have more important things. Like learning to see
learned, make comparisons, and take a stand. the United States from the outside, bringing
My emphasis on creating individual opinions new pedagogical approaches to my students,
based on the facts, rather than repeating my and exploring Korean culture. It is nice when
opinions along with the facts, forces students things work out that way!
to move away from memorization into a new

In 2012 the major U.S. army base in Seoul will

close and the troops will join others at Camp
Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, South Korea. Camp
Humphreys is working hard to build connections
between its soldiers and local residents. As part of
that effort, the camp held a celebration of Chuseok,
or Korean Thanksgiving. Here Senior Fulbright
Lecturer Beth Salerno and an American serviceman
learn the traditions for honoring family ancestors
with food and formal bows. They are wearing tra-
ditional Korean formal-wear called hanbok.

37
 But it has also taught me that wherever I go I
take myself with me. Even given a completely
new place, new rhythms, new cultural rules, and
serious linguistic challenges, I am still basically
the same person I was in the U.S. And annoying
as that is sometimes – I go half way around
the world and all my habits, mental quirks
and stomach problems follow me?! – it is also
reassuring. I’m solidly, dependably me. I can
handle new languages, foods, and experiences.
I can be the world traveler with adventures and
stories, and I can also very much want to come
home to my corner of New Hampshire and go
back to my relatively ordinary life.
Perhaps that is the most surprising thing
about this entire Fulbright experience. In my
heart of hearts I came here to experience being
somebody else – that exciting person who got
international grants, had foreign adventures,
and made a difference in the world. And in
some ways I’ve become that person. But in
becoming that person I also took the glamorous
outer wrapper off. I discovered that person is
simply a person doing what they always do
– teaching, learning, exploring. Fulbrighters
are just people with a research agenda or great
teaching skills who want to interact with and
explore somewhere else and themselves. Just
like me.
Korea welcomed me and offered me millennia
of culture and customs and ten decades of
conflicted relationship with the United States.
I have soaked in public baths, climbed Korean
mountains, eaten sea slugs, made samgyetang,
and discussed US-Korean relations with market
women and Buddhist monks. I hope I have
shown Koreans that Americans can be culturally
sensitive and internationally aware, as I follow
Korean custom, yet maintain American habits.
Students, colleagues, and assorted restaurant
owners have definitely learned U.S. history in
a new and accessible way. Together we have
laughed, argued, debated, sung, and created
international connections. In the end, I have
been me. That is why I am here.
In moments of future personal doubt, I will
be able to say, “You got a Fulbright. You lived
in Korea. You can do this, whatever it is.” That
is why I came.
38
First, September
Leah Silvieus, 2007 ETA

At least this is manageable,

lifting the spine
from the roasted fish,
scraping rice from the bowl
with a spoon, this meal.
But there is always the invisible
bone, remembered too late
by the softest places
of the mouth.
There is the problem of September rain
sounding the same everywhere,
the possibility of gray
hiding anything –
perhaps a familiar skyline
beyond the next break.
This simple filling
would be manageable,
if not for the need to avoid
the small lives
swimming at our feet.

