Teachers Share their Experiences While Living Abroad!

Pilipino people are famous for having an ungovernable amount of pride. From each mixed European Miss Universe, to the screams I heard from the neighbors during any Pacquiao fight,,,not to mention the screams coming from my 4’9” grandmother, to that random shopper your parents run into at the Vietnamese grocery store, pinoys love being pinoy. It is with a sad heart that I must tell you that I....am no different. Anyone who knows me knows I’m a walking blow horn spewing out facts about the health benefits of calamansi and how the inventor of the modern yo-yo was a Pilipino-American.

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For anyone living in Korea, or anyone of Asian heritage, people can notice that many have a layered and complicated relationship to Japan. Because of what I learned growing up, I never found myself interested to go there, but by some random chance, I visited three years ago while working at Chungdahm. I met this Japanese person who ended up being my best friend, and I am lucky enough to have seen the things and the people that I have there through and with her. She does a lot of resistance work with both mainland Japanese and Okinawan artists and activists who demand fair rights, justice, and truth. There are so many incredible people creating communities of care and liberation, and I feel so thankful to see what is happening on the ground, giving me a more complex perception of the cultures around me.

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Discovering My Heritage

By Rebekah Alcalde

“Where are you from?” the nail salon owner asks. She tilts her head when I say, “America.”

“Oh, but you look Korean,” she says confused. “I am,” I try to clarify. “I’m here teaching English.”

It’s a conversation I’ve had a few times since I arrived in Korea five months ago, armed with little more than a few Korean words and phrases and scared absolutely stiff. I was born in Busan but adopted to the United States by an American family when I was a baby. I’ve had very little experience with Korean culture, and I was very anxious about it.

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One of the best parts of living in South Korea is it’s a hop, jump, and a skip away from a myriad of destinations within Asia. With the popularity of budget airlines like AirAsia, it’s easier than ever to go on that trip into the Mongolian desert or the temples of Cambodia. One of the most impressive places to go is the Philippines, which is where my family and roots are. There’s many a blog by teachers about their trips to the archipelago, detailing the bliss you find from escaping the bitter Korean winter to an island paradise like Boracay or Palawan. Going to any of those locations for holiday is a guaranteed good time.

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Taking the first steps of an adventure is almost never an easy ordeal. You have all these questions that zoom in and out of your head adding to the list before you can even answer the first ones that popped up. Will it work out? Will I be happy? What if I get lost? What if I do something wrong? What if a giant prehistoric creature ascends from the oceans and battles a giant moth? Ok, maybe that last one was a horrible reference to Godzilla vs Mothra but you get the idea. 

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