tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65304133074994481352024-03-14T19:58:32.091+09:00Finding FridayCHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-59891368552705919052016-02-29T01:25:00.003+09:002016-02-29T01:25:45.873+09:00My Little Itch<div class="MsoNormal">
Today, my baby turns four months old. Tomorrow, the world
will join together to recognize Rare Disease Day, a day when people who have
suffered rare diseases share their stories and spread awareness
of those conditions. This is the first year I have a story to share, and it is
the first time I’ve shared it in its in entirety. Though I have talked about
pieces of my story both publicly and to family and friends, only my sweet
husband knows the whole picture. Only he was there during the nights when I
slept with bags of frozen peas on my feet because numbness was the only way to
quell the itch. Only he heard my unspoken fears about whether our baby would be
born alive. Only he saw my heart break, and only he knew how to reach past the
pain and touch it in a way that allowed it to slowly mend. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Intrahepatic Cholestasis of Pregnancy affects between 0.1 and 0.2% of pregnancies in the US. It is a hormone-influenced liver disorder
that generally “resolves” upon the birth of the baby. There is very little
research on the disease, and there is no known prevention or cure. <o:p></o:p></div>
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ICP usually begins in the third trimester. In cholestasis,
the flow of bile (a digestive fluid from the liver) is impaired, causing it to
build up in the skin. This results in intense and severe itching, often
beginning on the palms and soles of the feet. Toxins are not removed from the
body. Nutrients are not pulled from the food. The itching becomes so intense
that women literally scratch themselves raw with no relief. The sleep
deprivation, psychological suffering, and nutrient deficiencies often result in
depression, and sometimes even suicide.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The itching began for me when I was 35 weeks. It started
small. I noticed that I was scratching my legs more than usual. Within days it
was affecting my arms, palms, torso, back, and feet. It was most severe at
night. In the beginning, I thought it was an allergic reaction or a normal
pregnancy “thing.” But I had been pregnant before, and had never experienced
this. Still, every pregnancy is different, right? It only took a couple of days
before I knew that something wasn’t right. THIS wasn’t right. It wasn’t normal.
It was like a fiery, searing itch so deep in my skin that I couldn’t reach it
no matter how hard or long I scratched. There was no relief. There was no
sleep. By the third night, my husband was using an electronic massager on the
itchy areas for hours every night just to allow me to fall asleep. In an hour
or two I would wake up to pee, and the itching would be so fierce I couldn’t
fall back asleep. I would spend the night wandering the house, sitting on the
washing machine with my legs in the chest freezer, crying from the relief the
cold numbness brought. Jon would wake up, pull the massager out, and get to
work again so that I could close my eyes and rest. By that third night, I had
bloody lesions on my legs from scratching. I literally could not help myself. For two weeks straight, from that first itchy night to the night of Ander's birth, I got 1-4 hours of sleep a day.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The same week, I went into pre-term labor for the
second time. The first instance had occurred at 28 weeks, but had luckily
stopped on its own. This time, it didn’t stop. The contractions got stronger
and closer together over the next 8 hours, and I finally went into the birth
center to get checked. We were able to stop the labor, and I went home.</div>
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I started researching pregnancy itching. It
didn’t take long before I knew what I had. Intrahepatic Cholestasis of
Pregnancy. I was a textbook case. The
words jumped out at me. “Itching.” “Dark urine.” “Fatigue.”</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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I knew that fatigue. I had been so tired for the last few weeks,
even before the sleeplessness started, that sometimes it seemed like an
impossible task to stand up and move from the living room to the kitchen. My
arms felt too heavy to lift. I just thought I had pregnancy fatigue worse than
most people. I don’t know how I took care of my toddler during that time. I
know I didn’t do it on my own. There were days when I felt unseen hands
literally lift me to my feet.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As I researched, more words jumped out, and my stomach felt
sick. “Pre-term labor.” “Meconium aspiration.” “Stillbirth.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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Babies die from ICP. Lots of them. One minute, they are
fine—almost full-term, squirming around in their amniotic fluid—and the next,
they are still. It happens so fast. Monitoring gives no guarantees. As a mother
nears full-term, and hormones rise to prepare for birth, bile levels rise.
Liver enzymes rise. Babies enter a danger zone.<o:p></o:p></div>
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At the birth center where I was going to be delivering,
there were three midwives and an OBGYN. They are hands-down the most brilliant,
competent, and inspired medical professionals I have ever known. I called on a
weekend and told them that I wanted a blood liver panel drawn. From that first
moment, they took me absolutely seriously. They talked with me about what I was
experiencing, and then bumped up my
appointment to Monday. They took a blood draw as I had requested. The OB said
the last ICP pregnancy she had handled was over a decade ago. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Bile levels should rest between 1 and 7. Anything over 10 is
considered cholestasis. Anything over 40 is severe cholestasis. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It took a week to receive my results. My levels came back at
46. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In cholestatic pregnancies, as the bile levels rise and
liver function breaks down, bile and toxins move through the placenta to the
baby. In mild, untreated cases, stillbirth rates can be as high as 15%. In
severe cases, as high as 40%. If caught early enough, there is medication that can be used to mitigate the risks.<br />
<br />
Mine was not caught early.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I was now a high-risk pregnancy. I could not deliver at a
birth center. I could not deliver on my own. ICP babies are generally induced
and delivered no later than 37 weeks. Most are delivered earlier. Everything I
had wanted and planned and hoped for and counted on had changed. I was 36 weeks
6 days when my diagnosis came back. <o:p></o:p></div>
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My OB sat me down and we talked. We talked about the risks and the options. We could do another
draw that day and monitor for a week, with ultrasounds every day. At the first
sign of fetal distress, we could deliver. We could give him that one extra week
to grow. Boys’ lungs often mature slower than girls’. There was about a 50%
chance he would be a NICU baby at 37 weeks. We could try some natural induction methods
instead of a harsh medical induction. She could put me on medication to bring
the bile levels down.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Or we could schedule an induction immediately and get him
out. <o:p></o:p></div>
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We both leaned toward giving him one more week. They drew
another blood panel, knowing the results would take a week to return. I was
prescribed the medication to bring my levels down. Jon and Eden and I went
home. And we prayed. We prayed a lot. We were given priesthood blessings. In Jon's blessing, he was promised that the answer to what we should do would come
clearly, in the wee hours of the morning. In my blessing, I was promised that I would be allowed
to go into labor naturally, and that my son would be born healthy.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the morning, we awoke. Jon had received
no answer, so he figured we were on the right course. We would wait a week,
assuring a healthy baby and a better chance of a natural labor. But at 7 am, I
got a call from our doctor. She had awakened at 2 am with an intense agitation about the decision to wait. She hiked a
mountain in the dark, seeking answers for our family, and came down with a certain
knowledge that we needed to induce immediately or we would lose him. I don’t
know what she experienced on top of that mountain. That is between her and God.
But I knew that, just as Jon’s blessing had promised, our answer had come
clearly, in the wee hours of the morning. It just hadn’t come to him.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We packed a bag and headed to St. Joseph’s Hospital. We were
not ready for a three-week early baby. But we both felt an overwhelming peace.
More than I have perhaps ever felt. There was a reason for this. This was part
of a higher plan. <o:p></o:p></div>
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When we got to the hospital, we discovered that I was
already in labor. Naturally, as I had been promised. They decided to augment it
with Pitocin to get the baby out as quickly as possible. That labor was like
walking through hell with angels at my side. I have never experienced anything
so intense and excruciating. I have never felt so close to heaven. Partway through,
I asked for pain medication of any kind--begged really--but my doula calmly got
in my face and explained that it would be too dangerous for the baby. They
didn’t know if his lungs were ready. He would likely be sedated by the
medication. His heart rate would drop. There was a high chance of him
aspirating meconium. It would be an emergency C-section. He might or might not
survive.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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At 9:36pm, I gave birth to Ander Orion, naturally and with
no medication. I was on oxygen at that
point, and his heart rate had dropped. But then he came. And he was perfect. He
was healthy. He was BIG.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcs8gy6Q-zN_CzFxWWsXL1qi_AFv1wJwKOcSDeKq177kKROBKy1-3j2KubBFNeDW7XoJpXJD1BHKd8vNwplbVjmui5x3Cg2SQ39CODUCSjliRCWNntSaHjhxfSBwMusYgmwSrO6n24Oo8/s1600/IMG_0201.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcs8gy6Q-zN_CzFxWWsXL1qi_AFv1wJwKOcSDeKq177kKROBKy1-3j2KubBFNeDW7XoJpXJD1BHKd8vNwplbVjmui5x3Cg2SQ39CODUCSjliRCWNntSaHjhxfSBwMusYgmwSrO6n24Oo8/s320/IMG_0201.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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The itching was gone within hours of his birth. My levels
dropped to normal. My recovery was a breeze. One week later my second blood
panel results came back from the day before induction. My levels had risen from
46 to 96. My liver enzymes, which should have been 20-40, were in the 400s.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Intrahepatic Cholestasis of Pregnancy has a 90% chance of
recurrence in severe cases. They don’t know why it happens. I had none of the
risk factors. I did not have the genetic mutation that is present in 40% of the
cases. I was not carrying twins. I had not been on progesterone
supplementation. I had never even had hormonal birth control. I was not over
40. I had no history of liver or gallbladder issues. I ate a whole-food, mostly
sugar and preservative-free diet. There was absolutely no reason for me to have
gotten this disease. But I did. And if we have future children, statistics say
I will have it again. I cannot think about
having another child without accepting the fact that I
have a chance of burying that child. And if not, a preemie is
likely. For a while after Ander was
born, I struggled emotionally with that. I struggled with not understanding the
WHY—with feeling like it wasn’t fair. I had done everything, EVERYTHING,
possible to have a healthy pregnancy. And in the end it felt like it didn’t
matter. None of it mattered. I got sick anyway. My own body was killing my
child. I didn’t DESERVE that.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But here’s the thing. We don’t have challenges because we
deserve them. We have challenges because we need them. I prayed a lot, and I
never got a “why.” All I got was, “It was necessary. You did everything you
could have. This was part of the plan.” And, in the end, that has to be good enough.
In the end, the peace comes. It might take days or weeks or months or years.
But it comes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And with peace comes hope. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s just because I’m an optimist. But 10%
of the time ICP DOESN’T recur. Why not for me? Whether or not we have more children, I cannot submit to fear. If I bow my head to statistics, then hope dies. And I refuse to
live like that.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ander’s name means “Man of Courage.” It is the name he chose
before he was born. He is a survivor. And though science says I now have an “increased
chance of liver cancer, gallbladder disease, etc etc” in the future, I'm not worried. The scabs
on my legs have healed. My heart is mending. I’m a survivor, too.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Happy 4 months to my little Itch. He’s worth everything.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSGPQtmVdytiNGXrK34RlXc1Hi6YVdZLS8Oh2Tv21fX1J52oUSS3l1F_nk9wQO6A3eerW5QlMJWCuRYMWv7jJCGDG6mfb-yp26_J4XTFw8CuZiSr5ilVTR0wroXbaZ3fgNciFfADk37n4/s1600/IMG_1486e.jpg" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5RnphiYp5yRbwUmgzLbG0-qIKPni-JPbF-_USm2VCSjcl83idTsBFCO7dVMEE1ltX1OMOJ8lny9mtajpxXxSsKLfx-KPJGGwYXxJTFb0pmcogSmlFzJ-Q_EOcDmJVqmsmIZ49iNzbL4k/s1600/IMG_1517.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5RnphiYp5yRbwUmgzLbG0-qIKPni-JPbF-_USm2VCSjcl83idTsBFCO7dVMEE1ltX1OMOJ8lny9mtajpxXxSsKLfx-KPJGGwYXxJTFb0pmcogSmlFzJ-Q_EOcDmJVqmsmIZ49iNzbL4k/s320/IMG_1517.JPG" width="213" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFJGb5aKELE1_tr9rDGCN0vg-EUBuarv0A0ZJcYOeVDOzmZ19VVpbL_xVORf_GEreJokwj4Ytw5aLWnDTTQjp_dX2VZeGnL0zNP9AC-BsdJatCL65t8PRmc3e_1T2-l6QuF140BwZgQU0/s1600/IMG_1486e.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFJGb5aKELE1_tr9rDGCN0vg-EUBuarv0A0ZJcYOeVDOzmZ19VVpbL_xVORf_GEreJokwj4Ytw5aLWnDTTQjp_dX2VZeGnL0zNP9AC-BsdJatCL65t8PRmc3e_1T2-l6QuF140BwZgQU0/s320/IMG_1486e.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-14048067563377481132014-09-17T13:53:00.001+09:002014-09-17T13:53:29.357+09:00Happy Birthday, Little One!<a href="http://animoto.com/play/tFa1rrEMjUwV4Jpc9UB6Lg">Eden's First Year</a>CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-56457119708349759112014-09-17T13:25:00.002+09:002016-02-28T10:40:41.165+09:00What I Didn't Have to Miss<div class="clearfix" style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', helvetica, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 13.9636px; zoom: 1;">
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px;">Sometimes I wonder about Lazarus. In the New Testament, he was raised from the dead, what many regard to be one of the greatest miracles the Savior of the World ever did. It made quite a stir with those around him. It made some believers in Christ. It made others turn against Him. But I wonder sometimes what it did to Lazarus. I wonder what he did with those extra years, the ones he wouldn’t have had had he not been brought back from death. I wonder if he used them differently than he used his previous years. I wonder if he thought about the things he would have missed.</span></div>
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I think about Lazarus a lot. Especially this time of year.</span><br />
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Two weeks from now, it will be May 13th. It’s not a holiday, but it’s a day that I remember, that I honor privately. It’s not something I talk about often. But lately I have been thinking a lot about it. Memories keep swirling in my head that sometimes only resurface this time of year. I remember lying in a hospital bed in a foreign country, surrounded by doctors speaking in a language I didn’t understand. I remember being poked and prodded, being x-rayed, giving vial after vial of blood, and finally being told, through rough translation, that they didn’t know what was wrong with me. I remember being curled in my bed in my tiny studio apartment, long after the sounds of the city night had faded, in such pain that I wondered what would happen to my students if I didn’t make it. I remember Jon holding me, wiping the sweaty hair back from my forehead. I think I remember him singing. He remembers me pleading to die.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">
I don’t remember ever being afraid, except of what I might miss.</span><br />
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I came home from Korea early, before my teaching contract ended. I saw a doctor here in the States, and was told that I had parasite damage, heavy metal poisoning, radiation, a failing liver, and inflammation in every organ in my body, including my heart and brain. Most of my organs were beginning to shut down. She told me that if I had stayed another few weeks, I would have died.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">
I already knew that.</span><br />
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I began treatments, and I didn’t die. But I didn’t get any better. Life became a never-changing dance of pain and sleep, and I spend most of the next four-and-a-half months curled up in bed. Jon, still in Korea, woke up at 4am every morning to talk to me at a time when I would be awake. My dog stayed curled up by my side. Those months are mostly a blur, and I remember very little from that time.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">
But I remember May 13th. It was my brother’s wedding day, the first wedding in the family. I was, of course, supposed to be there, wanted to be there, prayed to be able to be there. But I woke that morning in a haze of misery, too sick to get out of bed. Disappointment aching inside, I told my dad to go on without me.</span><br />
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A few minutes later, my dad and my brother, all dressed up in their wedding best, came into my room and asked if they could give me a priesthood blessing. I felt hands on my head, and then I felt power. And there was my dad’s voice, commanding me in the name of Christ to rise up and be whole.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">
And Lazarus stepped from his tomb, from his sleep of death, into life.</span><br />
<br /><span style="background-color: white;">
There was no pain after that, no exhaustion, no illness. From that very moment. I cannot explain the change, but perhaps that doesn’t matter. Wholeness can never really be understood anyway, except by the broken.</span><br />
