Re-establishing Ties and walking with Confucius

      A night out on the town in order to reconnect with a long lost friend of mine. A day that started out with the typical no promises and a dead end (walking to Anmin elementary for yet again a lost cause) turned into a fruitful day after work finished. 

My wife and I went to Jangjeon dong station which is next to PNU to see my friend Elder. Elder is a great man his name is Kim hanbae. He is an elderly gentleman who has taught me more about Korea than just about anyone else. He knows Japanese, Chinese, Korean and English. He studies avidly and always seeks self-improvement. I consider him to be a very wise individual. 

I used to have a stereotypical dream of Asia. I would go there learn the arts of Caligraphy, Zen thinking, and maybe pick up Taekwondo. I have no such interest in any of these other than maybe Caligraphy. I thought of Asia as a land that was truly a Land of the morning calm. This man that I have come to know for almost 2 years has made my understanding of Korea all the more deeper and make me strive to open more doors instead of close them. 

When I first met him, he was the lead talked in my hot topic class. He would provide much deeper thought than any other student. Later I was asked to join him for lunch everyday. He spent around 500 dollars maybe more on me just for lunch. I had the same lunch with him each day. daegutong soup, later fried spicy pork. At first I thought it was just because I was his teacher and that he wanted to treat his teacher. Many Koreans feel obligated to doing something more or extra for the teacher. Later, I also thought it was just to help me out with getting married so he would help me out with life lessons and help me save some lunch money. The truth is that our relationship got a lot deeper than just saving money, killing time for conversations at lunch or a treat to a teacher. 

he and I would walk from Jungang dong station to Jagalchi everyday after lunch this was a 20-30 minute walk and our exercise for the day. It was our chance to reflect about YBM, future talks, hopes dreams etc. It was a special time in my life where it unfortunately ended when his class was cancelled at YBM and he moved to Seomyeon. 

At this night we ate galbei, I introduced him to my wife and we drank soju. This night he also taught me about the Korean manner of exchanging cups after finishing a shot of soju. I have so much more to learn from him and need to make more use of the time. 

That was last night...

Today I went to kyungsung university area at a place called Iggae Dae to do my 3 hours of teaching, I had an easy day but today is just not as good as last night.. 

Onward and upward I go...