Petals and Leaves

Photos by Hillary Eason, 2007 ETA

39
Reflections on Excursions, Conventions, and Connections
Dr. Henry Sirgo, 2007 Fulbright Korea Senior Lecturer
Photo by Henry Sirgo
B lanche Dubois in Tennessee Williams’ A
Streetcar Named Desir, memorably noted
that “I’ve always depended on the kindness
of strangers.” Well, since arriving at Incheon
National Airport on 30 August 2007 I have
always depended on the kindness of Koreans in
what has been a wonderful opportunity to serve
as 2007-2008 Fulbright Senior Lecturer in the
Department of Political Science & Diplomacy
at Yonsei University.
Underwood International College, the
Graduate School of International Studies and
the departments of political science and public
administration have afforded me with numerous
opportunities for international collegiality and
intellectual exchanges. Early in September
I attended a seminar on “Constitutionalism
and Administrative Discretion.” There I met
Professor M. Jae Moon of the Department
of Public Administration. He fairly rapidly
recruited me to participate in one off-campus
program and one on-campus program.
The Organization for Economic Co-
Operation and Development Asian Centre for
Public Governance (OECD) sponsored the off-
campus program. In my capacity as Resource
Speaker I gave a power point presentation
entitled Executive Branch Reorganization
and Innovation in the United States, to The
Second Multi-country Study Mission on
Public Governance for Asian Public Servants
which was held at the Ramada Seoul Hotel
on November 20-21, 2007. Elements of
the presentation included “STATE LEVEL
REORGANIZATION” and “HURRICANES
KATRINA & RITA.” Before the semester
was over I would also chair a student panel
on leadership which featured Vietnamese
students.
The OECD which was established in
Seoul in May of 2005 has also enabled me to
participate in luncheons with the Ambassadors
of Indonesia and Denmark, and numerous
other embassy officials. I spoke with the
Indonesian Ambassador for the second time at
a function sponsored by the Graduate School
of International Studies of Yonsei University in
New Millennium Hall. Earlier the same day I
was able to reminisce about the late Nelson W.
Polsby with Professor David Brady of Stanford
University who was speaking on the topic of
partisan polarization in the United States. The
thrust of Professor Brady’s talk was that the
amount of it in the present-day United States is
exaggerated.
We had first met in 1986 when he along with
Professor Nelson W. Polsby of the University of
California—Berkeley were both working at the
Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral
Sciences which is located on the Stanford
University campus. I was visiting Professor
Polsby at the time. Professor Polsby wrote
a letter of recommendation on behalf of my
Fulbright appointment and sadly passed away
due to congestive heart failure during February
of 2007.
Professor Harold F. Bass, Jr, Dean of Social
Sciences at Ouachita Baptist University and
President of the Southwestern Social Science
Association, delivered the eulogy at Professor
Polsby’s memorial service. Dean Bass was
also the last Ph.D. student of Professor Avery
Leiserson, who had served as department chair
to Dr. Young C. Kim at Vanderbilt University.
Dr. Young C. Kim delivered an address entitled
40
 frequently driven guests down the Creole
Nature Trail in Southwest Louisiana to observe
migratory waterfowl, and in order to gain a
comparative perspective on the protection and
restoration of wetlands, I excitedly accepted
an invitation from Ms. Namue Lee of the
United Nations Development Programme/
Global Environmental Facility Korea Wetland
Project (KWP) to participate in the Wetlands
Conservation in Asia Symposium which focused
on regional cooperation. Chinese, Japanese,
Korean, Malaysian and Thai presenters dealt
with topics including Byung Goo GO’s “Wise
“Japanese Policy towards North Korea: use of agricultural fields in Korea,” Sansanee
Koizumi Diplomacy and Politics of Abduction, CHOOWAEW’s “Rice paddies and biodiversity
Nuclear Weapons, and Normalization,” to in Thailand,” Yoshito Ohsako’s “Restoration
the Underwood International College QUAD of wetlands and agriculture for the stork
Lingual Forum 2008. Dr. Young was touched reintroduction in Japan,” and Mashhor Bin
when I asked him about Professor Leiserson who Mansor’s “Biodiversity in Malaysian rice agro-
had counseled the then young visiting professor ecosystem.” The National Museum of Korea
on how to make the use of his impressive was the host site for the symposium which also
language skills and secure a publication included a field excursion of the Han Gang
in the American Political Science Review. Estuary.