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As humanity, we cling desperately to things that are permanent; we seek after things that are immortal. But we only really notice the transient. I love sunsets because they are beautiful and I love them even more because in four minutes they will be gone. If the sunset stayed forever it would mean nothing. We would not notice it any more than we notice that trees have leaves. We would not notice it any more than we notice that we breathe.</span><br />
<br /><span style="background-color: white;">
But every day is different now. Things that seemed permanent have now entered the realm of “momentary” for me. Even three years later, I notice that I breathe. What used to be a week, a segment of time that meant nothing and sometimes seemed never to end, is now a collection of a million individual moments. And I try really hard not to take any of them for granted.</span><br />
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As I sit here now, I can’t help but think of all the things I didn’t have to miss. Because of o</span><span style="background-color: white;">ne very real miracle, I am alive right now. And because of one miracle, I got to see the day when the man who stayed with me through my darkest nights finally became mine forever. I got to hold my new baby in my arms, squalling with her first breaths, as the rays of morning poured through the stained glass above my head and painted her with a million colors of light. Because of one miracle, I had the privilege of teaching and learning from over two hundred teenagers who passed through my classroom. Because of one miracle, I got to fulfill my dream of swimming with dolphins in the ocean. And, like Lazarus, because of one miracle, I have countless years ahead of me, years that will mean so much more because I almost had to miss them.</span><br />
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CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-67545659859033911722012-10-19T07:52:00.001+09:002012-10-19T07:52:39.609+09:00Wedding slideshow<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" height="243" id="vp1KKNHg" width="432"><param name="movie" value="http://static.animoto.com/swf/w.swf?w=swf/vp1&e=1350600740&f=KKNHgsieFW5brjpCZaWZuA&d=603&m=a&r=360p+480p+720p&volume=100&start_res=480p&i=m&options="></param>
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<embed id="vp1KKNHg" src="http://static.animoto.com/swf/w.swf?w=swf/vp1&e=1350600740&f=KKNHgsieFW5brjpCZaWZuA&d=603&m=a&r=360p+480p+720p&volume=100&start_res=480p&i=m&options=" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="432" height="243"></embed></object>CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-26156414744177196712011-09-05T08:47:00.002+09:002011-09-05T08:47:03.754+09:00Moments<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;"></span><br />
<div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;">Confession: I have a problem called “Selective Memory.” Capital S. Capital M. For emphasis.</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;">This is probably somewhere in the same family as “selective hearing.” My mom used to holler endlessly to my brother about that, about how he only heard what he wanted to hear, which very rarely included her demands to take out the trash, feed the chickens, or water the half-dead, potted green things in buckets on the back porch. I’ve never really suffered from this ailment so much. But selective memory is much worse. I can’t always remember things. And even worse, I can’t always forget them.</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;">This has nothing to do with getting old, or with being slow. It has to do, mostly, with a memory that has no idea what decade Lincoln was President in, but can remember the first poem it ever memorized in the first grade. “<em>In winter, I get up at night, and dress by yellow candlelight…”</em></div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;">I have no idea what borders Minnesota, but I know that Tennessee had the lowest real estate prices in the country when I was in college. I often don’t remember my four-digit PIN number on my debit card that I use two or three times a week, but I still remember how to tie a fishing lure, though I haven’t done it in many years.</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;">Memory is tricky. There are some things that you think you’ll have forever--a last glimpse of a loved one, good times with your best friends, your first date. But for me, all of these have receded to a realm of colored smoke, where all form and detail has faded to emptiness, and anything I conjure up is only a speculation or a lucent phantom of what was.</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;">And then there are things that are so small and insignificant that I don’t know how I’ve retained them all this time, why they have lived, starved for attention but not for power, in the little pathways of my mind, hibernating for long months and then bursting forth every now and again with such force and persistence and clarity that they occupy the whole of my attention for hours on end. The argument I overheard between my parents one Christmas Eve when I was in junior high that made me sick to my stomach for three days. Flipping the swings at the playground up over the top bar so that the chains clanged in an unholy summons and lifted the seat high above the sand. Walking alone into the dim, musty, dirty shack that smelled of stale bread and crumbling shoes to visit Ted, the old man who ate beet sandwiches, gave kids rides on his motorized wheelchair, and bragged that he was going to live to be a hundred. These things I remember as if they were yesterday, though millions of moments have happened since then, vying for space in that eternal computer.</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;">I do not know why I cannot remember the feel of my first kiss, but my heart re-throbs with all the love and ache of the summer day fifteen years ago, when I sat with a pair of tweezers in a pool of hot, hot sun, pulling the bloated tics from the pink skin of that puppy I loved, who was so small and broken and sick from the day she was born, that the sight of those insects stealing her very life-blood away broke my heart with a million cracks that remain there still.</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;">It seems to me that there are certain events in life that are “big” enough, that we should never forget them. So why, then, do I not remember my baptism when I was eight years old? Why do I not remember getting my driver’s license, though I remember the five months preceding it when I practiced and ran over every shrub and light post in two neighborhoods? All I can say is that I had better remember my wedding when that ten year anniversary rolls around.</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;">Sometimes it’s not a matter of wishing I could remember, but of yearning to forget. I don’t want the old man, yellowed with disease and open sores, naked but for dirt, curled on the brick wall along that village road to lie, dying forever in my mind as he does now. I don’t want to always miss the boy who sat in the trees with me and talked for hours, leaves shutting out the world, who collected stones that we never skipped, who lives on in my memory, laughing. There are some moments that I wish could live in my mind but fade from my heart.</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;">I wish I could call the shots. I wish I could say which events got filed for eternity and which went out with the morning trash. They should be my treasures to keep, my trash to burn.</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;">But that power has never been mine. And perhaps I would regret it if it was. During those times when I scuttle through life, seemingly lost, I always go back to memory. The things I remember tell me who I am. What if I did not remember that argument between my parents on that dark winter night? Would I look at them today with the same joy at their happiness together—with the confidence that problems can be worked out? What if I had never pulled those sickening tics from that soft fur? Would I still have the compassion that spills out my eyes and my hands toward all suffering things? What if what I remembered most about that first love was his kiss, instead of his smile? Would love mean something different?</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;">I’ve never been very good at remembering the big things. Perhaps they are simply too wide for me to really see them. But the collection of those little moments that swim through me has made me a lover of the insignificant. I love anthills. And leaves that are turning colors just at the edges. And half-smiles. And broken red bricks. And I don’t know if I could love any of these things if my memory was taken up by weddings and funerals and milestones. Maybe it will be okay if I can’t remember my wedding in ten, twenty, fifty years.</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;"><br />
</div><div style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em;">As long as I can remember the smooth softness of sweet icing, heels clinking on a dance floor.</div>CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-16679306693177784192011-01-22T04:08:00.001+09:002011-01-23T09:47:25.133+09:00Holy Hellions<div class="MsoNormal">“Teacher, what is “die?”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I stop my science lecture on living vs. non-living things, and turn to the innocent wide eyes of the five-year-old who has not yet learned this powerful little English word. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“<span style="font-family: Gulim, sans-serif;">거푸집,” </span>answers her friend, Amy, who is busily coloring the legs of the spider on her worksheet into six of the seven rainbow colors because she doesn’t like the color green.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I quickly glance back to Crystal and see her face go solemn. “I don’t like die. I will not die.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I can see the fear in her face.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Crystal, everyone will die. All living things will die. Spiders, dogs…and people. All people will die. Even me. Even you.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“My grandpa died.” Chris joins the conversation. “He died because he was old, but now he is in…” His brow furrows as he looks for a word that does not yet exist in his vocabulary. He turns to Ian. “<span style="font-family: Gulim, sans-serif;">천국</span> in English, what is it?” <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Heaven,” Ian whispers back.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Heaven. My grandpa is in heaven now.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Crystal’s eyes have been following her classmates, but now they turn to me. “Do people really go to heaven after they die?” <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">She will believe anything I tell her. Completely. Because she knows I will never lie to her.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Yes. People really go to heaven. And when you die, you can go there, too, and be with all your family and friends again.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Crystal smiles. “Teacher? I am happy.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I still see their faces. All of them. They run through my dreams. They stare out of the eyes of the little neighbor boy I babysit, though his round eyes are the color of seafoam, and theirs are almond, and glowing like black coals full of hidden fire. And sometimes, sitting in church and hearing a word like “heaven,” a whole conversation comes back to me, a tingling memory that hurts from my chest down to my stomach in the way that only missing and longing can hurt. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">For a whole year, I think was collecting those kids. Collecting their smiles and their tears. Collecting their hugs. Collecting their pain and making it mine. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Teacher, I cried on the bus today.”<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Oh, no! Why?”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Because I was sad because last night Daddy came home and he was angry and outside and Mom outside too and yelling, and Mom go to her room and I hear her cry many tears. And her face red where he hit. But they didn’t know I hear, and I only cried on the bus.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And even now, 7,000 miles away, I still want to make their lives perfect, so that Amy never has to tell that story again.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But I can’t, and so I try to remember their laughter instead, because I’ve collected that and made it mine, too. I still grin when I think about the Christmas concert on my last day in Korea. The kids had all just gotten to take turns sitting on Santa’s lap, where he gave each of them a stocking with a present inside. Crystal, lacking any degree of patience or self-control, had already torn open the wrapping and forgotten about the gift. But then I heard a little giggle, which started growing louder. I turned to look, and saw that she had taken off her shoe and put her foot into the stocking like a sock. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Look, Teacher! STOCKING!” And she chortled and laughed, and danced on her one-stockinged foot, until I pulled out my camera. “Teacher, nooooo!” she yelled, yanking the stocking off, and hiding it behind her back, still laughing, the dimples in her cheeks deep, her eyelashes vibrating with delight.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Or Chris, perhaps more carefree and wide-eyed of any of them, hiding under the table in the corner, waiting for me to enter the room. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Where’s Chris?” I say.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A very solemn-faced boy answers me. “Teacher, he didn’t come today. He is very sick.” <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Yes, Teacher, so sick. He has to go to the hospital.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Giggle, giggle.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I hear the laughter coming from under the table. Slowly, I peer below, where I see Chris curled up on the floor, covering his traitorous mouth with both hands, muted giggles still spilling from his lips.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Surprise!”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">He jumps up laughing, and launches himself into my arms.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There were a lot of things I expected when I decided to move to Korea for a year. There were a lot of things I planned on. I planned on the adventure, on falling in love with the wildness of the country. I planned on my job being just a job, a means to the end of exploring Asia.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I remember the day when I found a school administrator scolding one of my kids who was hiccupping uncontrollably, completely unable to respond. The manager got more and more frustrated and kept yelling at her to stop. I went in and took Stella away from the manager, picked her up, held her, and waited for the hiccups to break into the sobs I knew would come, which eased into silent tears, which dried against my neck. It was that day that I realized that those kids would never leave me. The realization shook me. When I saw the manager scolding Stella, I thought, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Judy, that discipline would work with Crystal, but not with her.</i> It was then that I realized how well I knew my kids—that I knew why each one cried, and how to make them stop. That I knew which jokes would be funny to Amy, but would be lost on Andrew. I never planned on that. I never planned on these kids being the best part of my year. It was then that I realized that I had indeed fallen in love with Korea. But not in the way I expected.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But I was not always so good a teacher, and those kids were not always heaven. On many days, those seventeen kids were my hell. They raked me over Diablo’s coals. They made me cry in anger and frustration. And they made me yell—something I swore I would never do to a child. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sometime during the first few months, before my younger class knew enough English to communicate with me, we were doing a craft project, and I passed out papers and scissors to all the kids. Ten minutes later, I was frantically rushing around, trying to help them cut out circles—a very tricky shape when you’re three years old.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But one little girl, Helena, didn’t need any help cutting. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">By the time I noticed her turned sideways in her chair, scissors in hand, it was too late. She and the girl next to her were playing “beauty salon,” and the floor was littered with long strands of Sarah’s hair.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">No, she didn’t need help at all. She was a pro.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Another time, we were doing phonics. Or we were supposed to. But Jake didn’t like phonics. And he didn’t like sitting. And he didn’t really like school all that much. What he did like was running. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">He also liked climbing. With friends. Before I knew what was happening, ten kids were running amuck in the small classroom, Jake separating the three segments of the table, pushing them over from beneath, as a train of kids strung along the length of a jump rope dodged table pieces and imitated, as loudly as they could, every animal sound they knew.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I couldn’t even hear my own yelling above the noise.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But the deepest hell, the one that lived and grew inside of me, was one that didn’t pass at the end of a long, hard day. It was the hell that lived in my heart when they were cruel to each other. It was the hell I waded through when they lied, when I had to teach them how to be good people because their parents were working 60 hours a week and didn’t have the time. It was the hell I lived in when they drove me to be someone I didn’t want to be, when I found myself angry, impatient, frustrated, harried, and unsympathetic. When I found myself causing tears, and realized the fault was my own.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Children are these little pieces of heaven that sometimes put us through hell. But isn’t that what heaven does? Isn’t that what God does? He puts us through a hell so wide and deep that we think we’re going to drown in it, and then he comes and wraps his arms around us and smiles into our eyes and ears with such love and confidence that suddenly all is heaven again, and we recognize it, and it is worth it. Children are like little mini gods, I think. Certainly they do His work best of anyone in this busy, rushing world full of red headlines and broken static. