Jongdal Chodo Hakyeo

Jongdal is the town. Chodo means “Elementary.” Hakyeo means “school.”

Every weekday between 11:45 and 12:10 I step off the outskirts bus, the one that circles the entire island. I say “Komapsimnida” to the driver, walk past this blue arrow, and eat lunch with the teachers and children of Jongdal.

My rowdy 2nd grade boys. Good kids.

The sounds of the lunchroom The sounds of the cafeteria and of Ho Sang, who found the recorder.

The school is small, and lunch is good. Home-made, it is rice or noodles, soup, a main dish, and kimchi. Upon entering the cafeteria one is greeted by hand sanitizer and a chart outlining proper nutrition. Pizza and hamburgers are drawn and crossed out, an unhappy cartoon chef pointing to them. Next to the serving window a whiteboard outlines the week’s menu of savory stews and sprouts with pickled radish or apples with red pepper. There are no forks or knives, only spoons and chopsticks with which to take your chicken off the bone or the spine out of your fish. Napkins are available after the meal has finished. Then comes a small cup of barley tea. The children have no problem with this system. While a pair of English teachers puzzle over unprocessed food, eight-year-olds invent faces and are gently reminded to eat. Extra dumplings go quickly, a cook walking from table to table navigating a noisy eager throng. Students show empty or mostly-empty plates for permission to leave. The kindergarten teacher spoon-feeds her last straggler until he is too full or too distracted to continue, and the cafeteria is empty again, a fragrant wasteland of pulled-out chairs and metal trays.

After crossing the space between the cafeteria and the school’s main building, sixth-grade boys sit on the ledge that follows the stairs back inside. Everyone grabs a toothbrush and toothpaste, brushing diligently in a loose huddle over the large stainless steel sinks that sit in the one hallway. Then each class sweeps, mops, and dusts its room. The pretty part-time librarian goes home to Jejusi, and I prepare the English classroom for the first of three lessons.

I plan my classes, each level with its own curriculum. All students have one day of vocabulary, one of spelling, and one of speaking. The fourth varies, and the fifth is free, usually reserved for outside games. Tee-ball is popular among the third and fourth graders, who play by a unique set of Korean children’s rules still incomprehensible to me. They are fluid and often change based upon the number of available players or relative skill level. The school building is an L shape with the playground and multipurpose field filling out a rectangle, all surrounded by short walls of layered volcanic rock. Along the field side of this wall is a street, busy by local standards, where the outskirts bus going either way quickly stops, squealing, and then lurches once more into motion every twenty minutes. When given the chance to “study” outside, the youngest prefer to wander around intermittently climbing the playground equipment, picking up a soccer game, or sitting on the shoulders of their English teacher. Two rides are a must, but one or both may be substituted for being held by the elbows and spun parallel to the ground. This substitution causes no small amount of dizziness, especially for the engine responsible. Crying, though unavoidable, always passes quickly. It may be caused by a hand stepped upon, a social slight, or merely a need for momentary attention. The large multicolored plastic rabbit head adorning the jungle gym smiles buck-toothedly over whatever scene presents itself to his painted-on eyes.

Twelve teachers and five staff run this school. In the morning they park their cars and walk past the sixty-one-key pump organ with a single stuck note, E flat. Just inside the door they trade their dress shoes for slippers and begin work. At the end of the day the Principal, Vice Principal, and Curriculum Coordinator travel together. They are the three oldest men at the school. Even when only he and a driver are present, the Principal rides in the backseat.

I know Kyu He the best. She has a pale round face which I imagine as someone’s sister in a Chinese classical painting,. Her black hair was just tinged saffron at a salon in Jejusi. Korean people have straight jet black hair. Not black hair like wet dark brown, but black like someone whose great great Cherokee grandmother has held on through the genetic storm of generational crosses. I’m still here, white man. Black like a leather jacket. Completely black. Kyu He teaches fourth grade. She is from Jejudo. So are her parents.

She grew up in Hamdeok, climbing as a child the oreum that separates our beach from Bukchon, the next town over. The same paths that I find fresh for exploration as an adult are to her a place where only childhood lives. Because she is unmarried, Kyu He still lives at home. This is her first job after college.

The class sings Singing in class. You hear Eun Jin the best. In this and other venues she has one volume.

The harmonica my sister plays is made of corn.

There are two rows of corn left. My sister is playing the corn harmonica.

The principal, though long a teacher, has just been promoted. His predecessor was a relaxed man with grandchildren whom I met in the Hotel Robero in Jejusi. I wore a tie and displayed my best manners. He spoke no English, his polo shirt completely unbuttoned, and told me through an interpreter we would probably never meet again. He changed schools a few days later, preferring a bigger budget and students more willing to learn. Jongdal students are country kids. They are too fiery for this hamlet, which is inhabited mostly by them, their cousins, and grandparents. There isn’t even a grocery store. The old principal told everyone that I was handsome and gentle, a fact Kyu He relayed as she drove me to the first day of school. But I digress.