Professor Youseop Shin of the Yonsei
University of Department of Political Science
has guided me through intellectual exchanges,
as well as to the top of Seoul Tower and to fine
dining in Insadong. Victor Cha, retired from the
Korean Broadcasting System perhaps deserves
the most praise or blame depending on one’s
perspective for keeping me alive in Korea.
I managed to hike up Mount Dobongsan in
Bukhansan National Park. At least I managed to
do so by at least on three occasions being kindly
pulled up by kindly Koreans. A current day
Blanche DuBois, I depended on the kindness
of Korean strangers. Being a resident of the
lowest of the fifty states, the “Bayou State” of
Louisiana, I was exhausted by the excursion
and ably assisted back down by Mister Cha;
who has also seen that I have been well-fed on
three different occasions since then.
Having been directly affected by Hurricane
Rita and observed the devastation wrought
by Hurricane Katrina, as well as having
Unfortunately I missed the latter due to
somewhat of a scheduling conflict with a
seminar on the geopolitics of Korean security
which was hosted on campus by the Department
of Political Science & Diplomacy of Yonsei
University. Oh well, at least the National
Assembly elections are over and the flowers
are in full bloom. Professor Christoph Bluth of
the School of Politics and International Studies
of the University of Leeds gave a presentation
entitled “The geopolitics of North East Asian
Security and the crisis on the Korean peninsula.”
Yonsei University graduate students asked
insightful questions.
The Ministry of the Environment has a
task force which is preparing to host the 10th
Conference of the Contracting Parties to the
Convention on Wetlands of International
Importance Ramsar Convention in Changwon
in late October and early November of 2008. I
will not be there, but rather will be sharing my
Korean insights with McNeese State University
students in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

41
Piagol Valley
Jiri-san National Park
Alexis Stratton, 2006 ETA

We eat hot noodles on a chilly

Saturday morning, the food slipping
from between our chopsticks,
leaving a salty aftertaste when I
slurp some into my mouth.
“It’s not so bad,” you say, having hoped
for a more western breakfast. I scrunch
my toes in my hiking boots with a shiver.
* rock to rock to rock as we
A river of tourist-turned-hikers
flows around us to the top
of the first hill—Nogo-dan,
where people take pictures of
an ancient altar. I see the steps
that lead up, up, up, the crowds
joking and jostling in Korean,
and wonder why I can’t breathe
in a place so full of fresh air.
* in the fall. We cross a rusted bridge,
On the way to Panya-bong,
the peak still a few hours to come,
I speak with Koreans in their language
and feel like I have something. I forget
to translate for you sometimes, and
part of me likes the secret, the code
I’m slowly decoding, the pieces
I can keep from you.
* the scarlet and auburn autumn.
The peak is cold and less beautiful
than I expected. Rocks crag out
from bush-covered slopes. The wind
prickles at my skin. We eat cookies,
raisins, and pistachios. I tell you
I packed apples in my bag. You smile
and shake your head. “The cookies
are fine.”
The final valley drops deep and hard
and we hop like mountain goats
descend. Above, the trees have
lost their leaves, leaving
brown remnants where once
was life. But, as we drop,
colors peek from tree
limbs. The ground levels
at the river, and all around me
are flashes and flares of orange
and yellow and red. This was what
I wanted, to see this place, Piagol Valley,
surrounded by vibrancy, the settling
dusk brightening the leaves’ hues.
I want to call out to you, to ask
if you see the beauty here. I want to ask you
to pause a moment, to breathe in the cool,
early evening air that’s turning
to twilight, to watch the water wind
among the trees and disappear within
But I can’t. You’re watching the path,
pressing ahead against the falling
night, leaving me to scurry behind
as darkness presses in
and around us.