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">One minute I am so furious, and the next, little fingers brush my face, count my freckles, curl around my neck with such complete trust and adoration, that I do not know how I can possibly ever let go. And when I have to, some of the light inside of me dims, and I know that I will always miss my little holy hellions.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I stand before the crowd of moms and dads, a microphone shoved into my hands. I had not expected this. Did not know that I was expected to make a speech to the parents of my kids during their Christmas concert on my last day in Korea. Only half of them will understand what I say. And none of them can possibly know the feeling behind the words—the nuances that are never caught in a second language. So I just say the simplest truth I know. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Thank you for your kids. I love each of them, and they have made Korea amazing for me. I know they are your kids. They’re not mine. But they<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> feel </i>like they’re mine. I was realizing yesterday, this year that is so permanent for me, is fleeting for them. In five, ten, fifteen years, your kids…<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">my</i> kids… will no longer remember me. But I—I will always remember them. And I will always love them. So, thank you.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here I stop, because I’m starting to cry, and the dim lights aren’t dim enough. I hand the mic to one of the Korean teachers and walk off the stage.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">An hour later, I find a note on my desk, written in the hand of one of my five-year-olds. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Christina</div><div class="MsoNormal">I will remember you forever and ever. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Love you. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Ian.”</div>CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-20070065218659072502011-01-21T05:29:00.003+09:002011-01-21T18:46:44.230+09:002010 RememberedI've finally compiled a slideshow of pictures and videos from the past year, as I've wandered through Korea, China, and the Philippine Islands. It's a tribute to the adventures, the joy, the hard times, and most especially, the ones I loved.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/19026192">2010 Remembered: PART 1</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/19025294">2010 Remembered: PART 2</a>CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-69075987821672303512010-11-17T19:20:00.003+09:002010-11-17T19:22:16.335+09:00The Price of Wisdom<div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Eight-and-a-half months have passed—two-thirds of my time here in Korea is gone. And yet, in some ways, it seems that I have been here eight years. Time has moved in an unbelievable way, like a race car spinning wildly out of control. The weeks pass and I don't know where they've gone. I turn around and my three-year-olds are speaking in complete English sentences. I step back and realize that my five-year-olds are reading, that my clothes smell constantly of pollution and Asian detergent, and that I can sleep through a two-hour commute and never miss a bus or subway transfer.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">I have found a crack here where I fit, but still, especially on quiet nights when I look for stars and can’t find them, there are things that I long for from home— the stars, the people, the dusty skies, the desert rain. The rain here smells like bleach, a smell I can’t quite wrap my head around, when every memory I have tells me that rain should smell like chaparral and electricity and dripping desert flowers. At home, the rain was saving, a divine shower of life on the dry desert. Here it is filled with acid, the acrid water eating the roads—a force of nature, but not of life. And yet, there is so much life here .The greenness of this place is as foreign to me as the people, and as unpredictable.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">This civilization has been around for millennia, making my own country seem young and naïve, and much less steady than this place that no longer even recognizes the opposition it moves through, does not balk at it, does not complain or feel that it should have an easier lot.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Whereas I, long accustomed to success, find myself torn by the opposition I have found here, indeed, by the very wisdom I am gaining.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Wisdom isn’t cheap, and it certainly isn’t free. The older I get, the more I realize that, of all things in life, wisdom demands one of the highest prices of all, especially for me. The price of wisdom is something that I value deeply, that I cling to tightly.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">The price of wisdom is innocence.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">It is a price that I tremble to pay.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">But I am beginning to see a terrible thing. Ignorance may be bliss, but it is not happiness. And wisdom may leave terrible scars, but they are scars that save. Wisdom sees the complexity in simple things, the sorrow in the joy, and the meaning in the sorrow. Wisdom shows that all of humanity is broken people trying to find a way to be whole.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">But still, sometimes I miss the innocence I had before—before I understood poverty, before I really understood sacrifice. Before I saw what it really costs to change. Before I looked at an innocent child and cried inside for what I knew the world would do to them in the coming years. Before I saw such goodness in people who would never understand where goodness comes from. Before I learned in the depth of personal experience how hard the spirit must struggle to remain strong in a broken body. Before, when I could go to a nice restaurant, and not feel the urge to throw up when I saw the prices on the menu, my mind flashing back to the eyes of starving little ones in the Philippines, their tummies slick and bloated in the rain.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">I miss the way innocence once made life easy. And I look every day at my kids, still shining with the light of that purity--cruel and tough and brittle and quivering and cutting and forgiving and laughing and brimming over with the raw, bubbling, guile-less honesty that only a child can know. And I mourn for innocence.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">But innocence goes and wisdom comes. And as I begin to see the shady corners of the world-- not the geographical corners, but the moral ones, the social ones, the individual corners of emptiness that haunt every heart--I see my own joy become deeper. It is still a reckless joy, still wild, still candid, still exultant over the tiny and mundane, but richer as a whole. I love fog over misty water a little more. I adore crooked stacks of books a little more tenderly. I play hopscotch on fence posts with a little less reserve.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">And in all the opposition, I’ve learned that happiness is the easiest thing in the world.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Though I am still not sure, perhaps this makes wisdom worth the price. </div>CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-18093271435790753302010-09-22T13:05:00.005+09:002010-09-23T01:16:09.344+09:00Falling in Love with the Philippines: Days 4 & 5<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFimVX_R1ZvBrYljEHQ_mxqEF5AmBisCEaABGU9Esl3jRJYUc9WvmUjb3TMxNIJXN36Dt86mL9ByMAJgIsrQFTb1B32fwSx5fKat5H2ZB6FWQEzJbdUPkwa4aRT7Xor2p_9rXionp2JxY/s1600/IMG_3187.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFimVX_R1ZvBrYljEHQ_mxqEF5AmBisCEaABGU9Esl3jRJYUc9WvmUjb3TMxNIJXN36Dt86mL9ByMAJgIsrQFTb1B32fwSx5fKat5H2ZB6FWQEzJbdUPkwa4aRT7Xor2p_9rXionp2JxY/s400/IMG_3187.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9OPaBI38UE3focBTz2u3LdaUmsIbATt3GVqyYuVh4_jvzBr6QLNEfrhGdoIohgncID1QJcs6IJ-RDo0jgXM-Ecu6oixgCSB7VF4jCQVQNgw8fYHFeh-0C8HVq-P2NUeGS2UnKc4cUBo8/s1600/IMG_3415.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9OPaBI38UE3focBTz2u3LdaUmsIbATt3GVqyYuVh4_jvzBr6QLNEfrhGdoIohgncID1QJcs6IJ-RDo0jgXM-Ecu6oixgCSB7VF4jCQVQNgw8fYHFeh-0C8HVq-P2NUeGS2UnKc4cUBo8/s200/IMG_3415.JPG" width="200" /></a>Wednesday was our day on the water. After checking in to the Bamboo House, a beautiful two-story house entirely made of bamboo, we left our luggage and hopped onto the catamaran we'd rented for the day. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">Our two Filipino sailor-guides took us around to show us the different islands from out at sea. There are a lot of them—over 7,000 islands in the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Philippines</st1:place></st1:country-region></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">, many of them tiny ones close together. We could see the outline of Taal Volcano far off in the distance, heavy clouds quivering over its mouth, heat and ash in their bellies.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">The ocean here is a color that I have never seen ocean be before. They always talk about the crystal blue waters, and that’s exactly how it is. Just looking over the edge of the boat, I could see the ocean floor in the more shallow areas, and fish gliding in the reefs beneath us.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS5CkMDmq_roXybcbTGcQEEms4eNUpWrzvuixqmrO0yLJ0rSPgcyZKhtt2oiNfAMZCgjbtU7yo9utJQxMD7B9b3Oy95JLpBE6WMTbl-2x8if7q7-TAE9bzuHLaD2M3jWrnK3ukMgShg2w/s1600/IMG_3219.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS5CkMDmq_roXybcbTGcQEEms4eNUpWrzvuixqmrO0yLJ0rSPgcyZKhtt2oiNfAMZCgjbtU7yo9utJQxMD7B9b3Oy95JLpBE6WMTbl-2x8if7q7-TAE9bzuHLaD2M3jWrnK3ukMgShg2w/s200/IMG_3219.JPG" width="200" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">After some sightseeing, they drove us out over the reefs, gave us snorkels, and set us free to explore.</span></span>We had some bread that we broke pieces from and held beneath the water. Whole schools of fish swarmed us, enveloping us in amongst them, their slippery bodies flipping against my skin as they crowded for the bread.</div><div><br />
</div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">There were so many different kinds of fish down there—rainbows and snake-looking things and black fish with frilly fins. The coral was all different colors and shapes and here and there, a purple starfish or a sanddollar, still living, squirming in the water of their world. After we had swum around for awhile, we hooked ourselves to a little motorboat, and were pulled along the length of the reefs, keeping our heads in the water, watching it all open up and spill away beneath us.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggQGSwAgUYKGJqlQnQ0bRuLYt3WMsyDsFxF_DCQs92fEgP7iOYv-zmMVfeyPws1fOgOTxpMjW2w3PCPan9o40-D63U9hGtc8QPULHuWuqmtLPCJYZgXLwC2ZU3PTTeDhtj2N8BrAreDiY/s1600/IMG_3223.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggQGSwAgUYKGJqlQnQ0bRuLYt3WMsyDsFxF_DCQs92fEgP7iOYv-zmMVfeyPws1fOgOTxpMjW2w3PCPan9o40-D63U9hGtc8QPULHuWuqmtLPCJYZgXLwC2ZU3PTTeDhtj2N8BrAreDiY/s320/IMG_3223.JPG" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">At one point, where the reef fell away into open ocean with a long, empty, sandy floor, a three-foot long, green sea turtle appeared out of nowhere and glided along the ocean bottom. He was incredible! We decided to dive down and see if we could get closer to him, but by the time we went up for air and dove back, he was gone. As fast as a blink of an eye.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><br />
</span></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHVTWJCw00hFH7oWai5qhYI_l28hDlCyLh-Z8pk3Vu2i5-66u64Xof02ab4T7AFEoSinu8pPO6_VwwUVb353Xp7PwRS59Uh64gfyhAAYkRrPau5T8PsaXLS9MBZaG0d5cBI-vlGMT4yJY/s1600/IMG_3236.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHVTWJCw00hFH7oWai5qhYI_l28hDlCyLh-Z8pk3Vu2i5-66u64Xof02ab4T7AFEoSinu8pPO6_VwwUVb353Xp7PwRS59Uh64gfyhAAYkRrPau5T8PsaXLS9MBZaG0d5cBI-vlGMT4yJY/s320/IMG_3236.JPG" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">After snorkeling, we hooked up with a kid on a motorboat, and paid him to take us to an underwater cave. There was an underwater entrance, and one above, hidden in the rocks that you had to climb to and lower yourself through. The light came in through that little hole in the top. The tide was stronger inside, because it was contained. If I just let myself float in the water, it would grab me and throw me to the other end of the cave, against the rock. The light filtered in from above, and also from the hole that reached below the water, giving it some crazy cool lighting. It was beautiful--the the rock with the green and blue growing on it, and the way the light came in from two different angles to hit the water. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><div class="MsoNormal">We came back home to our Bamboo House after that, ordered some dinner, including a real coconut, and watched a gorgous orange sunset over the water. After that first Sunday of pouring rain, the only rain we saw was at night. But the clouds that floated across the horizons built up the most incredible sunsets. I love the sunsets of home. But I was mesmerized by the sunsets there. They’re wild like the ocean, instead of wild like the desert.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_FoO2H3k-8F9pm2NTee4KTKiW5_KAedyeCiIoD6_6LxDaBcJteyMcahqZdTijtmBFp1zVJJPq4snXjxPMJzkUiL9FsWBg0YXWJwum1IGliN5mYy95ce5fp6tF9mRQRKi5FG9yR9iGGSg/s1600/IMG_3386.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_FoO2H3k-8F9pm2NTee4KTKiW5_KAedyeCiIoD6_6LxDaBcJteyMcahqZdTijtmBFp1zVJJPq4snXjxPMJzkUiL9FsWBg0YXWJwum1IGliN5mYy95ce5fp6tF9mRQRKi5FG9yR9iGGSg/s320/IMG_3386.JPG" width="320" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal">The sun was setting when we realized that we were in for a rotten day the next day. The sunburns that we had started to feel on the boat suddenly became full-force. It’s been a long time since I’ve been sunburned like that. I was fire-engine red—back, shoulders, arms, legs. Jon’s back and calves got almost as bad of a dose, and he’s actually tan. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal">I kind of felt cheated. It wasn’t like I was being neglectful. I put on sunscreen. 80SPF. Twice. But then, I don’t know anyone who’s been to the Philippines who didn’t get burned. It’s a hot sun over those islands. Hot and low.<br />
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Wednesday night was awful. Any way I laid was painful, and every time I moved, it felt like someone was sticking me with fire. So, basically all of Thursday was spent the same way. I guess I wasn’t looking too good in the morning, because after breakfast, Jon put on a shirt (which had to hurt like crazy), and went off to search for aloe vera. If I’d have known that he was going to traipse across three beaches looking for it, I wouldn’t have let him go. He came back with some fruity smelling lotion that had aloe as an ingredient in it somewhere, some aloe soap, and some burn cream from some clinic he had run across. We gave the burn cream a shot, but sunburns aren’t like other burns.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">They’re like burns that have mutated so that they are impervious to all defenses.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> The burn cream stung. A lot. And I don’t think it did much good, except that it made us feel like maybe it would. Here I must concede that the placebo effect is a valid bit of science.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">After the room got too stuffy, we went outside and sat in the shade. I was going to read, but I kept getting approached by salesmen wanting to sell me jewelry. And baskets. And dart guns. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal">Jon wanted a dart gun. Probably he would have mixed his own poison and used it as a tranquilizer at school. Luckily for his kids, he resisted buying it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That afternoon, we ate at Lucio’s Italian Restaurant, supposedly the best food on the island. As we were eating, I noticed three very skinny little kitties wandering around on the fringes of the restaurant. I’ve never seen such skin-and-bones cats. I started feeding my expensive Italian pizza and cheesy chicken to the hungry kitties.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As we were eating, a couple of men selling baskets came up to the edge of the porch. They were looking up at us from below, and at first I shook my head and indicated that I didn’t want to buy. But every time I looked over, they would place a basket on the edge of the porch in my view, until they had a quite a little row lined up. And I knew that I was eating expensive Italian pizza and feeding cats, and those men were starving.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I didn’t even have to say anything. Jon looked at me and said, “We’re buying something from them,” and pressed P200 into my hand.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I bought a very small basket. I could have bought it for less. But why would I? I love that basket, not so much for its beauty as for what it stands for.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I loved how much good I could do there. I loved that all I had to do was step out my front door, and opportunities to give were screaming in my ears with silent, broken voices.</div></span></span></div>CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-78858521263348470212010-09-04T11:37:00.002+09:002010-09-04T11:43:04.434+09:00Falling in Love with the Philippines: Day 3<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4SHD6b4EVC3EUNAmhsCJ_zkpHHc-MTnyNE2tLzxr8Aprbki0BeA94gEqN4FCxyQO0V1cckj_k2mVMyYHvstHFUljAH2k-GH4PNMec91QmaPKOD28rRMyZ3-D9n87ramJrkKYQktUKyL4/s1600/IMG_3161.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4SHD6b4EVC3EUNAmhsCJ_zkpHHc-MTnyNE2tLzxr8Aprbki0BeA94gEqN4FCxyQO0V1cckj_k2mVMyYHvstHFUljAH2k-GH4PNMec91QmaPKOD28rRMyZ3-D9n87ramJrkKYQktUKyL4/s400/IMG_3161.JPG" width="223" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">On Tuesday, we spent mostly the whole day traveling, first taking a jeepney to the LRT train station, and then the train to the bus station, and then a long, three-hour bus ride to Batangas, the port city where we wanted to catch a ferry to the beach in Mindoro, the island just south of Luzon where we had spent the first few days. The ferry ended up costing more than we had planned, what with insurance fees, and “optional” tips to the random people who yanked our luggage away, carried it a hundred yards, and then asked for a little something for their trouble.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Jon was getting pretty stressed out by all the salespeople and conniving baggage-carriers. As we were sitting at the boat terminal, waiting for our ferry to board, women kept coming up, trying to sell us hotel reservations, maps, more hotel reservations, vacation packages, refusing to be put off by our obvious lack of interest. