“No man can order his life, for it comes flowing over him from behind . . .” (George MacDonald)
We moved to Seoul in July 2012. My mom was excited that we were moving to Korea. “You can find Mike’s parents,” she said. My sister, Elisabeth, had married a Korean guy, who was adopted by a family in Long Island. According to the orphanage in Korea, he was found in a subway station when he was about three years old.
As we flew into the city at night we noticed red crosses on the top of several buildings. While most of the population is non-religious, Protestant Christianity is the most popular religion followed by Buddhism.
Dissected by the Han River and surrounded by mountains, Seoul was the capital of a unified Korea from 1394-1948. And there are references to it as far back as the time of Christ. Ancient remnants remain, including Gyeongbok Palace, built in 1395, and six of the eight city gates built in the fourteenth century. About half of South Korea’s population of 52 million lives in the Seoul Capital Area, making it the fifth most populated urban area on Earth. But unlike Singapore, South Korea’s capital city is not culturally diverse. The vast majority of the population is ethnically Korean.
Apartments
We lived in two apartments in our three years in Seoul, both high-rise buildings about a mile or two from our school. The first apartment had a water leak on the ceiling outside the bathroom. The workers came, borrowed our kitchen knife, made a hole in the ceiling, stopped the leak, then left. During the next few months, we had several visits from men who came in, looked at the hole then left. Finally, someone came in and covered the hole with wallpaper.
In our second apartment, we were told that the landlord was going to renovate some items during the summer. Geetha was imagining a nice new kitchen, but when we returned from our summer away, we opened the door, and gazed at an accent wall with huge purple, orange, and blue polka dots. That was the extent of the renovation. The adjacent wall was full of windows and had a pull-down screen with pink flowers so at night our living room looked ridiculous. “How could anyone think this looks good?” I asked.
Adjusting
Seoul is a modern city but living in a new country always requires an adjustment. When we went to the home of a Korean friend, we walked inside and were encouraged to “have a seat” but the living room only had a TV and a bare floor. We sat on the floor and talked then she brought out a floor table for dinner.
In this fast-paced city, when we went shopping we didn’t have to carry groceries home. Instead a delivery driver would bring them, sometimes arriving before we got home. And when we called for service, someone would show up right away.
It took a while for us to get used to smaller personal space. At times people behind us in checkout lines stood right beside us while we were paying. And we frequently experienced being pushing or brushed up against us in stores.
As in much of Asia, guns are banned in South Korea and crime is low. It’s common to see young children walking around by themselves. As I was waiting for our school bus early in the morning, I watched a drunk man who was becoming a nuisance across the street. Police officers came to the scene. But instead of using physical force, they patiently talked with him for several minutes.
Of course, our biggest adjustment was getting used to the Korean language. Our appliances were labeled in Korean, taxi drivers and cashiers only spoke Korean, and when we went to restaurants we usually had to point to what we wanted on the menu. In order to get by we learned a few phrases:
- kamsahamnida (thank you)
- chick chin (straight ahead)
- wangchok (left turn)
- orunchok (right turn)
- yogyo (here)
- juseo (please)
- anyong haseyo (hello)
Our girls liked to say “anyong haseyo” to the guards who sat outside our apartment complex. We also learned to read the twenty-four Korean letters. Prior to the invention of the Hangul alphabet in the 1400s, Koreans used a complicated writing system that included Chinese characters. King Sejong’s alphabet greatly improved reading and writing in Korea.
North Korea
South Koreans are used to frequent war rhetoric from North Korea, but during our first year, the threats of total destruction were unusually intense. Perhaps that was due to Kim Jong-un becoming supreme commander a few months before we arrived.
The Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) is only about forty kilometers from Seoul so the capital is well within the range of North Korea’s missile capabilities. And with one of the largest active militaries and the largest paramilitary in the world, the thought of a North Korean invasion is frightening.
A colleague who served in the US military told me that if North Korea invades South Korea the US military would blow up the bridges over the Han River. That would impede North Korea’s movement, but it would also make it harder for anyone in Seoul to escape.
Around this time, we had a special meeting at school to discuss what we should do in case of emergency—have a bag ready with passports, water, food, etc. and go to the nearest subway station. Since it was our first year, we didn’t know how to process everything. It was surreal even for staff who had been living in Seoul for several years. Another colleague said, “Is this really happening now? I can’t believe we’re having these conversations.”
Honestly, however, most people in this densely populated city didn’t seem too concerned. Perhaps that is a coping strategy.
School
Our school facility was state of the art in an excellent location—new buildings encased in large windows set on a small hill with an Olympic-size swimming pool and a soccer field overlooking the city. Joe, my boss in Singapore, was the head of school and Carol, a student of mine in Singapore, worked in the tech department.
In total we had about one thousand students from around fifty countries. Most of my high school students were Korean with foreign passports, but I also had students from India, Japan, Nigeria, Fiji, and the US. I taught a broader curriculum than I had in Singapore, including philosophy and world religions.