*
42
Adventures on the 핑크돌핀: Finally Taking the Ferry to
Mokpo
Nika Strzelecka, 2006-2007 ETA
I have always enjoyed ferries, and the ones I
had taken during my first year and a half in
Korea were no exception. Although they were
all less than an hour in length, I remember them
fondly: sitting out on the deck, taking dozens
of pictures with my cell phone camera, and
feeding shrimp chips to the circling sea gulls.
So when I decided to take a last-minute, end-
of-winter-vacation trip down to Jeju Island in
early March, I wasn’t too upset to learn that all
the flights back to Gwangju were booked. Yes!
I’ll finally be able to take the ferry from Jeju to
Mokpo! I thought to myself. Perhaps if I had
thought a little bit more about the correlation
between boat size and the amount of rocking that
takes place, I would not have been so excited as
I approached the tiny ferry boat lovingly named
the 핑크돌핀 (Pink Dolphin).
As soon as I found my seat, I began pulling
out all the things I would need for the three-
hour journey ahead: my book, my i-pod, and
my camera. Perhaps I’d take a stroll on the
top deck to snap some pictures, or maybe I’d
even take a nap to ward off any first day of
school drowsiness the next morning. Briefly,
I recalled what one of my students had told me
about a past school trip to Jeju. They had taken
the ferry, she explained; “all girls cry and very
sick,” she said. These are middle school girls,
I reasoned. They cry about everything. They
cried on last year’s school hiking trip! This is
going to be so much fun, I told myself, as the
engine started and the boat pulled away from
Jeju Island.
“어 싫어! (Oh, I don’t want to!)” I heard
several people cry aloud.
Less than a minute later, as I felt the bottom
drop out from below me, it seemed like I was
back on the Gyro Drop at Lotte Adventure
World, where I had visited just a few days
earlier. At first, it was just like being on a
theme park ride; it was thrilling, and all of us
were collectively sharing in the excitement as
the boat hit each wave. But the Gyro Drop
was a mere 52 seconds long; after a few
minutes on the 핑크돌핀, the fun ended just as
quickly as it had begun. Jeju Island was still
in close proximity as nearly everyone around
me grabbed for motion sickness bags and the
shrieks of excitement turned to genuine cries of
anguish.
Let me just say that one of the things I hate
most is vomit, and the thought of being trapped
in ship full of vomiting people for the next few
hours was already causing me great anxiety.
In addition, my recent trip to Lotte Adventure
World had made it clear that my childhood love
of theme park rides was long gone. In its place
was uncontrollable fear: I had been scared out
of mind on the Gyro Drop – tears had actually
fallen down my cheeks – and had sworn never
to go back. And this ferry ride? This was
turning out to be much worse.
The boat was lurching up and down, side-
to-side…as I became airborne several inches,
I also became more frightened and anxious
than I had thought possible. Pretty soon, I was
crying. Not just the tears-streaming-down-
my-cheeks kind of crying. I was sobbing great
heaving sobs. How was I going to survive this?
I want to get off! At that moment, one of the
men who worked on the ferry (his main job
turned out to be passing out motion sickness
bags and cleaning up vomit) spotted me and
tried to get me out of my seat. I resisted at first,
43
too frightened to release the white-knuckled had never come to Jeju in the first place, but
grip I had on my armrest. When he took hold feeling comforted and safe as I curled against
of my arm, I finally relented and let him guide this woman I didn’t even know.
me down the rows of green-looking people bent
over plastic bags. For the next hour, this old lady continued
holding my hand and soothing me. Although I
Again, if I had known more about boats, I didn’t stop crying, I was able to calm down a bit.
would have known that the back of the boat Every time we hit a particularly rough patch of
rocks much less than the front, and that’s where water, I began crying harder, and she responded
he deposited me, in the very back row, right by squeezing my hand and eventually put both
next to an 아줌마 (ajumma) who was sitting her hands around my right hand. Finally, the
with her head leaned back, eyes closed, hands boat reached the first of its three stops, and the
resting in her lap. She seemed completely at woman rose to leave. Waves of anxiety again
ease, unphased by the rocking of the boat and rushed through me. I still have over two hours
the chaos going on all around her. While the to ride on this boat! How can I continue on
back of the boat was indeed a great deal calmer without her? I managed to compose myself
than the front, I was still sobbing heavily, enough to thank her; as she gathered her purse,
curled up in the fetal position in my seat, arms she smiled and said a few sentences to me – I
wrapped tightly around my jacket and my bag, imagine they were reassurances. Before she
as much for the sense of security they provided got off the boat, she again said, “괜찮아,” but I
me as to protect them from any stray splashes didn’t believe her as the ferry pulled away and
of vomit. continued on toward the peninsula.

At first, the 아줌마merely opened her eyes,
looked at me, frowned, and shook her head, as if
to say, “Enough!” But my sobs did not subside,
and each lurch of the boat brought forth fresh
tears. Next she told me “괜찮아(it’s okay)” a
few times, again to no avail. Then, she did the
most wonderful thing possible, something for
which I am very grateful. She took my hand
in her lap and held it. I burrowed my face
into her left arm, still sobbing and wishing I
Turns out, she was right. The rest of the ferry
ride was actually quite calm. While I didn’t get
any reading down or venture out on the top deck
to enjoy the view, I was able to take a nap. Legs
still wobbly, I set foot on the mainland more
relieved than ever, and even more grateful for
the old lady who had reassured and calmed me,
a nearly-hysterical American girl who ended up
sobbing all over her jacket.