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But there was one woman that stopped me that I will never forget. We were weaving through the markets of Bachlaran, up toward the stairs of the LRT station. She came forward gently, and, hand outstretched, palm cupped up, brushed my arm. I looked down at the open hand. She said nothing, but I knew that she was hungry, and I knew that she wouldn’t be begging if she had any other choice. In her arms was a baby boy, less than a year old. His arms beneath the white T-shirt had sores on them, and his face was dirty. Bits of colored string were threaded through tiny holes in his earlobes—the only adornment she could afford for her child. I turned to Jon who was carrying the money, and he pulled out a P20 note and handed it to her. She took it gratefully, but I wished it had been more. And it was I who should have given it. She had appealed to me, as a woman and as a mother—to someone who might really understand. I wish I could find her again. I wish that I would somehow cross paths with her one more time. But I know I won’t. Opportunities come once if you are lucky. And they don’t come again. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdT0HqLtRT9wF0T6-Ff8U5UfTKjKaRh-1A5S1N-Xzta-PWSHJZOjJCuMgL1GPgYFQA5c5mdepTFT-WyHUXuec1IYJhzVwfASOLabhcuvX7Tkj04I9_tnb4Mo5-x9JlA6VSyDdfH58KDgo/s1600/IMG_3127.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdT0HqLtRT9wF0T6-Ff8U5UfTKjKaRh-1A5S1N-Xzta-PWSHJZOjJCuMgL1GPgYFQA5c5mdepTFT-WyHUXuec1IYJhzVwfASOLabhcuvX7Tkj04I9_tnb4Mo5-x9JlA6VSyDdfH58KDgo/s320/IMG_3127.JPG" width="320" /></a>When we finally got on the ferry, a pretty little catamaran, the ocean breeze was hitting our faces, and all was feeling good, until they suddenly decided that there was a little rain coming down from above, and they had better shroud all the openings in rolls of thick, foggy plastic. No more breeze, no more ocean spray, no more beautiful vistas. The stifling heat made me feel a little naseous, so I eventually opted to ride the trip standing up, where I could feel a little air coming in from the bow of the boat and the movement of the ocean under my feet. After a while standing on a boat, looking out at the ocean, it feels like you are walking on water.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh80jP4faSOrioXbOKPvDb7r-aLvt766-KocxQNlYxiQoFvLGUxTK6bobpiie5oVnfL7zip5yVHC0VxrxcIt6u_CEqXJq5cFE_uObV7DGfMGVDsvpyuL8amHjOukjdtQc7Z40yBxv1IZCE/s1600/IMG_3138.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh80jP4faSOrioXbOKPvDb7r-aLvt766-KocxQNlYxiQoFvLGUxTK6bobpiie5oVnfL7zip5yVHC0VxrxcIt6u_CEqXJq5cFE_uObV7DGfMGVDsvpyuL8amHjOukjdtQc7Z40yBxv1IZCE/s400/IMG_3138.JPG" width="400" /></a><o:p> </o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"> Then the island came into view, and it was beautiful. We disembarked at Puerto Galera, where they had a free jeepney waiting to take us all to White Beach. It was a beautiful ride along a winding road in the jungle, little huts and simples houses built along the road and half-naked Filipinos running along, ladling water or carrying laundry or logs or fishing nets, laughing in that completely free and joyful way that Filipinos do, their lean brown arms swinging as they ran, their bare feet skipping between the trees, heedless of the way that those trees followed them, laughing with them. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We got to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">White</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Beach</st1:placetype></st1:place> just about as the sun was setting. It was a sunset of blues and purples, not at all like the fire of home. We had planned on continuing out to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Aninuan</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Beach</st1:placetype></st1:place> or Talipanan, the next two beaches over, because they were supposed to be quieter, more open with fewer people and touristy stuff. But it was getting late, and we were able to find a cheap place to stay that night. We each paid about five dollars apiece for accommodations.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7DzP6ZBbfK1WYk6oks8HQqjajF9v3HZAyWY78DZNeMFsCGXnN1Foba2vlyb-18ixDP0rW9SlUT8Iyfy2sCuYnKe7Dhqvx8xTzioFrzYwLEfqHylhhcqhMokI3OjCIzQAk93oHiB6J3i4/s1600/IMG_3160.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7DzP6ZBbfK1WYk6oks8HQqjajF9v3HZAyWY78DZNeMFsCGXnN1Foba2vlyb-18ixDP0rW9SlUT8Iyfy2sCuYnKe7Dhqvx8xTzioFrzYwLEfqHylhhcqhMokI3OjCIzQAk93oHiB6J3i4/s320/IMG_3160.JPG" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">After feasting at a candle-lit beach restaurant, while sand crabs feasted on us, we caught the flame-throwing show some of the native boys put on. Their brown bodies shining with sweat in the flickering orange light of the fire, moved and danced and played with the power of nature, flames dancing in the black stages of their eyes. They threw and caught and morphed the flames, spinning, dancing, tumbling together, man and fire, on a tiny speck of land in the middle of the Pacific.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-83947745978223115362010-08-29T00:31:00.001+09:002010-08-29T00:44:13.044+09:00Falling in Love with the Philippines: Day 2<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"></span></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMMLXeOlOk6IW2W1TRc-Hj6d1YM1b0ZVEQwFF-dRjn5FX6WJ8ndO1qGm_P_SiUZfPJWXQTX5oAVfjzY9FH8D68jjf_yS9KBgU5X_1ZVdSYghzT46VTrfyG8C1YP_wTaNTWnPUkRTevFMA/s1600/IMG_2921.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMMLXeOlOk6IW2W1TRc-Hj6d1YM1b0ZVEQwFF-dRjn5FX6WJ8ndO1qGm_P_SiUZfPJWXQTX5oAVfjzY9FH8D68jjf_yS9KBgU5X_1ZVdSYghzT46VTrfyG8C1YP_wTaNTWnPUkRTevFMA/s400/IMG_2921.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>Monday, the second day in the Philippines, was about as near a perfect day as there can be in this world. That day, we decided to hit <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Pagsangan</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Falls</st1:placetype></st1:place>. It was a three hour bus ride to get there, and and then another fifteen minutes or so on tricycle. The bus ride was incredible, because it was like a getting little snapshots of the island as we sped through it. Everything from ramshackle shanties of rotting cloth and rusting tin that people lived in, to georgous mountain vistas and fields of rice and banana plantations stretching up into those mountains. Palm trees, curling streams, and towering mountains were everywhere. I was amazed at the poverty of the people living in the midst of such a stunning wealth of beauty. People stared up at me from the streets as I looked out the bus window. That’s something that was both flattering and really disconcerting; I get stared at everywhere there. By everyone. Openly, and unabashedly. I guess I am nothing like them. At least on the outside. At least in our backgrounds and language and lives and stories. But somehow we're the same. Our smiles mean the same thing.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBfUUm66nfY1tk_nNVU-FSTl3MOl4O8nlLcGpPg-a1_m6oMOPSmH15Vpeaz7z7unnzw8UA8LP21YTUlIEZ2RyzGCS4q46WZasYwWF9Ges8R5XC2HzWjacs7qqfJiBWHmPMFgdEgfxBuew/s1600/IMG_3086.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBfUUm66nfY1tk_nNVU-FSTl3MOl4O8nlLcGpPg-a1_m6oMOPSmH15Vpeaz7z7unnzw8UA8LP21YTUlIEZ2RyzGCS4q46WZasYwWF9Ges8R5XC2HzWjacs7qqfJiBWHmPMFgdEgfxBuew/s320/IMG_3086.JPG" width="240" /></a>There was one town that we passed, where there was a group of women sitting at an old picnic table outside, next to their drying laundry strung from lines in the trees. One of them saw me through the window of the bus, and started whispering to another, pointing towards me. Pretty soon, the whole group was casting furtive looks in my direciton. I grinned and waved at them, and they suddenly all burst into smiles and started waving wildly at me. In that moment I felt so connected to them, though I knew nothing about them, not even a name. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV1Sw-P3xeKEVC9yiT5jf1ULrgxHjvnskh0DH2AMvYzHQY3yqztNZJNTFCvbrD5mE66YvN9-HQj_s-z7GPwO4aqYZEFeDRVlY-qVq3gcp1apK5Pf4_nf6Y7IZrN4RAruo-T_BlfIx_c-Q/s1600/IMG_2933.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV1Sw-P3xeKEVC9yiT5jf1ULrgxHjvnskh0DH2AMvYzHQY3yqztNZJNTFCvbrD5mE66YvN9-HQj_s-z7GPwO4aqYZEFeDRVlY-qVq3gcp1apK5Pf4_nf6Y7IZrN4RAruo-T_BlfIx_c-Q/s200/IMG_2933.JPG" width="200" /></a>Finally, we arrived at <st1:city w:st="on">Santa Cruz</st1:city>, and took a tricycle to an old hotel that ran the boating service up to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Pagsanjan</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Falls</st1:placetype></st1:place>. The river was wide and beautiful, and all along it were small huts and homes, simple, bare dwellings for the fishing folk who made the river their home. We got in a canoe, and, paddled by two Filipinos who knew those waters natively and intimately, we started upriver. The fishermen stopped and watched us, unmoving, as we paddled past, probably quite used to the little wood canoes moving up and down the river. As we moved upriver, and started fighting against the rapids, the two boatmen became like little frogmen, jumping to and fro—out of the boat and back in, a leap over the bow of the boat to the other side, bouncing their bare feet in and out of the water, and pushing off rocks, guiding us perfectly up the stream, against the current, and avoiding the hundreds of rocky traps in our path. It was incredible! We would have capsized and wrapped that boat around a rock fifty times if we had been the ones guiding it. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtgsTpS6_nl0YQN2aVazS7C45H6xj3UekqBy1jjZ45qP-bFYO0e4V8cE1JjJRSh3MvwotUlEbHsEDMgRli6acZShhvHcGOZL2MZMdn9cI8z-6Qp2QdPdsk60taaNR6uqdfGTCZO9Dkrb4/s1600/IMG_2979.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtgsTpS6_nl0YQN2aVazS7C45H6xj3UekqBy1jjZ45qP-bFYO0e4V8cE1JjJRSh3MvwotUlEbHsEDMgRli6acZShhvHcGOZL2MZMdn9cI8z-6Qp2QdPdsk60taaNR6uqdfGTCZO9Dkrb4/s200/IMG_2979.JPG" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwotoOnPFtBExGC2dZW6CAL8TzO5czx3ws9-ZDmlEfA5ueBr-NT9rmC8AlSlmtq_6Fnl34nG6TGOYo8gdgHlw1j9UllrGfzuFNPX305wZ1e4pe7hl6rcEva0y42cgW3FLjQP2M54AJQas/s1600/IMG_2988.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwotoOnPFtBExGC2dZW6CAL8TzO5czx3ws9-ZDmlEfA5ueBr-NT9rmC8AlSlmtq_6Fnl34nG6TGOYo8gdgHlw1j9UllrGfzuFNPX305wZ1e4pe7hl6rcEva0y42cgW3FLjQP2M54AJQas/s200/IMG_2988.JPG" width="150" /></a>The view was stunning as we started heading into the canyon. Stretching up on both sides was jungle and rocky cliffs—banana trees, plams, and thousands of other kinds of tropical vegetation. We could hear chattering monkeys, but they stayed out of sight. Apparently they only come out in the morning. I had never seen that kind of beauty before. The vines hanging down were dripping with water; the whole jungle was heaving with water that came down in streams and rivulets, along the trees and down the rock. The first fall we came to was tall and beautiful, and flowed well. This is the rainy season, and the river is high and the falls are strong. Sometimes during this season, they cannot take people past this first set of falls because the river becomes too flooded and dangerous. The day we went was, coincidentally, the first day of the season that the water had been low enough to take people all the way to the main falls.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYu3xMjBoJGnj1h4lX31EA-FCj5kbc429-oEgDgh72zurU_OUBIPElDnyrB_XSLzewT6VNe9ycEBvrG5Md-jccISrlVXA_t_RQo4U-S6rJQeorFbLgFZmjpIujxY4UOseixMl7mwP1tRg/s1600/IMG_3016.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYu3xMjBoJGnj1h4lX31EA-FCj5kbc429-oEgDgh72zurU_OUBIPElDnyrB_XSLzewT6VNe9ycEBvrG5Md-jccISrlVXA_t_RQo4U-S6rJQeorFbLgFZmjpIujxY4UOseixMl7mwP1tRg/s200/IMG_3016.JPG" width="150" /></a></div><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Pagsanjan</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Falls</st1:placetype></st1:place> is huge and heavy. It is not terribly high, at least visibly. The rock hides much of it. But it comes down as a mighty torrent of water, and shakes the river, creating huge waves the rock out from the place where the falls hits the surface of the river. Behind the waterfall is a black cavern called Devil’s Gate. When we got to the falls, we got out of our canoe and transferred onto a bamboo raft, paddled by more shirtless Filipinos. We headed straight into the waterfall. They say that the falls pounding on your body as you are directly beneath it is the best full-body massage you can get in all of the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Philippines</st1:place></st1:country-region>. We didn’t get to actually find out, because the falls were so heavy that going directly beneath them would have snapped our bones. We rode under off to the side, still getting a decently heavy downpour over us, but missing the real strength. Once inside the cave, they stopped the raft, and we looked out at the falls from the other side.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhALgNUPeVljSlAmxg8Cv9L7SS4qVtSpLwVJTG2NxhKlBNr9IHfY1wLQQyIypWTkIrCXcehhR8GHSesX3kJ7nxx_tH3UY-FM6SyuaqJ23uZp6q1c4gmqUuUxN5W2_fxOHpefPVqhCGRYIQ/s1600/IMG_3039.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhALgNUPeVljSlAmxg8Cv9L7SS4qVtSpLwVJTG2NxhKlBNr9IHfY1wLQQyIypWTkIrCXcehhR8GHSesX3kJ7nxx_tH3UY-FM6SyuaqJ23uZp6q1c4gmqUuUxN5W2_fxOHpefPVqhCGRYIQ/s320/IMG_3039.JPG" width="240" /></a>Jon and I took the guide’s invitation to swim with him, and jumped off the raft into the water inside the cavern. It was a great swim, an amazing ride, and as we pulled the raft back out and headed to the bank, I looked back and saw a perfect rainbow falling over the falls and into the water. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The ride back was fun, as we shot with the current over the 14 sets of rapids along the river. The sun was getting low, and kids were out along the river, washing clothes with rocks or pulling in the day’s haul of fish. We even saw some <st1:place w:st="on">Cebu</st1:place> feeding along the river, obviously tamed by the folk who lived in the huts there. As we pulled past the rapids, the sun started getting low, and the river smooth out to glass that we glided along, seemingly effortlessly.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguyKBbIEDlJDAACdBs33K1sohT2H3ROP3zSvUDK-u99RMPjbD6XLgjENus9saSObHYNmoY-K4TNw4vqmAcm2J3BTKukc4NueL6JRZNItESOsZF3rWp8MRstqH465bLHexeF5V8TK1vabM/s1600/IMG_3094.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguyKBbIEDlJDAACdBs33K1sohT2H3ROP3zSvUDK-u99RMPjbD6XLgjENus9saSObHYNmoY-K4TNw4vqmAcm2J3BTKukc4NueL6JRZNItESOsZF3rWp8MRstqH465bLHexeF5V8TK1vabM/s200/IMG_3094.JPG" width="150" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">After a quick shower at the boat rental shop, we hopped the bus back to Paranaque, where we gave most of our coconut pie and twenty pesos or so to a few small, starving children, and hopped a jeepney back to Happy Coconuts, the look of a little girl’s stunned, joyful face, and her words, “Oh, thank you!” completely egraven in my eyes and ears. </span></span></span>CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-66164055430188457162010-08-20T20:47:00.002+09:002010-08-21T14:34:24.554+09:00Falling in Love with the Philippines: Day 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCm0ytbmAmTEALbQ93XEGyHRxhQDcXsqNH9McR7kp1SsdO3diVBUoH5Zk2mRF44D5HNPlN8DUOb0-2vD80HOJ02CUWf2IzhQbG1CNLnb842ZlPOHxCdoYdVMFJNI2EK0upkCp1t0sRnUM/s1600/IMG_2891.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCm0ytbmAmTEALbQ93XEGyHRxhQDcXsqNH9McR7kp1SsdO3diVBUoH5Zk2mRF44D5HNPlN8DUOb0-2vD80HOJ02CUWf2IzhQbG1CNLnb842ZlPOHxCdoYdVMFJNI2EK0upkCp1t0sRnUM/s400/IMG_2891.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>We woke up the first morning in the Philippines to pouring rain. And I mean, torrential rain. The tropical storm that started a week or so before had not let up much, and when it rains, it rains hard. The streets were literally rivers, the water completely burying car tires in some places. It looked like cars were just being washed down a river. But no, they were driving, and somehow managing to get from A to B as if swimming in their vehicle was a normal part of their routine.<br />
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We decided to try to find church that morning, and set out, hopping on our first jeepney. Jeepneys are the major form of public transportation here. It looks like a jeep, except stretched out. Like a stretch limo would look if it were made of silver and rust. Apparently, they originate from World War II. Each jeepney has its own special name in curling letters across the front—the Christine, the Jennifer, the Workaholic. And in the window are little signs denoting roads and stops that are on that jeepney’s route. They cram people in; up to twenty people can fit on the vinyl benches if you get cozy and half sit on the guy’s lap next to you. But, they’re cheap. For a flat rate of 7 pesos, sometimes 10, you can get to any point on the jeepney’s route. Matted stuffed animals hang from the dashboard, and the plastic tarp they put over the open sides blows up in the wind, letting the rain in. But I love them. They are a brilliantly fun way to get around.<br />
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As long as you know where to get off.<br />
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We did. We were going to transfer from jeepney to the National Rail, which would take us to within a few blocks of the chapel. Unfortunately, when we got to the rail, we found that that particular piece of the rail had not been built yet. Thus began two hours of jeepney rides in what we hoped was the right direction, and then finally a crammed train ride into the area of town we were headed.<br />
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As we were standing in line, waiting for the train to come, I decided to put my camera away, back into Jon’s backpack. A man off to the side of Jon, who had been watching us, noticed what I was putting away. He slowly maneuvered from the side of to directly behind us. Jon put his arm around me and pulled me to his side so that when he talked to me, he had to crane his neck sideways, giving him an excellent corner-of-the-eye view of the would-be robber. I took a more direct approach. I looked over my shoulder and stared at the man—direcly, and unblinkingly, until he moved away.<br />
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The train ride was packed and sweaty, but not too bad. However, having come a different way than planned, we no longer knew where we were, or how to find the chapel, although we knew that it was close.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>This section of the day is already a little muddled for me—so much happened. There were the beggars—the man with no legs that I didn’t see, but that Jon stopped for and gave all our change to. Then, there was the man, huddled and unmoving on a low brick outcropping, one large T-shirt on his body, and that was all. Not even any pants. There was some kind of see-through scrap of cloth wrapped around his lower body, and he was wet and shivering. He was badly diseased, and yellowed bandages covered about half of his face. He was barely moving, and I knew that the small stack of change we left on the wall next to him was not going to save him.<br />
