Book sample 1

Ask any Korean to point out Buseok on a map, and you’ll get a variety of blank stares, nervous grins, and apologies.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak English.” (In perfect English, mind you.) 

Koreans have an odd sense of size when it comes to developed geography.  Seoul, a city that 10.42 million people call home (24.5 million if you consider the outlying suburbs and urban sprawl), is a big city by any standard.  But what I found interesting is that cities on the peninsula, no matter their relative expanse, are not cities by Korean standards unless they resemble an area like the capital. 

On the other end of the spectrum, Buseok is small.  Tiny.  By any standard.  Not worthy of even a speck on the map.  According to the last census taken by the government, Buseok claims just over 100 residents, 25% of which are cows, chickens,  apple trees, and a mean looking pack of dogs that no one but the local restaurateur seems to be able to do anything about.  Needless to say, the little countryside farming community where I taught English to elementary students does not exist to most Koreans.  If someone, by chance, has ever heard of Buseok, that knowledge is generally filed away in some peripheral part of the brain, alongside other useless tidbits of information like the politics of Al Sharpton, who the latest castoff of The Bachelor was, and the plotline of Grey’s Anatomy.

Except for the small number of school age children, the residents of Buseok are either old, or older.  There is one very small elementary school and one middle school of similar proportions.  Older students attend high school in Yeongju.  Dorms are provided, which most teenagers are thrilled about, as they do not have to go home everyday to the little clearing at the foot of Sobaek Mountain where they grew up. 

Foreigners have no reason to visit Buseok.  Most Koreans have no reason to visit Buseok.  

So understandably it is something of a novelty, reminiscent of a roadside attraction in the Arizona desert, when someone like me, a 6’6”, pale white, red bearded American, strolls into town.  My predecessor at the elementary school (the middle school has no foreign English teacher) was a black South African lady.  She held the same post (outpost to be precise) for 7 years.  Given that the school only extends as far as 6^th grade, most, if not all, of the students had never seen someone like me.  So tall.  Or hairy.  Gorilla-esque.  It was a bit intimidating for such small children.  Spending five days a week in Buseok was an adventure.  For me and the students.  However, with adventure comes risk.  Risk of the unknown.  Risk of contracting exotic diseases.  Or in my case, when you couple a tall American with easily excited Korean children, the risk of being inadvertently punched in the nuts.