44
My (Host) Dad, 우리 아빠
Laura Tschop, 2007 ETA
C oming to Korea, one of the things I was
most excited about was the opportunity
to live with a host family. While most of my
family and friends at home thought I was naive,
I couldn’t wait. Though we had been warned not
to have expectations, in my heart I hoped for a
family with young kids and parents who I could
communicate easily with. Yet as with most of
my experiences this year, I could have never
predicted how (challenging and) wonderfully
different my real home-stay family could be.
My (host) dad is a typical Korean a-jeo-ssi with
a friendly smile, callused hands and a (stubborn
yet) caring heart. When I first arrived with my
suitcases to my new home and felt tears stinging
my eyes, he gestured towards himself – 아
빠 - dad, then towards my host mom – 엄마
-mom and then towards myself – 딸 - daughter.
I knew instantly things were going to be ok.
The first few weeks, I spent a lot of time with
him and my host-family in the small office of
the butcher store he owned. While I’ve never
been a vegetarian, I was also not used to see
whole cow hides, pig heads and ‘mas-iss-eo-yo’
intestines/organs that seemed to be everywhere,
including on the dinner table. And let’s just say
you would not want me to begin to describe
all the unsanitary things I have seen that go
on behind the scenes at butcher shops. But
being there also allowed me to see a different
side of my family members. I loved watching
them joke with the customers, seeing how they
interacted with old friends and how they ran the
family business.
“I have many friends” is one of the five English
phrases I have taught my dad this year precisely
because he seems to know everyone in our small
town of Galsan. Sometimes he likes to show me
off to his friends, inviting me to soju dinners or
to come to his weekly volleyball games. These
games are with his old high school friends at
the local high school gym where the friends get
together to prove they are still as young as ever.
I have yet to decide my purpose at these games
as I am not only the token English teacher, I
am the only female, the only non-Korean and
the only one not playing. But I go back because
its like being let into a secret world full of
surprising talent, lots of ‘i-gos’ and a glimpse at
real friendship that has lasted 20 plus years.
My dad has a great sense of humor (or a way
of being funny and not knowing it). One late
afternoon last fall, I was surprised to come
home and find leaves strewn about right inside
the front door. I searched around but was
unable to figure out how they had made their
way into our house. Suddenly dangling bright
persimmons caught my eye. My dad had nailed
two huge branches of persimmons to our wall.
While they did bring color to the house and
attracted the attention of many visitors, I was
thankful when they were taken down because
they had started to ooze and lose leaves.
Another time, when we were driving home late
one night, he stopped to see his ‘friend’ who
just happened to own a cow farm in the middle
of nowhere. All I could think about for the
hour and half I waited alone in the car while
he checked out cows, was that any minute the
back door of our Musso SUV would be opened
and a huge dead cow would be shoved inside.
Thankfully I was wrong, he went back to get
the cow he had purchased the next day with his
‘cow’ truck.
I like to tell friends 11:30 p.m. is when the party
45
starts at my home-stay house, usually right
around the time my dad gets home. Sometimes
this fun is due to the whiskey he has previously
consumed or sometimes its simply due to his
crazy ideas. One night he decided to introduce
me to the traditional Korean massage stick by
giving me a few whacks on the back while
standing on my back to test how healthy I am.
At any rate, I can honestly say I have never seen
my dad happier than when he is trying to teach
me or one of my ETA friends taekwondo. This
lesson inevitably leads to collapsing laughter
on our floor and humored disappointed looks
from my dad.
Despite all the crazy experiences I have had
with my dad this past year, he truly has become
like my family. Countless times, he’s picked the
other Hongseong ETAs and myself up from the
train station late on Sunday night when no other
host-family volunteered. He grins and actively
participates in learning/teaching how to say
directions in Korean/English in the car. And I
will forever cherish the car ride when I taught
him the English words to ‘Amazing Grace’. He
meant what he said in the very first moments
we met that first day when he said he was my
“dad” and I feel so lucky to be his 딸.
46
Contributor Biographies