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There was a feeling that came over me then, of a pain like I have not felt before. I’ve seen beggars, but I’ve never seen a beggar who was more than a beggar, who was so sick and poor and tattered that life was actually hell. I have never seen a beggar that I knew would die. It is haunting, and I felt so helpless, standing there, knowing that I could not change anything for him, shaking to realize that life is fragile and that, though we often think we are gods with our gadgets and medicines and shuttles to the stars, we ultimately have little power over life, and even less over death.<br />
<br />
And then there were the children. As we were wandering around, lost, I saw a jeepney named “Jesus is the Lord,” turning off of the street in front of us. I decided it was a sign, and we should turn down that street. It led us right to them. Three boys, possibly brothers, none of them wearing anthing more than a pair of shorts, their bodies glistening with the rain and the murky water from the street. They were calling out to give rides on “tricycles,” another form of transportation here that is either a motorcycle or a bicycle with a sidecar fitting two people attatched to it. They ride or pedal you around for a fee. The place where the boys were was a section of road that had been badly flooded and was a couple of feet deep in water. They saw us dressed in our now soggy Sunday clothes, and tried to get us to hop in one of the waiting tricycles. They were probably working as recruiters for the drivers. When we told them no, they followed us, finally asking for some money. Unfortunately we had run out of change. We looked, but had nothing. We finally had to tell them we didn’t have any coins to give them. Then one of them said, “Please, I’m really hungry.”<br />
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I never ever want to hear those words from a child’s mouth again.<br />
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Jon and I looked at them, and Jon said, “I believe you,” as the other boys echoed the first. “Can you get us some food?” they finally asked. We walked to the corner drugstore.<br />
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The boys pointed us in the right direction for the church, and we walked into the last ten minutes of the meeting, just in time to hear the end of a mixed English and Tagalog talk and to sing a closing hymn. While we were there, we learned that there was a ward that met not ten minutes from our hostel, though we had traveled two hours to try to find a congregation.<br />
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But I was different after that day in the city.<br />
And I don't believe in coincidences.CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-88175633728796154142010-08-03T22:14:00.002+09:002010-08-03T22:24:44.389+09:00Falling in Love with the Philippines: Part One<div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6abQYjnUFWE7sy7IwLMW2yVIH-i6LzZgR5quzDCSwun0cJ580rxuazymxluX6Hi9B36O6OVvefM9wWiFR7R8a27uvElGONCRyAabA21rXD17jdA8C-_AF8HFSQxBuTB1o7ew3qylQGNQ/s1600/IMG_3340.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6abQYjnUFWE7sy7IwLMW2yVIH-i6LzZgR5quzDCSwun0cJ580rxuazymxluX6Hi9B36O6OVvefM9wWiFR7R8a27uvElGONCRyAabA21rXD17jdA8C-_AF8HFSQxBuTB1o7ew3qylQGNQ/s320/IMG_3340.JPG" /></a></div>Most people when they come to the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Philippines</st1:place></st1:country-region>, come and find a beach, buy some beer, and don’t move more than a one kilometer radius for the next six days. And they miss so much. They play tourist, and miss the heartbeat of the place they’re visiting. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We arrived in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Manila</st1:place></st1:city> Saturday night, and ended up taking a very expensive taxi ride from the airport to the Happy Coconuts Hostel where we had booked a stay for the next two nights. It was a good twenty minute ride into <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Paranaque</st1:place></st1:city>, the next town south, with mellow English music playing in the cab. The taxi driver had been a taxi driver since he first learned to drive—basically his whole life. He pointed out the different things we saw as we passed them, and told us what prices to expect on jeepneys, and how to get from here to there. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK0DHzgr-kDcYmbW-3TBkTu9NToIiW1fNW45uQOu0zs4Xil6x0O-VVR7xbGpzgvL3PB4b_Vq7y19J7AwYaQjrcFsQlgeJMmJogiOXPIRx_wnFXYAeTraXVh1EwnAJEgHX6P1WKJd05uqM/s1600/IMG_2916.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK0DHzgr-kDcYmbW-3TBkTu9NToIiW1fNW45uQOu0zs4Xil6x0O-VVR7xbGpzgvL3PB4b_Vq7y19J7AwYaQjrcFsQlgeJMmJogiOXPIRx_wnFXYAeTraXVh1EwnAJEgHX6P1WKJd05uqM/s320/IMG_2916.JPG" /></a>It was one of those life-defining moments as I looked out of the taxi at a world so different from home, and so different even from the home I have found in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Korea</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Everywhere, tattered buildings looked like they were pieced together with rusty screws and spit, and then had the ocean waves beat on them for days on end. Signs were mostly in English, mixed with some Tagalog, and here and there a word of Spanish. </div><div class="MsoNormal">The people themselves were sprawled out in the heavy, humid heat. Guys hung around at broken picnic tables and outside fruit stands, barefoot, shirtless, their teeth white and shining in the darkness. Kids ran around, played in the gutters, searched through garbage. I saw one skinny, dirty child begging on a street corner, not an adult in sight. Elsewhere, men were peeing on the side of the road, girls in shorts laughed and jangled in huddled groups, and toothless men and young boys picked through the refuse left by others.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">One dog, skinny and hungry, slithered by, sniffing at an empty wrapper.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Between all the buildings rose palm trees and green vegetation, crawling up walls and around bends and curling around the spaces between things. The whole scene was heart-wrenching and heart-capturing, and I think I fell in love with the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Philippines</st1:place></st1:country-region> on that first taxi ride.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Z_c5_vNu_hxnb7OkJdWB1PnHFr6S299vf2GHzQBfir0IPGMyVIvrrfal2ZdBcZ3ZCcVVcct3heVJOWsXBq9bYSRVh6V9i0oYEsS4LMqBYqjXXFGOXub0u3iaxbN7vQ174HEfQSpww6s/s1600/IMG_2902.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Z_c5_vNu_hxnb7OkJdWB1PnHFr6S299vf2GHzQBfir0IPGMyVIvrrfal2ZdBcZ3ZCcVVcct3heVJOWsXBq9bYSRVh6V9i0oYEsS4LMqBYqjXXFGOXub0u3iaxbN7vQ174HEfQSpww6s/s320/IMG_2902.JPG" width="250" /></a>Well, the hostel proved a bit tricky to find. We knew that it had a bamboo gate and was across the street from a fruit stand, but the taxi driver, I think, wanted to fatten up his fare a bit, and we drove past it, and then for a long ways, going very slowly. We did eventually arrive, and found the hostel to be basically the nicest building I had yet seen. Real beds. Polished wood floors. Air conditioning. Wood cabinet dressers and large mirrors. Lavish for what I had seen thus far of the island.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A little ways down the road from the hostel is a river that flows through and tunnels under the road. It has tangled vegetation on both sides, but it flows strong and fast, and looks like a roaring snake curling through the jungle. It smells badly, and is littered with trash, but from a distance, is quite beautiful.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRPKMVMceeBFW6YKovo4WMPZ4yM1yIjwk0Im_msUHmb089uv6P_Gd7aPebrwIOUKXjXCj7fwAeAK_ip0JB4E3CEjNURJJ9vl07LVmgyTnFSrDIMFilTRkQdnvWZmsmg9BhfuVjAXwHeYQ/s1600/IMG_3173.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRPKMVMceeBFW6YKovo4WMPZ4yM1yIjwk0Im_msUHmb089uv6P_Gd7aPebrwIOUKXjXCj7fwAeAK_ip0JB4E3CEjNURJJ9vl07LVmgyTnFSrDIMFilTRkQdnvWZmsmg9BhfuVjAXwHeYQ/s320/IMG_3173.JPG" /></a>Beautiful. Even in the middle of a city, the palm trees wave, and there is salt in the air, and you can tell that it is an island. Filipino people look South American in every way, except that they have Asian eyes. The islands feel South American too. Even in the city, out away from the beaches and coconuts and fire dancers, you can tell that these are island people, and that, even if they're living in a cement box with a tin roof, they are people of the sea and the sky and the trees that wave in the air curling in from their salty shores.</div>CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-78796027698097450432010-07-11T20:34:00.008+09:002010-07-11T23:16:41.695+09:00Train Bound for Anywhere<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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<div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.reine.se/minkmachine/gfx/blog_transsib_korea5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="http://www.reine.se/minkmachine/gfx/blog_transsib_korea5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>I love trains. And buses. And subways. For someone who gets lost when she comes out of her apartment turning right instead of left, I have become quite adept at crisscrossing the country on trains.</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br />
</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Seoul by itself has 9 subway lines, with a combined 291 subway stations. Add in Incheon and the other surrounding cities in the metropolitan, and you've got an impressive tribute to mankind's refusal to stay in one place. </div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br />
</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">There is a world of movement here. Underground subways with advertisements flashing outside your window like an electronic flip-book, magnet trains that can cross the country from tip to tip in three hours, completely silent and going so smoothly that you don't realize you're moving...These are only part of it. Five to ten times a week, I find myself on buses driven by men who think they're driving compact cars on straight highways, careening around corners and honking at red lights before barreling through. Every weekend, just to get to get to church, I take a bus from Incheon to Seoul, get off, and transfer onto a subway, which levels out into a track going straight over the Han River, fog and sparkling water on both sides, and then dives back underground. </div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br />
</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Sometimes I take buses without ever caring where I end up. Some people find comfort in a bottle, letting alcohol send them to a place where they can watch the world spin by without having to be a part of it. I suppose I have a somewhat less destructive, but just as effective escape of my own. From a bus or a train, I can look out my window at people and shops and cars, a world going about its usual business, as I sit all alone in a seat, isolated by language barriers and a glass window. I hop on buses going anywhere, and then when I am the last passenger on the bus, and the driver asks "Odi, odi? Where are you going?" I say, "I don't know," and get off, and wait till a bus comes along going the other direction.</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br />
</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Sometimes I ride a bus with a friend, just to talk for an hour or two until the bus comes to the end of its route. </div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br />
</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Sometimes I really do need to get somewhere, and I look carefully at the Korean words denoting stops and transfers and arrival times. It was bus and subway signs that taught me to read Korean, and they are still what I read most. </div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br />
</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Sometimes I am given preferential treatment because I am white--like the bus driver who shared his package of gum with me and told me about his sister in America. Or the girl in the window seat next to me who gave me her last coffee before smiling quickly and waving, and embarrassedly hurrying off the bus. Sometimes people are prejudiced against me because of my white skin and blue eyes. I get pushed, yelled at, knocked over. I sit next to Koreans, and they change to a different seat on the bus or tell me in perfect English that they are not comfortable sitting next to foreigners. Sometimes they leave the bus completely. </div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br />
</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">I ride buses when I want to be alone, and subways when I am feeling lonely. There are as many people on a subway as you want there to be. Subways are not so much like buses. On buses, people usually do not talk to each other. Human interaction is rare. On subways, everyone talks. You can make friends if you want to. You can also be invisible if you choose. Often, on subways, beggars come through. Usually beggars here are old, and often blind, lame, or missing various limbs. Many are veterans of war who have no means to care for themselves. I have a stash of cash in my backpack I keep for the beggars on the subways or on stairs of the subway stations. </div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br />
</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Once, I rode the Airport rail to the Incheon Airport island, because I felt like a sunset, and the sun always sets awfully majestically when it is over ocean. And then, just this last weekend, I took a three-hour train ride across the country to the beach on the eastern sea. There is nothing like a train ride where green, foggy mountains interspersed with rice fields and tiny villages and curling rivers, pass by outside your window like a National Geographic special.</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><br />
</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Trains make me feel like I can get anywhere. When my days are hard, and in life I feel stuck, trains give me mobility. Buses let me feel like I am moving. And even if I end up back where I started, the trip is never wasted.</div>CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-35120167252929775242010-05-29T14:23:00.004+09:002010-05-29T14:52:06.294+09:00City of Water<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Doiynxl1wzgZLxZbnyn6PyXYzJTtIrUoNc2DcPBidEevJQcbN_K7Amuj7E8Izvv9YFk1VM1MvUIZAFe2a-bNpfUKyg2eAGABtcxcdBMQaFaoiuGa4wVt2yBWWPeZRcpfqrL8gJ93GG8/s1600/IMG_2597.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Doiynxl1wzgZLxZbnyn6PyXYzJTtIrUoNc2DcPBidEevJQcbN_K7Amuj7E8Izvv9YFk1VM1MvUIZAFe2a-bNpfUKyg2eAGABtcxcdBMQaFaoiuGa4wVt2yBWWPeZRcpfqrL8gJ93GG8/s400/IMG_2597.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I will always think of<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 11px;"> </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">부산 (Busan) </span>as a City of Water. Perhaps this is an inaccurate representation, but having only been there once, and unlikely to ever return, this image of the city is all that I will ever have. </span><br />
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Busan is the second largest city in Korea, and fills the southern coast of the country. It lives on the water, and drinks from the East China Sea. The first day I was there, it was sunny and warm. Then, it didn't stop raining for the next two days. By the time I left, the streets were like little rivers, curling between buildings, and stone stairs throughout town had gutters cut down the sides, creating waterfalls that cascaded all the way down on either side of your feet. </div><div><br clear="all" /></div><div>Most cities have a background ambiance of sound that is particular to them, like their own personal fingerprint. But all I can remember from Busan is an orchestra of raindrops. I remember laying on my "bed" (aka a blanket on the floor) of the hostel I was staying in, right across from the raw fish market and docks, with the window open, listening to the rain crash down on pavement, drum across wooden roofs, dance over aluminum garbage bins, and crawl through the swaying trees. I thought at the time how loud it made the city, and how different it was from snow, which made the whole world quiet. </div><div><br />
</div><div>At one point, I climbed up to the top of the building my hostel was in, and crawled out onto the roof. I stood in the rain and watched it fall down and drown the city. It's a remarkable sight, looking down and seeing a sea of moving umbrellas in a hundred different colors, crawling down the sidewalks like bright, wet caterpillars. </div><div><br />
</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBXDhcAaFqziAESfZKGsWQEVcbW-JB9aS5DKHCKG_YIaczRQljQyXe2DDs7m_FTkJYVACPFgpm8NdR1GHEHZNuttH2kakcti9kLmP8boxfES58zSvpNLKBY-pOeE-T65ckL6kwK5C_8vA/s1600/IMG_2550.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBXDhcAaFqziAESfZKGsWQEVcbW-JB9aS5DKHCKG_YIaczRQljQyXe2DDs7m_FTkJYVACPFgpm8NdR1GHEHZNuttH2kakcti9kLmP8boxfES58zSvpNLKBY-pOeE-T65ckL6kwK5C_8vA/s320/IMG_2550.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>Well, the first day I was in Busan, there was absolutely no indication of any of this. The sun was high and hot, and it was Buddha's birthday. We decided to go see Beomeosa Temple, the largest Buddhist temple in South Korea. It was up in the mountains, cradled by a whole lot of green. We took a taxi, but the curving, one-way road winding up was crammed. As our cab fare ticked higher, we decided to just pay it and hike the last mile and half. The hike was gorgeous, and took us through trees, across stone bridges, down meandering paths and icy streams. It was so stunning, with a beauty that is not mine. I'm constantly reminded that I'm only a visitor here, and can experience Korea's beauty, but can never claim it. </div><div><br />
</div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6UCxJNEWA4naM8ya1jM4V5d8u4Zh5ZmbJoaxsVHRn9RWc5rOOP5ydCQKXNEGwCvXc4M2ovk5BiYFALwR9EEZYmCqyon_Mcmyaay_81H9rrXWyp3pBjL1hWp9iEB1JEW_2wtkAfTfloDc/s1600/IMG_2568.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6UCxJNEWA4naM8ya1jM4V5d8u4Zh5ZmbJoaxsVHRn9RWc5rOOP5ydCQKXNEGwCvXc4M2ovk5BiYFALwR9EEZYmCqyon_Mcmyaay_81H9rrXWyp3pBjL1hWp9iEB1JEW_2wtkAfTfloDc/s320/IMG_2568.JPG" width="192" /></a>The temple itself was magnificent, with ornate buildings and stone carvings, and a sea of colored lanterns. But it was the tiny glimpses of humility that struck me most. As I wound through the lanterns and climbed the stairs toward the Buddha statue in the center, there was a small gathering of five or six old Korean women, hunched and wrinkled, sitting on prayer mats. Two more were on their knees, folded over on the ground, praying. </div><div><br />
</div><div>And I thought about how many people were down below, eating the free temple food and laughing, and how few were up there, praying to the only god they knew.</div><div><br />