Teaching Philosophy
The most challenging class for me to teach was an introduction to philosophy class called History of Thought. The class was filled with twenty-six seniors during the last block of the day (ninety minutes) in the spring semester. Imagine teaching philosophy to eighteen-year-olds at the end of the school day in their final semester. Not a great recipe for an exciting class. I began with the Pre-Socratics, continued to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and somehow made it to twentieth century thinkers.
While the class was challenging to teach, I was fascinated with seeing the progression of human thought. For example, about five centuries before Christ, the Greek thinkers Heraclitus and Parmenides arrived at different conclusions on the topic of change. Heraclitus said change was constant: “No man steps in the same river twice.” When you think about it, everything is constantly changing.
But Parmenides disagreed, asserting that change is an illusion. The deepest reality, he argued, is unchanging. Whatever is, is.
About a century later, Plato (428-348 BC) formulated a compromise, positing an unchanging world of ideas along with a changing world of matter.
After Plato, Aristotle (384-322 BC) collapsed Plato’s two worlds into one, asserting that every physical entity has both changeable qualities and a changeless essence. The topic of permanence versus impermanence left me mesmerized.
I especially enjoyed teaching about Augustine. We read his famous book Confessions, written around AD 400. Considered by many to be the first autobiography in Western literature, this book recounts Augustine’s life and thinking before and after his conversion to the Christian faith around the age of thirty.
After studying Confessions, I asked students to write their own spiritual journey stories, allowing them to talk about anything that influenced them on a deep level. They talked about things like hypocritical Christians, hardships such as moving, conversations with friends, and the influence of parents.
Teaching World Religions
In Introduction to World Religions, I compared various belief systems and I tried to be as fair as possible. After all, Jesus taught us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves and that includes our neighbors of different faiths.
The contrast between Buddhism and Hinduism was striking. At our core Buddhism claims there is no self. When we realize this, we will be able to overcome selfishness because there is nothing to be selfish about. But if there is no self, what gets transferred in reincarnation? Only energy. To illustrate this other worldly transference I used a common example found in many books. I turned off the lights then lit one candle and passed the fire to another candle. My audience applauded.
Hinduism, however, teaches that at our core, we are divine. So here is a major difference between the two Indian religions: no self versus divinity.
While learning about Taoism, I found what I thought was an amazing similarity with Christianity. In chapter 78 of the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu writes:
“Nothing in the world is softer or weaker than water
Yet nothing is better at overcoming the hard and strong
This is because nothing can replace it
That the weak overcomes the strong
And the soft overcomes the hard
Everybody in the world knows
But cannot put into practice
Therefore sages say: The one who accepts the humiliation of the state
Is called its master
The one who accepts the misfortune of the state
Becomes king of the world
The truth seems like the opposite”
I almost couldn’t believe what I had read. Five hundred years later in a Roman prison, Paul wrote about one who had been executed by the state, then was “exalted to the highest place” thus becoming “king of the world” (Phil. 2:5-11).
Coaching Tennis
The school was desperate for a tennis coach so I reluctantly agreed to fill the position. Growing up I had only played tennis for fun. Near the end of the season we went to Okinawa for a one-week tournament, where we stayed on the Kadena Air Force Base, a key US military base in the Pacific. Loud fighter jets flew overhead constantly, practicing their maneuvers while our teams played on outdoor courts. I was not surprised to learn that many Okinawans are not happy with the US military presence on their island.
Struggling at School
While life in Seoul was going well, I began struggling in the classroom. Most of my students were well-behaved and studious, but they were also tired. Many went to academies after school and some stayed as late as 10 p.m. In fact, the government even had to pass a law requiring academies to close by 10 p.m. because some were staying open until midnight. I did my best to create interesting lessons, but the lack of energy in class was draining.
“Have you ever thought of doing anything else?” I asked a colleague.
“Oh yes, definitely. This is exhausting. I’ve thought of driving a truck.”
“Me too. Sometimes I feel like I would rather do anything else, including picking up garbage.”
I didn’t like how the classroom made me feel, but I couldn’t quite identify why. It didn’t help that I regularly asked students how they felt about school. Once in a while I would receive a positive response, but for the most part their comments were discouraging. Sometimes I wondered, Is this environment doing more harm than good? Am I doing more harm than good?
I began thinking about the structure and compulsory nature of school. Why are all students of the same age forced to go through the same curriculum? Why can’t schools be more flexible? Why do we require students to sit all day long? Who came up with the idea of one person teaching twenty-five students in one room? I can really only give my attention to a handful of people at the same time.
My background partly explains my struggle. I grew up with two artistic parents, who didn’t put any academic pressure on me, so I experienced a lot of freedom. I also went to a large public high school, where I don’t think I learned much, so my faith in traditional schooling was not high. Finally, our experience homeschooling showed us a different way of doing school.
My subject matter was another factor. Bible is a misfit in the regular school curriculum. College admission departments don’t require Bible courses, but they do require English, science, math, and social studies. And since the Bible doesn’t come with handouts, quizzes, and classroom activities, Bible teachers often have to write their own curriculum so I had always been a somewhat creative teacher.
Most of all, I just have a hard time talking to people all day who don’t seem interested.