Arrozal, Christine, 2007 Fulbright ETA

Christine Arrozal grew up as one of four children constantly moved around by their military parents,
Alfredo and Carmencita Arrozal.  They’ve lived in Guam, the Philippines, and eventually settled in
California.  She attended California State University, Long Beach where she received her bachelors
degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Finance, International Business, and MIS.  Later,
she returned to school to pursue a Certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL).  Upon
her return to the US, she will finish her Masters in Linguistics with an emphasis in TESL.  In the future,
she hopes to utilize her various experiences living abroad to head a Study Abroad/International Students
Affairs Office on a prominent college campus.  You can reach her at achristine@gmail.com.

Brittain, Christina, 2006 Fulbright ETA

Christina Suh Brittain graduated from UC Berkeley in 2006 and served as a Fulbright ETA at Seongmo
Girls High School in Daejeon during the 2006-2007 term. She was born in Seoul and returns to Korea
often to visit her family. Christina currently attends Harvard Law School.

Cesa, Anna, 2007 Fulbright ETA

Anna Cesa graduated from Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa in 2003 with a major in psychology.
Originally from Wheaton, Illinois, she was a 2007-2008 English Teaching Assistant at Neungju High
School in Hwasun, Jeollanam-do. Next, she plans to attend the University of Michigan in their Education
and Psychology program and hopes to eventually work in a child development or educational research
institute. Her email address is annacesa@gmail.com.

Chudy, Jennifer, 2007 Fulbright ETA

Jennifer Chudy, Fulbright ETA studied Political Science at Brown. As an ETA, she taught at Seondeok
Girls’ High School in beautiful Gyeongju, and made frequent trips to Busan to visit her family and her
mother’s alma mater, Busan National University, a fine institution way outside of Seoul! When she
returns to the U.S, she will work as an Urban Fellow for the New York City Government. She can be
contacted at: jchudy@alumni.brown.edu

Dale, Katie, 2006 Fulbright ETA

Katie Dale is a 2006 graduate from Georgetown College who enjoys photography and traveling. During
her year as an ETA in Hwasun, South Korea, Katie chronicled her adventures though photos. These days,
Katie spends her time working and playing in her hometown of Cincinnati, OH.

Durham, Emily, 2007 Fulbright ETA

Emily Durham is a native of Greensboro, North Carolina. She graduated from Pomona College in
Claremont, California with a degree in English Literature. Currently, she is teaching English to 800
Korean students in grades fourth through sixth at Hongseong Elementary School and loving every minute
of it. After her grant in Korea, Emily plans to return to the United States to pursue a career in student
affairs. Emily may be reached via email, emily.b.durham@gmail.com

Eason, Hillary, 2007 Fulbright ETA

Hillary LP Eason is not from anywhere. She did, however, attend Centre College in Kentucky, where she
graduated with a degree in international relations and English. As of this writing, she is a teacher at Dong

47
Middle School in Jeju-do. Her dreams include going to graduate school for development studies and
one day visiting Dokdo, the Lonely Island. In her free time, she enjoys reading, cooking, and telling her
students to walk not run. Her favorite kind of kimchi is the shredded radish kind.

Grider, GlyptusAnn, 2007 Fulbright ETA

GlyptusAnn Grider teaches English at Hallim Girls’ Middle School in Jejudo, the “honeymoon island of
Korea” famous for its stone grandfather statues, oranges and beaches. She is researching whether space
kimchi can be marketed on Earth and does her best to avoid raw fish and horsemeat at dinner. She is
currently a green belt in Taekwondo. GlyptusAnn graduated from the University of Louisville and will
attend Miami University in the fall where she will pursue a doctoral degree in Political Science. E-mail
her at glypie.grider@gmail.com.