</div><div>The world is changing so fast. The youth here grow up in a fast, chattering, glittering world, and forget the faith and the religion of their fathers. And I wonder if Buddha will die with those few old women who still honor him, if he will fade away in the face of a new generation that worships other gods. And a part of me fears that the same thing is happening to Christ. No mortal man has died so many deaths as our immortal Savior, as He perishes with every generation that forgets Him.</div><div><br />
</div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinUH3BIMQ6LoHUNhI5LW9dhgm8flA5QgTR0Q5am5cAl9ngK1mysOQFz11hxg6OGROtiNSWXwkSEPnnaoV1J_rvRmzMk-Z8Ao_-gz8mm6lIyX4PcI1YuZf0kKK2tZB1Fd0G7_UrUuqD_LE/s1600/IMG_2562.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinUH3BIMQ6LoHUNhI5LW9dhgm8flA5QgTR0Q5am5cAl9ngK1mysOQFz11hxg6OGROtiNSWXwkSEPnnaoV1J_rvRmzMk-Z8Ao_-gz8mm6lIyX4PcI1YuZf0kKK2tZB1Fd0G7_UrUuqD_LE/s200/IMG_2562.JPG" width="150" /></a>The other sight that struck me at the temple was a tiny bracelet of wooden beads draped over the ear of one of the statues. All along the row of stone-carved beasts, shiny coins had been placed in piles on the statues' heads, shoulders, and mouths. And in amongst the treasure was that one band of plain beads, hanging there surrounded by others' silver. What an offering. What a humble, perfect gift for a god/prophet who taught his people to forsake the riches of the world.</div><div><br />
</div><div>There are so many stories about this trip. Of necessity, I must skip many. But I would like to mention the motorcycle-riding monk. After we came down from the temple and were eating rice cakes under the lantern canopy, we were approached by this old Korean monk who asked if he could have a picture with us. There were three of us girls and one guy. He asked the guy in our group to take the picture. Then he wanted individual shots with each of us girls. I was nice and polite, but inside I was cracking up. Afterwards, he regaled us with his many travels and showed us all the pictures on his camera of him with beautiful women all over the world. He then physically herded us toward the parking lot to show us his Honda motorcycle, and told us all about it. Pulling back his monk's robe, he showed us the Honda T-shirt he wore beneath. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh97Kb89ak8RzHc5hkabvO4mZuXEIReYiPucVZxE11ltA-7qN_EBNUVNa2FTC0IDFdOFz64cDX9GOJKwiZN1LkC161daydBwE6ED874vfeWTb7Nqaurobu0mavaBhFL4zpfJRW3meZeLT4/s1600/IMG_2575.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh97Kb89ak8RzHc5hkabvO4mZuXEIReYiPucVZxE11ltA-7qN_EBNUVNa2FTC0IDFdOFz64cDX9GOJKwiZN1LkC161daydBwE6ED874vfeWTb7Nqaurobu0mavaBhFL4zpfJRW3meZeLT4/s320/IMG_2575.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div><br />
Well, the next day the water came. And we visited the beach and played in the surf, and found seashells tucked in the corners of rough, black rocks, and dodged the umbrellas on the mostly empty beach and watched the tide take the raindrops and make them part of the ocean. </div><div><br />
</div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9uS1QPso7tkudMa59hlp9VBnaq4pRg1pAAzmvcDta8OzqeyAiARwTE09wKpDW2iLqMnre_NkjGOxaFj3Q-RHr8qYCxDrdnkS_RUNFRXX8PffXdEPw5myykK_u-esPt04sO3wzr5pfqR8/s1600/IMG_2601.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9uS1QPso7tkudMa59hlp9VBnaq4pRg1pAAzmvcDta8OzqeyAiARwTE09wKpDW2iLqMnre_NkjGOxaFj3Q-RHr8qYCxDrdnkS_RUNFRXX8PffXdEPw5myykK_u-esPt04sO3wzr5pfqR8/s320/IMG_2601.JPG" width="240" /></a>There was one older Korean lady who was perched on one of the jagged black rocks piled along the coast at the far end of the beach. She was just sitting there, looking out to sea, a blue and white umbrella hanging on her shoulders. I could only see her from behind, her hunched back and bright umbrella, facing off into the wild sea.The cold rain made the water seem unstable and frenzied, and more than usually mysterious. The ocean was not inviting, as it always is on a sunny day, neither was it menacing as it is in a storm. It was independent, aloof, and quite unknowable. And the image of her looking out at that ocean, lonely and free, was somehow riveting.</div>CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-82899112403799061032010-04-25T22:24:00.000+09:002010-04-25T22:24:54.067+09:00Finding Ocean<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcU7Xdr8kfeO0b5PLrNuUzX7ddMVdgjIhC1oLq6-Y1-QyX2gvwwJmBVVnNo6-wta8QgON6viuZi1cX_uz-rIF2Tfm0o95mYF8e2n1CeZ3h2ozFgSAR9fmb6swM327AU-scDkz7YHMMed4/s1600/IMG_2134.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcU7Xdr8kfeO0b5PLrNuUzX7ddMVdgjIhC1oLq6-Y1-QyX2gvwwJmBVVnNo6-wta8QgON6viuZi1cX_uz-rIF2Tfm0o95mYF8e2n1CeZ3h2ozFgSAR9fmb6swM327AU-scDkz7YHMMed4/s200/IMG_2134.JPG" width="150" /></a></div><div>Last Saturday, lacking any plans to venture off to far-away cities, I decided to wander around my own. My friend, Jon, and I concluded that since we live in a coastal city, there must be an ocean around somewhere. Oceans are beautiful. And fun. We should find it.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Well, neither one of us knew exactly where the ocean was, but I very rarely know where anything is, and that has never stopped me. Plus, Jon had a kind of general idea of the direction it should be. That was good enough. We started walking.</div><div><br />
</div><div>We walked for an hour or so before we hit water. Alas, it was not the ocean. It was a river. A pretty river, yes, but there were no waves and tides and gulls flying into the sunset. So we kept going. Rivers flow into oceans. It had to be around somewhere. After another hour, I told Jon that if we didn't find it soon, he was going to be carrying all 120 pounds of me back home because my feet were going to fall off. Exaggeration? Absolutely. But it was fun to watch him re-evaluate his confidence that the direction we were headed was the right one. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Eventually, we found the ocean. Yes, we had to crawl through a hole in a fence and walk up a huge dirt pile to see it, but there it was--the water that stretched out forever at the edge of my world. The sun was just starting to turn pale gold and slither down the sky, and the gulls were still flying high over the water--so many of them that their silhouettes looked like a black cloud dancing above the water.</div><div><br />
</div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghBgrbBODDDWU4KHfck1nnuhwZ1oydFzxz8e9a6wD6zFTYY7D0_tQqN1cgp6k91-qsnOiewo7Kk4ABnTdSNPu0VR5XziWuVAuYchb8c8R66JIYroKG3ot5flu35JTWckbF9ELMXM3WrJM/s1600/IMG_2144.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghBgrbBODDDWU4KHfck1nnuhwZ1oydFzxz8e9a6wD6zFTYY7D0_tQqN1cgp6k91-qsnOiewo7Kk4ABnTdSNPu0VR5XziWuVAuYchb8c8R66JIYroKG3ot5flu35JTWckbF9ELMXM3WrJM/s200/IMG_2144.JPG" width="150" /></a>We could not get very close to the water because, you see, there wasn't actually a beach. Or any sand at all for that matter.</div><div><br />
</div><div>What there was, was a long stretch of gray clay, pocketed with little holes of water left from high tide. </div><div><br />
</div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEzdJSgK8YZVAQErGd3fpTEMu-LZ92xl0H2n1W9n9oGsET_YfR-K8rgrMu7Z8X6We-DRLNLtR_8UQ7wdqjD8h6JF4662lO7EM2oKOOspV_n1nql3dIC4I5D6ntdYTjQirLL86O_yHhXdk/s1600/IMG_2149.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEzdJSgK8YZVAQErGd3fpTEMu-LZ92xl0H2n1W9n9oGsET_YfR-K8rgrMu7Z8X6We-DRLNLtR_8UQ7wdqjD8h6JF4662lO7EM2oKOOspV_n1nql3dIC4I5D6ntdYTjQirLL86O_yHhXdk/s200/IMG_2149.JPG" width="200" /></a>The gray ooze was keeping me from my ocean. While Jon found himself a nice little perch on top of the dirt pile and sat down, I looked down at the squishiness and evaluated. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Now, most people think I am impulsive. That's not true. Perhaps I do things that seem impulsive sometimes, but the actions are always carefully weighed against the consequences before I choose to do them. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Although, I probably should have taken off my shoes and rolled up my pants before stepping down into the wet clay ground. I started carefully walking out, as the ground got squishier and slimier. Finally, the inevitable happened, and the clay took my foot prisoner. And I mean, my whole foot. And leg. Up to the knee. Had I been barefoot, I would have been able to pull out, but as it was, the ground held my shoes and legs like quicksand. Fortunately, Jon had, by this time, joined me (feet bare and jeans rolled up like any semi-sane person would do). He and the ground played tug-of-war with me for a few moments before I was free. We then continued on out so that I could get pictures of the beautiful sunset, as it turned gold and then orange and then red, reflecting off the water like a thousand thousand mirrors, and then slipping behind the foggy city in the distance. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPDaLH08Q2gzf-YotCyI6OBoyW214-MIEQwFjCmwKWN1pIJ_NgiXu4YNXwVkw3B2IsfgiUCjq4PgMT7W7MVU9fpjKLdhTm2f8luuKv_FM5MLbN5uAZJl35v2vDPcSfLbj6mlaQATV36j0/s1600/IMG_2169.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPDaLH08Q2gzf-YotCyI6OBoyW214-MIEQwFjCmwKWN1pIJ_NgiXu4YNXwVkw3B2IsfgiUCjq4PgMT7W7MVU9fpjKLdhTm2f8luuKv_FM5MLbN5uAZJl35v2vDPcSfLbj6mlaQATV36j0/s200/IMG_2169.JPG" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglC074Fk0FF39XAGwbJbp-YofAqnwFvQNKi5Lh2wUDnVNkg7m1gthP_CyzyuJltMZJCeioJHN8GlAU7yckhRZZjd1SskUGAqoduLTE4I7AQ3zZlvDjAqKOxEDa1EOU3zRd09N7uHmvjQY/s1600/IMG_2168.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglC074Fk0FF39XAGwbJbp-YofAqnwFvQNKi5Lh2wUDnVNkg7m1gthP_CyzyuJltMZJCeioJHN8GlAU7yckhRZZjd1SskUGAqoduLTE4I7AQ3zZlvDjAqKOxEDa1EOU3zRd09N7uHmvjQY/s200/IMG_2168.JPG" width="150" /></a></div><div><br />
</div><div>When the sun was gone, it started to get really cold, so we picked our way back to the road, sloshed through some pools of water to get off the worst of the mud, and then started back, eventually hopping a bus back home. </div><div><br />
</div><div>My socks were stained gray and my shoes will never be the same, but those pictures, and the ridiculous fun of that random day are a hundred times worth it. </div>CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-40880658807060467472010-04-19T23:12:00.005+09:002010-04-20T18:30:12.892+09:00An Anthology of ChildrenJust a little look into some of my kids:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7uaJeVEc1z22EI7G4gAQsLiumxQos6_HdBBrqVvztABcz9nqO_0hjWmpWPtQcnP-gh8NPeHGJutvLa4AXrLO97z9LT65RbN7K9qBsxK80irh5nofhtDVhjXrcO6TdN-5RJwB0c9TL708/s1600/IMG_1925.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7uaJeVEc1z22EI7G4gAQsLiumxQos6_HdBBrqVvztABcz9nqO_0hjWmpWPtQcnP-gh8NPeHGJutvLa4AXrLO97z9LT65RbN7K9qBsxK80irh5nofhtDVhjXrcO6TdN-5RJwB0c9TL708/s320/IMG_1925.JPG" /></a></div><br />
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<div>1. The first day of class, about six weeks ago, I was in with my three-year-olds. There were a lot of them. I was intimidated. However, the lesson started off fairly well, and I had them expertly applying stickers to their workbook pages in no time. All of a sudden, two of the boys, Billy and Jake, who were sitting next to each other, turned in their seats (as if on cue) towards each other, moved their faces together until they were three inches apart, and promptly started screaming at the top of their lungs. I was completely caught off guard, and there was no way I could be heard above it, so I went over and physically turned them away from each other. The screaming stopped and they returned to their work. Five minutes later, they turned toward each other, moved their faces together, and started screaming again. This occurred every five minutes for the rest of class, with no apparent reason or motivation. I don't know if they planned it, but it was so bizarre and completely in sync that it had to have been masterminded.</div><div><br />
</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdpvhwuLfZx3oSqCYaGXstfwSjNJ5pISBdAmqiKTTnjC0tqua0UNU3zovG4P2hNMxwUG1iZ-uaKxtoXfx09U9jOvB9OnFrullWVvNpNdW8f6KuIrxegbG62FanvWSMk4b0Q-3YlRIqHLU/s1600/IMG_2080.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdpvhwuLfZx3oSqCYaGXstfwSjNJ5pISBdAmqiKTTnjC0tqua0UNU3zovG4P2hNMxwUG1iZ-uaKxtoXfx09U9jOvB9OnFrullWVvNpNdW8f6KuIrxegbG62FanvWSMk4b0Q-3YlRIqHLU/s200/IMG_2080.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>2. The other day, I took my youngest class into the gym, because we were learning about the five senses, and the lesson book said I was supposed to teach them how to play Blindman's Bluff. Of course, that is a super complicated game to explain to ten three-year-olds whose English vocabulary consists of about thirty words and a dozen or so facial expressions. So mostly I just blindfolded one kid and then let them all run around screaming and trying to tag/maul/drag each other to the floor. As I was refereeing this chaos, I looked over at the stage, and saw Billy sitting in the corner by the audio equipment and projector. He had several cords grasped in his chubby little hands, and was trying to stick them into their corresponding holes in the equipment. I immediately ran over to save the expensive toys, but when I tried to pry Billy from his game, he clutched the cords to his chest, threw himself onto the projector, and started screaming bloody murder. (Troy, I think I may have a guy for your crew in twenty years or so <img goomoji="gtalk.338" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/e/gtalk/338" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.2ex; margin-right: 0.2ex; margin-top: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" />).<br />
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3. There is, in one of my classes, a little four-year-old named Daniel. Daniel is very quiet, always happy, and always daydreaming. I don't know what he thinks about, but I can tell that he is far away a lot of times. He seems to like the other children, but I think he likes to be alone more. He loves to sit next to me, but only participates in the lesson when I consciously draw him into it. Over the first few weeks, I noticed something. When I gave drawing assignments, whether to draw shapes or family members, or anything they wanted, Daniel always, without fail, drew the same thing. First he drew a house. And then he started attaching balloons to it. All colors of balloons. He would get so engrossed in his picture, that he was usually the last to finish. But when he was done, he had a perfect rendition (as far as a four-year-old could do) of the house from the movie "UP." I love those pictures. They are somehow, just HIM. Last week, we were reading a picture book, and in it was a hot air balloon. Daniel saw it and got all excited, pointed to the hot air balloon, and shouted, "UP!!!"</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg50nZhz28G_4wUWWd4uMSwd9AKM34SEPogWAlJem9yM1G3hv9CzB6OYxbI1JMv7PFaHkfeOIpmFx6KslESo_Oj5ZggUWyXHwZQuMY3ES1IjwMfrW5Sk54D7HRVM8zDTEpWhnmw4Uw6gqA/s1600/IMG_1935.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg50nZhz28G_4wUWWd4uMSwd9AKM34SEPogWAlJem9yM1G3hv9CzB6OYxbI1JMv7PFaHkfeOIpmFx6KslESo_Oj5ZggUWyXHwZQuMY3ES1IjwMfrW5Sk54D7HRVM8zDTEpWhnmw4Uw6gqA/s200/IMG_1935.JPG" width="199" /></a></div><br />
</div><div>4. Chris is one of my five-year-olds. He's been in English kindergarten for a year already, and he understands pretty much anything I say, as long as I keep it simple. His English is surprisingly advanced, and he is starting to read. Last week was his birthday, and after we finished a short birthday party in the gym, I led them back to class the classroom to wait for their Korean teacher (my partner) to come. I was leaving the classroom to head to my next class, when I noticed that Chris was kind of trailing behind after me. I turned back and knelt down and asked if I could have a hug. He ran to me, threw his arms around me, and kissed me. "Teacher, I love you." And then he was off, back to the classroom.</div><div><br />
</div><div>5. One day, as I was leading my five-year-olds down the hall to wash their hands for lunch, Andrew, always at the end, stopped at the window of another classroom, and stood looking in, with his hands on the glass. I went back to fetch him. "Teacher, Kelly is SO cute!" he said with a huge smile. (She really is. He has good taste).</div><div><br />
</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwIPoqPTb4tPWiJoNLs4KiYESDekRf3RhrKzW4-XbMnUAut6aPkWhYEum6svDxVeNyz9SOPU4rcjyDkUw_HCNiixCA5JFUZha-AcbsVWEy4_WqaEYHIusv170L5UA08ejtXfZgvFaoc-U/s1600/IMG_1799.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwIPoqPTb4tPWiJoNLs4KiYESDekRf3RhrKzW4-XbMnUAut6aPkWhYEum6svDxVeNyz9SOPU4rcjyDkUw_HCNiixCA5JFUZha-AcbsVWEy4_WqaEYHIusv170L5UA08ejtXfZgvFaoc-U/s200/IMG_1799.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>6. Coloring assignment. Ten 3-year-olds. Ten papers. 100 crayons. I look around to see their progress. Half of them are eating their papers. The other half are eating their crayons. </div><div><br />
</div><div>7. "Teacher? You have yellow hair and are from far away. And you are pretty. Are you a princess?"</div><div><br />
</div><div>8. Helena is one of the smartest kids I have. She is three. She also thrives on two things: being the center of attention, and being in a position of power. She's either going to grow up to be a brilliant business-woman, or the next dictator of North Korea. One day, I walk into class. The kids are sitting quietly on the floor, building something with blocks. Helena sees me come in, turns to the kid sitting next to her, and whispers something. Before I know it, the whole class is running around the classroom, roaring, pretending to be dinosaurs. It took me fifteen minutes to calm them down. She is also a sticker-stealer. By the second week of school, I caught her stealing stickers from other kids' sticker charts and putting them on her own. She cried when I sat her down to talk about it, and promised that she wouldn't anymore. The next time, she got a bunch of other kids to stand over there in the corner so that she could hide behind them when she stole stickers. Too bad teacher can see that her sticker chart is almost full and Billy's next to her only has two stickers. </div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA9L2ipOKkjmV881nvfGyyL9xQZgMmanNRfVt0n-nwMA-XvgP1SVaMJgHyr_nyX_k4PJYgShEQoMofKC3vsCVjF9Ii8lY_lk1isBXcAr5UqlwnwRgUCX9InkdbplaLRDNgcOjHbOTVYFw/s1600/IMG_1926.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA9L2ipOKkjmV881nvfGyyL9xQZgMmanNRfVt0n-nwMA-XvgP1SVaMJgHyr_nyX_k4PJYgShEQoMofKC3vsCVjF9Ii8lY_lk1isBXcAr5UqlwnwRgUCX9InkdbplaLRDNgcOjHbOTVYFw/s200/IMG_1926.JPG" width="150" /></a></div><div><br />
9. My six-year-olds think it's hilarious to hear me try to speak Korean. Their favorite thing in the world is to mock me. Crystal especially. When I try to teach an English word, she will say, "Teacher, teacher, in Korean, it's bulgogi'. Or whatever it is. Then, if I repeat it, she just laughs and laughs. Then she immediately tries to get me to repeat other Korean words. I must have a terrible accent.</div><div><br />
