Korean translation, 년[neon,nyawn]: year



Korean translation, 년[neon,nyawn]: year




To whoever is looking at this blog, know that while although one of the functions of this blog is to inform others of my time here, I also use this blog as a way to document what I am doing in Korea for myself. I do this so that come a year, two years, ten, twenty from now, I can look back and remember some of the the amazing people I met, the places I went and the meaningful experiences I had.

Why am I in Seoul, anyways?

Why am I in Seoul, anyways? I'm studying language in Seoul for the year through the National Security Language Initiative for Youth operated by the U.S. State Department. While in Seoul, I attend a local Korean high school as a regular Korean student and have intensive language classes three times a week at an international institute in Seoul. My school is a digital media vocational school. Both in school and in many other settings, I am often the only American they have met and almost always the only Jew. As such, I have an important role, not only as an American or a Jew, but as The American and The Jew. Because of this, I have been prone to some alarming, but insightful questions. Like when it was drizzling outside, weather that does not necessarily warrant carrying an umbrella, but being asked by my host brother, "Do all Jews not use umbrellas?" I am constantly being put in new situations. I make mistakes sometimes. Like when I clearly asked for "not spicy," however later realized, tears in my eyes, that the woman's shocked expression when I ordered "meh-un tteokbokki" was not from my Korean ordering skills, but was because I had probably been the first foreigner to specifically ask for the spiciest food on the menu. These year as the non-umbrella-carrying-spicy-food-eating-American-Jew living in Seoul has been exhausting and exhilarating, but a year of experiences I will bring with me for the rest of my life. .

Week of Nov 4: Tests, foods, farms and films.


  • Went to the testing location for the sunung, or Korean SAT. It's customary for students to cheer on their schoolmates as they walk into the building. I got a text later from my host father saying he had seen me on MBC news! 
  • COEX Food Festival with Korean friends. I had received some free tickets to the COEX food week festival and so I invited my class to go to with me. Three kids and I went and had a great time. Primarily restaurant suppliers, but there were plenty of food samplings- like Costco. There was also a Young Chef's Competition so we were able to witness teams from the US, Czech Rep. and Korea preparing food. 
  • Celebrated Omma's birthday. Big meal at home with surprise ice cream cake. 
  • Sent Happy Birthday video and called home for Neshama's birthday. 
  • Volunteered at the Hansol Farm in Namyangju (Ungilsan Station) with WWOOF and Seoul City Farmers. I shoveled chicken poop for most of the day, but was able to gather eggs and lay down new straw and compost down for the chicks later. It started to rain in the afternoon and so we went into the tent. As is Korean farmer tradition when it rains, we ate pahjeon, Korean style scallion pancake. As we ate the pahjeon in the cold, the farmer gave some advice. He said, "To be happy in life, one must lose concern for three things. First is money. Second is speed. And third is convenience. Don't worry about the cost, do what you love. Slow down- just as snails and horses and rivers and streams have their speeds, so do human beings. And not everything is convenient. It's alright for things to be out of the way, or for you to be troubled."
  • Went to two movie screenings: In The Eyes of the Witness and A Traveller from the North. The former is more of a documentary of the life in North Korea and the later is a narrative of a North Korean defector woman living in South Korea. The only word to describe both movies is harrowing. After the screenings, there was a Q&A session with a North Korean defector who had fled with three of her children.  She could not speak English, so there was a translator, though the emotion her voice invoked in me reminded me that stories and emotions can transcend language barriers. 
Go Digitech!

Interviewed by EBS News


The paejeon