Guarino, Nicole, 2007 Fulbright ETA

Nicole Guarino is from Mount Prospect, IL, a northwest suburb of Chicago.  She graduated from the
University of Iowa in May 2007 with degrees in mathematics and English and a teaching certification in
secondary mathematics.  Currently, she teaches English at a co-ed middle school in Jeju-si, Jeju-do, where
she enjoys hearing first grade students eagerly say, “Nice to see you!” every morning.  A future teaching
students or studying international education in graduate school awaits her.

Easterday, Noelle, 2006-2007 Fulbright ETA

Noelle Easterday is an anthropology junkie with a travel bug. Hailing from rural Basin City, WA,
she graduated in 2006 from the University of Notre Dame.  Although originally placed in Andong,
Gyeongsangbuk-do, Noelle currently teaches 600 sleepy girls on the west side of Seoul.  In the future,
she hopes to finally read THE THREE MUSKETEERS, learn “Layla” on the guitar, and sing an entire 넬
song by heart.

Lawson, Konrad, 2007 Fulbright Junior Researcher

Konrad M. Lawson has spent the last fourteen years studying East Asian languages and history. He
is a PhD candidate in the history department of Harvard University. He was a 2007-2008 Fulbright
junior researcher affiliated with Yonsei University’s Institute of Korean Studies. Konrad is writing his
dissertation on treason and political retribution against accused collaborators with Japan in early post-
liberation Korea and China. You can find his current contact information online at muninn.net.

Lee, Jason, 2007 Fulbright ETA

Jason Lee is from Redondo Beach, CA, and graduated from the Johns Hopkins University with a degree
in Neuroscience. He is a current Fulbright ETA 2007-2008 at Wongok Middle School in Ansan. In
addition to teaching, he is learning Headong Kumdo (Korean Fencing) and researching Korean healthcare
and Eastern Medicine.  After completing his grant, he will attend UCLA School of Medicine in the fall. 
jasonlee85@gmail.com.

Margolies, Dan, 2007 Fulbright Senior Lecturer

Dan Margolies is Batten Associate Professor of History at Virginia Wesleyan College and a specialist in
the history of American foreign relations and Southern history. His first book was Henry Watterson and
the New South: The Politics of Empire, Free Trade, and Globalization, and he is currently completing a
history of extraterritoriality and empire in American foreign relations. During 2007-08 he was a Fulbright
Senior Scholar/Senior Lecturer at Sogang University.

Novaral, Jenna, 2007 Fulbright ETA

Jenna Novaral graduated with a B.A. in History and a Secondary Social Studies Teaching certificate from
the University of Colorado at Boulder. This was her first trip to Korea since her adoption 23 years ago.
In the fall, Jenna plans to pursue a Master’s degree in Social, Multicultural, and Bilingual Foundations of
Education with an emphasis in Bilingual/ESL/Multicultural Education at her alma mater. She enjoyed
every moment of teaching at Dong-moon high school in Daegu.

48
O’Brien, Janaki, 2006-2007 Fulbright ETA
Janaki O’Brien was born in Seattle. She began her first grant year as a Fulbright Teaching
Assistant immediately after graduating from Wiliams College in 2006. Last year she lived in Gumi,
Gyeongsangbujdo, and is currently completing a second grant year in Jeonju, Jeollabukdo. After her
second grant year finishes in July she plans to work at the Korea National Museum in Seoul and undertake
a survey of Korean hotel architecture. Janaki.M.OBrien@gmail.com

Rimelspach, Meghan, 2007 Fulbright ETA

Meghan, originally from Ohio, is an ultra proud graduate of the New College of Florida, which she is
trying to convince Korea is actually “America’s Number 1 University,” not Harvard. She teaches, plays
soccer with, motivates, and tames boys at Geum Sung Middle School in her beloved town of Naju. After
Fulbright she plans on quietly saving the world. wallendafan@gmail.com

Rydberg, Amber, 2007 Fulbright ETA

Amber Rydberg graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont in February 2007 with a degree in
Chinese Literature and political science.  She is currently an elementary ETA in Padong, Daegu.  At the
conclusion of her grant, she will travel for a couple of months before going back to the great Northeast. 
She hopes to find a job that allows her to put her intense studies of Mandarin to good use.