</div><div>10. I walk into class one day, and Sarah lifts her arms above her head into a heart. "Teacher, I lub you!" Pretty soon the whole class is copying. "Teacher, I love you!" I didn't even teach them that.</div>CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-53839658455690746762010-04-05T23:08:00.000+09:002010-04-05T23:08:30.849+09:00If Easter Never Came<div class="MsoNormal">I did not intend to write this message. But yesterday was Easter, and there have been some thoughts on my mind that have been demanding a voice, that are too important to let fade in silence. Easter has always had a lot of significance for me, but this year, it positively changed me. This was not because of fun activities I participated in, or special messages I heard, or worship I felt.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It was because, for me, it never came.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Easter is the most important holiday in Christianity. I realize that in saying this I am going against thousands of people who would hold banners and holler that Christmas, the holiday named after the Author of Christianity himself, trumps this other tiny day that blooms for a brief moment in the youth of spring. But Christmas celebrates the fact that Christ lived. Easter declares that He <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lives</i>. And this is the truth that saves me. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Usually, on Easter, I arise early, and in the dark of a still and pressing night, I climb a mountain. And then, sitting there on the peak or the summit of the only hill I can find in the city, I watch the sun swell over the horizon, lighting a blinding golden fire in the sky, filling the whole atmosphere with yellow and gold and pink and orange…and light. So much light that I can no longer remember my climb of darkness. And then I sing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal">“He is risen, he is risen, shout it out with joyful voice! He has burst his three days’ prison, let the whole wide earth rejoice! Death is conquered, man is free…Christ has won the victory!”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The words I can only sing haltingly, the notes pouring out with no precision and little beauty. But they mingle with the sunrise, and it is, somehow, enough. Darkness swallowed up in light. Death swallowed up in life. Despair swallowed up in hope. The end swallowed up in a new beginning. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But this year, there was no sunrise. There were no Easter hymns. And the world, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">my</i> world, did not begin again. I could not find Christ. I could not find him on the subway or in the church, or on the grounds of His own temple. I tried. I looked for Him. But Easter morning turned to afternoon, turned to evening, and I found myself walking dark, foreign streets alone, shivering in the cold, my feet throbbing from uncomfortable high heels, wondering why Easter never came. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Normally when I am lonely, I know that God is there beside me. But there is another loneliness that is deeper, that swallows hope and quenches light. Last night, on those shadowy streets, I felt the loneliness of looking for God and not finding Him—like looking for the North Star and finding that, not only was it gone, but that every other star had also fallen from the sky, leaving it a vast sheet of everlasting darkness. The world felt as empty as if He had deserted all of creation and left it to spiral onward to its own self-destruction. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">No, Easter did not come. And I wondered why I had to feel that—why when I desired to feel hope and life and light, I should be left in darkness. And then, quietly, and with the perfect teaching of a loving Father, a different question was put into my mind—What if, 2,000 years ago in a dusty city in a far-off land, that first Easter had not come?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What if Mary had gone to the tomb, and the stone was there, and it was not empty? What would the world be like today? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If, on that Sunday morning of long ago, Mary had found the body of her beloved Master, undisturbed in its borrowed tomb, my empty Easter would have been every Easter afterward. And every day. For every person in this crumbling, trembling, crying world.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The sacrament would be just another piece of bread. The temple would be just another building. And Easter would be just another day.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I know what life would feel like without Easter. I felt it yesterday, and I am full of gratitude for that gift. Because today I woke up with the sun and fell on my knees and thanked my God that the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">one</i> time it mattered most, Easter came.</div>CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-62412420002731749972010-03-19T22:56:00.001+09:002010-03-19T23:01:13.028+09:00Two WordsToday I got to thinking about the five or six Korean phrases I know well. And then I got to thinking that there is only one of those phrases that I have used five to ten times a day since I got here. No, it is not "anneyong haseyo" (hello). It is not "goodbye" or "I'm sorry." It is not "I'm lost."<br />
<br />
The one phrase that has lived in my mouth since I arrived is "gamsa haminda"--"Thank you."<br />
<br />
And in a world that is sometimes incomprehensible and frustrating because I cannot communicate--when I end up walking out of a store empty-handed because I do not know how to explain to the clerk that I need garbage bags--I find that the ability to express gratitude makes all the other communication barriers mere trivialities.<br />
<br />
"Gamsa hamnida" and I bow my head, and they smile, and I realize how easy it is to make people feel valued. No speeches, no lavish gifts. You don't have to make them your best friend and confide your deepest secrets. They just want to be noticed. Acknowledged. Connected with for half a second, when you put life on pause to say, "I see you." <br />
<br />
Two words is all it takes.CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-69292495812175060922010-03-12T21:00:00.000+09:002010-03-12T21:00:38.828+09:00Yes, Some Who Wander are LostSaturday. I'm hungry; my fridge is empty. I decide to go to E-Mart. I've been there once, I know one of the buses that stops there...noooo problem.<br />
<br />
Wrong.<br />
<br />
The ride to the E-Mart was ten minutes. The ride home was three hours. (For those who are unaware of the significance of this, I could have ridden to Busan, on the southern tip of the country, in four). As I boarded the #1 bus, which I had arrived on, and settled into my seat, I was rather pleased with myself for not having gotten lost. It was two stops later that I realized that we were heading AWAY from home, and that the determined little Asian man at the wheel was not planning on turning around any time soon.<br />
<br />
Not even for a silly little American girl whose eyes have just grown wide at the realization that she is headed into uncharted territory with no cell phone and no ability to communicate her address to the bus driver, assuming she knew her address. Which she didn't.<br />
<br />
I saw three options:<br />
1. Hop off at the next stop, find a bus going the other direction, and hope it went by my apartment. If I ended up in the middle of nowhere, I had food and a pocketknife.<br />
2. Give myself a tour of the city and see where bus #1 ended up. Eventually it would reach the end of the route and turn around.<br />
3. Wander back three rows to the boys who had been talking about me for the last fifteen minutes (quietly practicing their English of "Hi, how are you? Where are you from? You are cute.") and see if I could borrow a cell phone.<br />
<br />
The boys amused me, and I didn't want to ruin it, so I decided on option number two.<br />
<br />
So that's what I did. I gave myself a tour of Incheon. And Gimpo. And Hyundai.<br />
<br />
And I ate cookies made in France and sold in Korea as I looked out at Asian shops with American posters in the windows and thought how fascinating the world is.<br />
<br />
All the while, I filed away information on the Blue Bus #1 route:<br />
3 middle schools<br />
2 elementary schools<br />
1 high school<br />
1 Incheon Civic Center<br />
8 Outdoors and Sports stores<br />
17 clothing shops<br />
1 tall clown on stilts handing lollipops to teenagers<br />
1 Buddhist temple<br />
2 parks with Asian trees and waterfalls<br />
10 bars for Koreans<br />
2 bars for foreigners<br />
3 very skinny roads where a bus like ours should not have been allowed<br />
1 stunning view of the Han River<br />
<br />
Eventually, the bus did come to the end of the route. The bus driver tried to motion me off the bus, but I shook my head and tried to indicate that I wanted to stay on and keep him company on his way back (I was, by then, the only passenger). We played back and forth between American and Korean sign language for awhile, until I gave him the name of my town and he shook his head and muttered and indicated that it would be a long time till we got there. I nodded and smiled and sat back down.<br />
<br />
By the time I got back home, I was tired, but my head was spinning with pictures from the city and countryside, and I went to bed happy.<br />
<br />
I could end the post here and save myself the embarrassment of continuing, but I'm off work for the weekend and my apartment is warm and I have nothing better to do.<br />
<br />
So, the next day was Sunday. And I wanted to go to church. In English. So, I took my trusty map of the subway system, and a piece of paper with my director's phone number in case of an emergency, and wandered out to my bus stop to find Bus #81, which, I was told, would take me to the subway station in Geomam.<br />
<br />
It did. And the subway took me to the station at Gimpo, where I transfered subway lines. And that subway took me into Seoul, where I got off and started wandering the streets, trying to follow the vague directions I had been given to the church.<br />
<br />
I found it. There are stories worth telling about the next seven hours, but not in this lovely post about being lost. We shall skip to after the single's activities and dinner, when my new friend, Jon, and I boarded the subway to head home. Jon was the only other person in the ward who lived out in my area of town, so he decided to travel back with me and see where I lived so that we could get together sometimes on the weekends if we were bored. We did just fine until we hopped the 81 bus to head back to my apartment. It should have been a 15-min. ride.<br />
<br />
As it turned out, the bus never went by my apartment. I don't know why. Except that I am doomed to be lost all the days of my life. After we rode the 81's short circle route a couple times, we hopped off and caught another 81, hoping this one would make the right stop. It didn't. We got back on another 81, which was actually the same as the first one. The bus driver recognized us.<br />
<br />
We got off. Walked to another bus stop. Got on. The bus driver was now quite perplexed.<br />
We got off. And decided perhaps we should try a different bus. We got on a #78.<br />
<br />
At one point, I made Jon get off the bus with me because I saw a Paris Baguette breadshop and thought my apartment must be nearby. Jon didn't bother to tell me until we had gotten back on another bus that Paris Baguette has shops on just about every corner in Korea.<br />
<br />
Through the whole thing, he was grinning and teasing me and having a great time. He thought it was sooo hilarious that I didn't know where I lived and couldn't find it. He said he had been meaning to just hop a bunch of buses one Saturday and orient himself to the city.<br />
<br />
And really? It was a lot of fun. Riding buses around with a martial artist who is in love with literature, people, sleeping under the stars, watching sunsets on mountain tops, and trying to take a chunk out of world hunger by teaching economics, really made for a good evening.<br />
<br />
The 78 didn't go by my apartment...<br />
<br />
But, hey, the 76 did.CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-40657590518932562382010-03-09T08:51:00.000+09:002010-03-09T08:51:07.725+09:00A Taste of Korea<div class="MsoNormal">Korean food is something else. And often, it’s made from something else that I don’t really want to know about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, all my nightmares before I came of spearing my own fish and eating it raw and then puking from giardia for the next two days, seem to have been unfounded after all…So far.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Now, I will try almost anything once. And if it doesn’t make me sick, I will usually try it again. Two shots—that’s what you get to convince me. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">So, let’s first cover the basics. In Korea, with every meal, you are served a bowl of rice. (The rice is sticky rice, which I love).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With every meal except breakfast, you are also given a bowl of soup. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then, there are a variety of side-dishes. These are served in communal dishes that you just stick your chopsticks into right along with the dude next to you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(If you have a problem with germs, this is not the country for you). Most Koreans will take bits of these side dishes and mix them with their rice. The kids are much more gung-ho about this, and will mix everything on their plates together, including the soup. It ends up looking kind of like it’s already been half-digested… Luckily, the adults don’t do this so much. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Also, on the table with most meals is kimchi. (Oh, the dreaded kimchi!) This is not, however, actually revolting. It’s not. It is very spicy, as are most dishes here, and doesn’t taste at all like the rotten vegetables it actually is. I don’t love it, but I’ll eat it.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Another thing that’s big here is seaweed. Seaweed is gross. I tolerate it.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Well, one of the first nights I was here, before I’d really been introduced properly to Korean cuisine, I had a cheeseburger that Patrick was so kind as to order for me. I think he told me “cheeseburger” just so he could see my reaction when I bit into it. He was amused. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">This was, if you haven’t guessed, not exactly a cheeseburger. The wrapper said it was a “Hanwoo Steak Burger.” I initially intended to look up “hanwoo” and see what kind of animal that was, but then I decided that maybe shouldn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I left it at that.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">The burger was not too bad, really. The strangest thing about it was the “fixings.” On one side, there were onions. On the other, was broccoli and mushroom pieces glued together in some gray colored-something and smeared onto the bun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Ask no questions, and you won’t throw up your lunch.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">One more “interesting” experience before I tell you that I actually really love most Korean food:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">On the first day of classes, I ate lunch with the kids at school, which is normal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On this day, for one of the side dishes, they had these little crispy things that looked kind of like Chinese noodles, except a little darker and a lot stickier. They were covered in some kind of sweet sticky sauce, and tasted excellent!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was about halfway through them, mixing them into my rice a little at a time, when I stopped, horrified. The crispy little noodle things had eyes.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">I’m not talking like potato eyes or something. I’m talking EYEBALLS. That’s when I realized what I was eating—fishies. Itty bitty fishies who still had their itty bitty eyeballs and bones and everything. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">I was suddenly a bit queasy. I don’t like fish. I detest it when it is still recognizable as such. But I had liked them before I knew what they were. It’s just that, now, every time they crunched, I imagined tiny little skeletons breaking into pieces. And the eyeballs…They were wide open, staring at me as they had stared in their moment of death…I couldn’t get over the eyeballs. At that moment, little Crystal held up her tray to me and said, “More fish please.” I just looked at her. She knew what they were and still wanted them?! Culture fascinates me sometimes. It’s kind of like brainwashing from birth. I’ll have you know, though, that I finished my fishies. I will not be outdone by a five-year-old.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Well, after all that, let me say that I have grown quite fond of Korean food. There are so many delicious dishes. Beef bulgogi is one of my favorites, as are the egg and bacon sides. Gimbop is really good if you can get past the seaweed it’s wrapped in. Sweet and sour is classic and is big here. The Ramen tastes like it has a whole bottle of Tobasco sauce in it, which is kind of fun. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But what Korea really does is pork. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">A couple of nights ago, I was down at the school late, trying to finish up lesson plans for the next week, and eventually Patrick and Sunny were ready to close up, so they insisted that I come to dinner with them. So, I went to dinner with the boss, his wife, and his mother-in-law. We went to a Korean barbeque. And let me tell you, it is an entirely different experience going to dinner at a Korean restaurant with Koreans, than it is going with Americans.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">I had been to a Korean barbeque with Sarah and Brianne, the other American teachers at my school, but the experiences were completely different. For one, when you go with Koreans, you are seated in a different place. Usually, part of the restaurant has normal tables and chairs like we’re used to in the West, and part has low tables and mats that you sit on on the floor. They will usually sit a group of Americans at a regular table. But if you go with Koreans, you take off your shoes at the door, and are seated at the low tables on the mats. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Another thing that is different—the sides that come with your meat. When I went with Sarah and Brianne, the sides were very good, but very safe. When I went with Sunny and Patrick, our sides included raw tuna, wasabi paste and stew (dang hot!), some other really hot something, cold kimchi water, and a drink made of burned rice. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">But the BBQ was amazing. Korean barbeque is famous, and there’s a reason for it. In the center of your table is a hole, and in the hole are charcoal briquettes. Your meat is grilled right on your table. They slap the meat on there, and you cut it and turn it, and all that as you eat your sides.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And during this meal, I made a discovery. I have never really liked pork all that much, but that is because Americans have NO CLUE how to season or cook it. Pork here is to die for. Americans do steak. Koreans do pork.