My internal conflict drove me to study the history and philosophy of education. I also began emailing professors. Two in particular were kind enough to repeatedly reply to my questions.
While I have not arrived at any final answers, I have been encouraged to learn about people creating new kinds of schools, especially in the US. One thing I am sure of in the world of education is that one size does not fit all. The hundreds of millions of students around the world need more than one type of school.
In the end, my research resulted in two lengthy blog posts on the history of compulsory schooling in America and the philosophy of education.
- The Origins of National Compulsory Schooling in America
- Structure or Freedom? The Perennial Debate in Education
A Skit
I tried to incorporate freedom into the classroom as much as possible: getting students out of their seats—sitting on the floor in a circle, going outside, and giving students an opportunity to dramatically present things in skit form. I never had a major problem with skits, until one of my classes in Seoul.
I don’t remember the topic students were supposed to present, but during a group skit, a student was sitting at a desk in the front facing the rest of the class. While his skit partners were standing in the front of the class, he bent over and started making noises. I was standing on the other side of the classroom, wondering, What is he doing? Is he doing, what I think he’s doing? He can’t be. He can’t be portraying masturbation. He must be injured or something.
About the time the skit ended the assistant principal happened to be walking by my classroom. He opened the door to check on things then called the group of actors into the hallway to talk with him. I then talked to the class about the inappropriate nature of the skit.
Soon after I got an email from a teacher. His daughter was in the class. He visited my classroom early the next morning before school started.
“Why didn’t you stop it sooner?”
“I didn’t know what he was doing. I didn’t have a direct view.”
“You should have stopped it.”
“I really wasn’t sure what was happening. I’ve had students do all kinds of things in skits, but never that.”
“You mean students knew what was happening, but you didn’t?”
With each comment his voice grew louder and more intense as he stood in front of my desk.
Of course, I should have and could have stopped it sooner, but I didn’t. Remember we are talking about seconds not minutes. I hesitated because I was shocked. I hesitated because I didn’t want to jump in and run the risk of being wrong. What if I had accused him of doing something he wasn’t doing?
While I had questions during the skit, there was no question how I felt during this conversation: I didn’t like being yelled at. This episode was one of my last straws with teaching, so I thought.
Hell
In addition to wrestling with the structure of school, I started wrestling with the nature of hell. Does the Bible really teach that hell is a place of eternal conscious torment? I knew that Augustine had promoted that view, but I also learned that other ancient Christian leaders held different views. I immersed myself in the arguments and biblical support for each perspective. A couple years later, I wrote this book.
Visiting the US
I like to say that my favorite part of living in Korea was Hawaii. On our return to the US after our first year we stopped in Hawaii because it was on the way. We rented a car and drove around the coast of Oahu. Every place we stopped was picturesque. But Hawaii is not paradise for everyone. The near perfect climate invites people to sleep outside and we saw many homeless people on the street.
World War II has left lasting scars in the Asia-Pacific region. In Seoul we saw signs at bus stops referencing reparations for comfort women—local women who had been used as sexual slaves by Japanese officers during the war. In Singapore we saw remnants of the Japanese takeover of the island in museums, photos, and military installations. In Hawaii we visited the Pearl Harbor memorial. Seeing the black tears of the USS Arizona continually spreading across the surface of the water was a moving experience. The ship, which had been refueled the day before the attack in 1941, continues to lose about nine quarts of oil each day.
The next summer my friend Ben invited us to visit his Eastern Orthodox Church in Tennessee. If you’re interested, I wrote about that experience here.
Horse Racing
Horse racing is a popular sport in South Korea. We went to a track with a friend and bet on a few races. I won about five dollars on the first race so I was excited to bet again. Then I lost the second. And I was excited to bet again. Then I lost the third. And I was excited to bet again. Whether you win or lose, you want to keep betting. I’m glad I only did this once.
Drinking Competition
Since tap water is generally not considered safe to drink, we ordered large bottles of water each week. On our last evening in Seoul we had quite a bit of water left so I had an idea. Let’s see who can drink the most water. We invited a couple friends to our home, sat on the floor, and started drinking.
During the competition, Geetha said, “Can’t you die from drinking too much water?”
We quickly looked it up and learned that too much water can desalinate the blood, leading to major problems.
That was the end of our competitive drinking.
A New Job
It’s difficult to land a job in the US when you are in Asia, especially when you have been there for a few years. But I signed up with a teacher agency and found a job in Macon, Georgia. The position was for a couple to serve as house parents for high school boys from China. I was excited to find something outside of the traditional classroom, but during the interview process, I learned that I may need to teach part-time.
We accepted the job, returned to the US after three years in Seoul, bought a white Kia Soul, and moved our things from Knoxville to Macon. Don’t ask why we bought a Kia Soul. It seemed like every time we passed one on the road in the US we saw a teenage girl in the driver’s seat. My only explanation is that we lived in Seoul for three years and saw that car everywhere so perhaps it had sunk into our subconscious minds.
After graduating from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, I served as a high school Bible teacher in Asia. I enjoy traveling, writing, and playing the drums. My latest book focuses on Paul’s work as a tentmaker and what it means for today.