Salerno, Beth, 2007 Fulbright Senior Lecturer

Beth Salerno is an Associate Professor of History at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, NH.  She was a
Fulbright Senior Lecturer in the American Studies Department at Pyeongtaek University for the 2007-8
academic year.  She is grateful to her students and colleagues for teaching her so much about Korea and
being so interested in learning about America.  She can be reached at bsalerno@anselm.edu.

Shin, Sara, 2006 Fulbright ETA

Sara Shin is a New Yorker, born and raised in Queens. She graduated from Wellesley College (yes, the
all-girls school) in 2004. She was part of the first Fulbright Elementary ETA program in South Korea from
Jan 2006-Dec 2006 and liked it so much she decided to extend for six months. Sara is now back home
working for a nonprofit in NYC. She hopes to work for a few years before heading to graduate school.

Silvieus, Leah, 2007 Fulbright ETA

After growing up in rural Montana and Colorado, Leah received her B.A. in English from Whitworth
University in Spokane, Washington. She is currently finishing her teaching assistantship at Jeonggwang
Middle School in Gwangju. Correspondence and good book recommendations can be sent to leah.
silvieus@gmail.com

Sirgo, Henry, 2007 Fulbright Senior Lecturer

Professor Henry Barbier Sirgo served as 2007-2008 Fulbright Senior Lecturer in the Department of
Political Science & International Studies for the Underwood International College of Yonsei University.
He served as 2006-2007 William L. McLeod Endowed Scholar at McNeese State University in Lake
Charles, Louisiana. He is the former president of the Louisiana Political Science Association and of the
McNeese State University Faculty Senate, and serves on the editorial board of Politics & Policy. He has
published extensively including articles in Presidential Studies Quarterly and Women & Politics, book
reviews in the American Political Science Review and Great Plains Sociologist, book chapters and a 2004
book on environmental policy. Professor Sirgo earned his B.A. from the University of New Orleans, and
his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Florida State University

Smith, Lauren, 2007 Fulbright ETA

Lauren Smith is from Kansas City, MO and graduate from Drake University in Des Moines Iowa. She
received degrees in Graphic Design, Advertising and a Global Ambassador Certification. During her
Fulbright ETA grant she taught at Jeju Dong All Girls’ Middle School on Jeju Island. In her free time she
enjoys traveling, reading and running. You can contact her at: Lauren.Smith88@hotmail.com

49
Stratton, Alexis, 2006 Fulbright ETA
Alexis Stratton is from Raleigh, NC, and graduated from the University of South Carolina with a degree
in English.  She was a Fulbright ETA 2006-2007, during which time she taught at Jungang Girls’ High
School in Yeosu.  She is currently working at the Methodist Student Network at USC, and she plans to
continue studying English literature and creative writing in graduate school.  alexis.stratton@gmail.com

Strzelecka, Nika, 2006-2007 Fulbright ETA

After graduating from Pomona College in May 2006, Nika Strzelecka has been teaching English to
middle school students and traveling around Asia. While she still likes taking ferry rides, she prefers
the mountains to the sea and intends to hike through all of Korea’s national and provincial parks before
leaving the ROK. If you’d like to join her, please email nika47@gmail.com.

Tschop, Laura, 2007 Fulbright ETA

Laura Tschop grew up in Gettysburg, PA. She studied Pyschology and Early Childhood Education at
Wheaton College in Norton, MA. She lived this past year in the fun-loving town of Galsan-myeon where
she loved teaching all 125 of her elementary school’s students. While she’s unsure of exactly where she
will be next year, she knows that she will be teaching somewhere. She hopes to teach for many years
before going into education policy. She’d love to talk about Korea so please email her: lauratschop@
gmail.com

50
The Korean-American Educational
Commission does not take responsibility for
the opinions and views expressed in the Korea
Fulbright Review by individual contributors.
All submissions, including but not limited to,
personal and academic research are views held
by the individual contributor and should not be
mistaken to represent the official policies of the
Fulbright Commission in Korea.

The contents of this publication may not be

reproduced in whole or in part without express
written permission by the Korean-American
Educational Commission and by the individual
contributor or contributors concerned.

51
52