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">It ended up being a really fun time. They wanted to order me some beer or soju (popular alcoholic drink made from rice), but when I declined and told them that I didn’t drink alcohol, they all ordered Sprite. That’s something else I noticed. Hospitality here is not only that your guest be provided the things they need, but that the very environment be tailored to their specific comfort.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Also, I kept watching the mother-in-law, Rachel. Through all of this, she was absolutely attuned to me. The minute my glass was empty, she would remind Sunny to refill it. She didn’t speak English, but that didn’t matter. As soon as a few pieces of meat were done on the grill, she moved them over to my plate. She ate a little, but if I had finished mine when more meat was done cooking, it went on my plate. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">Finally, I announced that I was full, which was mostly true. I could have eaten more, but didn’t need to. And I realized that only after I was completely finished, would Rachel eat. I thought about this, and later asked Patrick some general cultural questions, and I realized that Rachel is part of an older generation—a generation that has seen harder times in Korea, that is more traditional, and more immersed in the old ways. In this country, “Have you eaten today?” or “What are you going to eat when you get home?” are </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">common greetings instead of “How are you?”or “Goodbye,” because there was a time when the majority of people here were poor and did not get enough to eat. Korea is now a large industrialized, modern nation, and starvation is not a real problem, but the traditions of the past still make up the fibers of their social and behavioral codes. And there is a kind of grace in it that is enthralling and mysterious, and very beautiful.</div>CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-48389750011736984102010-03-01T10:59:00.004+09:002010-03-01T12:49:24.930+09:00A Bit About TownWell, I was going to wait to do another post until later in the week, but the cold rain today ruined all my exciting plans of jumping on a red bus and seeing where it took me. (Buses here are color-coded. Red ones go into Seoul.) Today is Korean Independence Day, so everyone has work and school off. There is a big celebration in Seoul, and as a result, Geomdan is nearly deserted this morning. (Geomdan is the outlying provice of Incheon where I live). On Saturday, Sarah, one of the other teachers, took me around the city a bit. During the day, this part of the city looks a bit tattered, as there is a lot of industrial growth here. Every floor of every building is a different business, so sometimes you have to enter a restaurant and then take an elevator or stairs to get to a department store. There is a delicious little bread shop right around the corner from my apartment called "Paris Baguette." Random, I know. But you can look inside the windows as you stand out in the rain, and the warmth of the fresh bread inside fogs up the windows and makes it the most inviting shop on the street. <br />
<br />
<br />
Across the street from Paris Baguette, and down just a bit is a bank which doubles as a convenience store. I had a time there Saturday, trying to buy shampoo and conditioner. They have a hundred kinds of shampoo of all sorts of colors, but I saw no conditioner on the shelves. "Conditioner" is a hard thing to explain when playing charades. I have been very grateful these past few days for my long years of education in the theatrical arts. One thing I love about this country, though, is how friendly everyone is, how anxious to help. Case in point: Sarah and I took a bus down to the E-Mart, a muliti-floor, multi-purpose store similar to Walmart. After shopping for groceries on the bottom floor (which was quite an experience--I have never seen so many fish eyes staring at me as I walked down an aisle), we went upstairs to look for a plug converter, since the electrical outlets here not only use a different voltage, but also are a different shape. Now, imagine walking through aisles of electronics, trying to find an adapter that: 1. changed voltage from 220 to 110, 2. adapted flat prongs to round ones, and 3. could take a three-pronged American plug with a ground. Now, imagine that you cannot find such a thing, and must now try to explain to the saleslady exactly what you're looking for. As we tried to demonstrate with invisible plugs what we wanted, the poor saleslady started looking more and more distressed that she could not understand us. Just as this was happening, two shoppers who were passing stopped, and the man started translating for us to the saleslady. It was a big relief, and also kind of funny, because as soon as he told her what we were looking for, this huge grin broke out on her face, and she started herding us across the store. The other shoppers followed, and continued to translate as they all started rifling through plugs, and Sarah and I stood back, trying not to laugh at the exuberance of these helpful Koreans. As they found the right one and we thanked them and started downstairs, I saw our little saleslady chattering to another store worker. In moments, before I knew what was happening, they started charging down the escalator toward us! At first I was a bit alarmed, and wondered if we had gone out the wrong exit or if we were supposed to have taken off our shoes in the store or something...but as they reached us, and motioned for the adapter in my basket, I realized that they were still trying to be helpful. She picked up the adapter and began pantomiming how to put the pieces together (it was a multi-adapter with different pieces for about five different countries) and how to plug it into the wall. I bowed and thanked her and tried to let her know I understood, and then watched how happy she seemed as she headed back up to her floor. <br />
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This is something that seems universal here. People want to help. There is an underlying thread of kindness and hospitality that seems to run through all the interactions I've seen. Perhaps it would be different if I was not a foreigner, and of course I am sure it is not always the case, but it is something I think that is much more a part of their culture than it seems to be in America. There, we so often treat foreigners with impatience and frustration because they have not learned enough English to communicate with us. Here, they treat foreigners (for the most part) as guests. <br />
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Well, I was going to say a bit about the food here, and my experience with traditional Korean barbeque, but my hour on the computer is about up, and I think it will soon be kicking me off. I've been using internet in a "PC Bang," a big computer room usually filled with dim, creepy lighting, smoke, and a whole bunch of Korean gamers. (World of Warcraft lives strong in Korea.) Hopefully by next week I will have internet in my apartment.CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-77130365271387463152010-02-27T10:35:00.002+09:002010-02-27T10:40:32.463+09:00First 24 HoursWell, the East is not the same as the West. And anyone who tells you that it is has probably lived their whole life in some little podunk place where nothing EVER changes...Like Nebraska.<br />
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I don't think that it was until the last half hour of my 16-hour flight that it hit me how far away I was and how different life was going to be and how long a year could potentially last. As we started flying over the country toward the Incheon Airport, I gazed out of my window on the brown and green land below and thought how similar it looked to home from the sky. Up there, with the details blurred into masses of color and line, I could not believe that I had come nearly 7,000 miles. Birds must think all the world is the same. But as we started passing small islands dotting the sea like little anthills and I looked down at could see a clear green crystal ocean shoreline, I realized that this was not at all the same as home. <br />
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Incheon is the third largest city in South Korea, and the Incheon airport is located, not on the mainland coast with most of the city, but on an island just off shore. When I realized this, I was fascinated at how the city had spread until it bled out into the ocean and then just kept going. <br />
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By the time we landed, it was nearly 3am my time, about 7pm local time. The sun was setting over the ocean islands and the airport was bustling with a lot of not-Americans. I spent the next hour in the airport trying to figure out how to use a luggage cart, convincing a taxi-driving con man to let me use his cell phone, and boarding myself on a train, hoping it was headed the right direction to take me to the stop I needed to be at to meet the director from my school who was going to drive me to my apartment. I'm sure I looked quite ridiculous as I tried to maneuver two large suitcases and two more shoulder bags around. I will admit that there was even one point that I tripped over my own luggage and fell flat on my face...but we won't talk about that.<br />
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As it was, I did get off at the right stop. And as I stepped out onto the street, the city greeted me. For anyone who has not seen a big city in Korea, it was about like the Las Vegas strip times a billion. Skyscrapers towered into the sky, and everything was lit in bright, flashing colors. The signs were all written in hangul, the Korean alphabet--flashing messages across billboards and theatres, clubs and banks. It was not Western, but it was a city as I have never seen "city" before.<br />
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As I stepped off the train, there was a man who got off at Geomam also, with his wife, who saw me struggling with my luggage. He walked up, took my biggest suitcase, and without a word, started walking toward the elevator. I followed somewhat hesitantly, trying to talk to him, but he chattered back at me in Korean, and it took me about two seconds to realize that we were not going to understand each other. But he most certainly was going to take my suitcase. I was protective of that suitcase. I followed it. I half-wondered if he was the one who was supposed to pick me up, but if he was the director of an English school, shouldn't he speak English? Well, he wasn't the director of the school. As we got to the sidewalk outside, he stopped and tried to talk to me again. After a bit of gesture, I concluded that he wanted to know if I had a ride. He stopped a girl on the street, talked to her, and she pulled out her cell phone and gave it to me to call Patrick Kim, my contact. Then, they were on their way, with smiles and waves and even a bow (very unsual to do to someone younger than you). As they went their own ways, I thought about how, even though everything is different here--the culture, the language, the fashion, the landscape--people are all essentially the same.<br />
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There are those who will try to cheat you (the taxi driver I met in the airport), those who will ignore you (the lady at the first currency exchange desk I went to), those who will ridicule you (again, we won't talk about that incident), and those who, though strangers, will go out of their way to help--who look out for you when there is no one else but God.<br />
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Well, Patrick Kim and his wife, Sunny, finally did come to get me, and dropped me off at my apartment. They are the kindest, sweetest people I will probably meet in this country. Or ever maybe. Mix traditional Korean honor and hospitality with youthful enthusiasm, kindness, and exuberance, and you have the Kims. They were even so thoughtful as to leave breakfast on my counter for the next morning, and provide my apartment with slippers (since it is a cardinal and eternal sin to wear shoes indoors). They did not, however, know how to work my washing machine. Tomorrow I shall have to start just pushing buttons.<br />
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My apartment, though cozy inside, looks from the outside like I should fear for my life. I don't know if I will EVER go out after dark. Since my door has two deadbolts and a video camera so I can see who is knocking outside, I'm going to assume that I should probably also not trust my neighbors. <br />
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Well, today was spent meeting kids and touring my school and sitting through hours of orientation/training. It was rainy and half the city disappeared into a fog that hung over the city and lasted all day. I wanted to be outdoors more, but it was fun being in the school as well. I am something of a celebrity to the six-year-olds who insist that I am the sister of the other American teacher who "looks just like" me. Anyhow, this is a long post, and it is time to be off. I shall leave you with a list of observations from my first few hours here:<br />
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1. Koreans have the most eclectic taste in footwear that I have EVER seen. If the color exists, they wear it on their feet in a variety of colors and ridiculous shapes.<br />
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2. While not allowed back home, taxi drivers here may solicit for customers in the airport as much as they please. I may be naive, but not naive enough to not realize that it would be stupid to pay W50,000 for a cab fare when I could go downstairs and pay W2,800 for a train ride.<br />
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3. You are not cool if you don't own a black coat. Luckily, I do.<br />
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4. Americans in foreign countries are obnoxious. I knew this, but it was reconfirmed to me.<br />
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5. I will miss my raisin bran. They do not eat cold cereal here, one of the great loves of my life.<br />
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6. Koreans love Spam. This is an ideal gift for a hostess when you are invited to someone's home.<br />
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7. 12 kilograms is too much for carry-on luggage when you are going to be lugging it around airports for hours. I don't even know how much 12 kilograms is. But my shoulder does.<br />
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8. The Korean alphabet is not like a "secret code."<br />
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9. Koreans like red. Even my microwave is red.<br />
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10. Hamburgers here are not actually hamburgers. And they have broccoli and mushroom paste instead of ketchup and mayonaise.CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-69475327271950496792010-01-18T10:20:00.002+09:002010-01-18T13:16:31.250+09:00UntouchableThe retention basin is full. I can't remember it being full since I was a child. The water that is in it now glistens like a lake-- it <i>is</i> a lake, a lake built by men because they are ever needing water-- water for their lawns, their parties, their vegetable gardens. Especially here in this dry, wasted desert where water is as beautiful as the sky that sends it crashing to the earth one month a year.<br />
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When I was a child, I would run through this park with the carefree abandon and bare feet that were my brand of transportation and movement through life. There were frogs here then. When the field was full of water and the sun was bright in the early morning sky, as far as the eye could see, marble-sized amphibians flew through the grass and air, up and down, up and down, like trillions of tiny see-saws cutting the field, miniature splashes on the flat, cool water.<br />
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Now as I sit here, there are no frogs. But if I close my eyes, the wind blows the cool smell of water to my nose, and it feels like an ocean or the sky before rain in a foreign place. And then I open my eyes and idly hear the chanting cicadas who own the summer, and see the sky shine in the iridescent blues of an abalone, and watch the touch of man stir the surface of the lake with lights of the city.<br />
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And I think that there is something untouchable about water and the night.CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6530413307499448135.post-14301789055658921372009-09-06T08:40:00.002+09:002009-09-06T09:43:19.801+09:00Road TripsIn honor of my being about to embark on a lovely road trip, the third this summer, I thought I would share that fact that I am a bit concerned about the outcome of said trip, and relate some tidbits of history to demonstrate why. In two days, I will be driving from Mesa, AZ to Las Vegas, NV, to St. George, UT, back to Las Vegas, and then up to Provo, UT, after which I will return to Mesa. I know, I know, it is not at all a very efficient nor logical path, however, since it is for a wedding, and weddings are also neither efficient nor logical (in general), it kind of fits.<br /><br />Past events to warrant the fact that I have started praying for this trip nearly a week in advance:<br /><br />1. Trip to a family reunion in New Mexico last year--car died twice, halfway there. As in, one radiator problem and one shredded tire.<br /><br />2. Trip to the Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City--my tire tread caught on the road bumps and sent my car flying through the air into a ditch, where it skidded to a terrifying halt fifty yards further. I was saved by an ambulance-driving hick sent from God.<br /><br />3. Trip from Provo to Concord, CA this past May--on a dark road in Fresno, not far from Yosemite, the reverse in the car went out and we ended up in a ditch. While being towed out via climber's webbing and a nice man with a big truck, I ended up in the middle of the road, trying to cut the twisted rope between the two cars before the headlights of another car screaming toward me put an abrupt end to my life.<br /><br />4. Driving from Provo to Mesa--serpentine belt in my car went out and I ended up stuck in Cedar City for the next six hours, and then driving like a madman to make it home in time for my best friend's wedding.<br /><br />5. Driving from Mesa up to school--Got lost and ended up meandering through five states on the way from Mesa to Provo, after staying a night in New Mexico.<br /><br />6. Driving back to Provo from a weekend in St. George, we hit a blizzard that obscured vision so badly we were forced to crawl along, using overturned cars on the sides of the road as markers as to where the edges were.<br /><br />Six examples from a very long list of the road trips of my life. All prayers for this next week are welcome.CHRISTINA HOOSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01550699664430770781noreply@blogger.com0