That’s the title for this article, one of several the Weekly Chosun ran this one the subject of native-speaker English teachers.

“Goldongban (골동반, 骨董飯) is the hanja name for bibimbap. The food left over from New Year’s Eve dinner would be made into it. The royal court would mainly eat this at New Year’s Eve.”

At a little after 6 pm last July 21st, the National Palace Museum of Korea (국립고궁박물관) held a cooking lessons at its royal kitchen. Lecturer Lee Jeong-suk, a specialist in royal cuisine, the country’s intangible cultural asset no. 38, spoke on the history and origins of royal cuisine while over 20 students listened keenly. White people and black people, 20-year olds and 50-year olds, men and women…. seated in aprons, they transformed the space.

Today’s lesson was the third put on by the Museum for native speaker teachers to learn experientially about palace culture. Starting on July 7th, the program runs every Tuesday at the dinner hour on the fifth floor. Other than today’s lesson on royal cuisine, there have been lectures on making wax for the royal seal, copying the king’s handwriting, wearing royal dress, and surveying Changdeok-gung.

The Museum’s program for native speaker teachers began in March of this year. The idea came from Jeon Gi-seon, head of public relations. “In the United States I completed a master’s degree in museum studies. I was extremely impressed that every museum I visited while studying overseas had active programs for foreigners. Education is the solution for the cultural clashes that cause conflicts between people from different cultures. Originally museum education was similar to peace education, reflecting the spirit of the time, and it was effective. Then later we wanted to create educational programs for the increasing number of native speaker teachers.”

The program started with native speaker teachers working in elementary, middle, and high schools in Seoul. There were too many students to concentrate on each effectively so classes were limited to 20 registrants, and because foreigner-only classes might not go smoothly half the students would be foreigners and half would be Koreans. Volunteer docents were recruited to help out during the lessons.

Jeon set a date for the lecture and made an announcement via the Seoul Office of Education. In the beginning Jeon had many worries. “We started working but weren’t sure if a lot of people would come. But the reaction was huge. There were so many volunteers that dozens had to go on the waiting list.” A survey of the first group of participants (June 9th to July 4th) found them uniformly satisfied. Encouraged, the Museum then made the program a monthly fixture.

31-year old Matthew Smith, whom we met at today’s lesson, said he is working as a native speaker teacher at Ansan Elementary School in Seoul. From California, he majored in international relations in college and completed an MBA program in marketing. He came to Korea four months ago. “I like kids, so I was interested in working in education. My dream is to try to be a math teacher. A good friend of mine is working as a native speaker teacher in Gwangju. He said Korea is the best country to work in and encouraged me to come. So even though I was thinking about going to Japan I came here.”

A lover of travel with an inquisitive character, he seems to have already adapted well to Korean life. According to Han Ji-yeon, a co-teacher of his at Ansan Elementary School, after coming to Korea he slept one to two hours per day and taught himself hangul. “He came to Korea so he needed to know hangul,” she said. His Korean friends said he needed some help understanding Korea, so he is attending the program. He was invited to today’s lesson by Ms. Han. “Matthew attends every teacher training and gets along well with co-workers, he is trying hard to understand Korea. Every time we have a teachers’ dinner he fits in perfectly. Do you know his favorite Korean food? Moksal.” (Laughs)

30-year old Shana Rose, who works at Oryu High School in Seoul, is a “veteran teacher”, having come to Korea two years and four months ago. A black person, she initially had a lot of difficulty with Korean life. “My skin and hair style are different from every Korean person, so at first it was extremely difficult to teach the lessons. More than a few times a kid would suddenly start harassing me. But now I’m used to it so I’m ok.”

Her decision to come to Korea was significantly influenced by her grandfather, who fought in the Korean War. Her grandfather and grandmother very much liked Korea, and encouraged their granddaughter to visit. Her secret for overcoming the cultural gap between Korea and America was to “greet people in Korean.” “If you go into a restaurant or store and speak in English, people are going to be put off but if you say 안녕하세요 it’s a different story. People are much kinder then. I always thought so. If you want to understand Korea you have to know Korea’s language and culture! So I work hard to attend any program through which I can learn about Korea.”

Compared to working in America, the salary he receives here is considerably lower. He also experienced anger over the unclear process of obtaining an entry visa. He said, “I’m generally satisfied with life now.” This is because he has a relatively simple Korean life of going to school and home, doesn’t make that much money, and doesn’t work quite as hard as Koreans.

Lee Jeong-suk, who helped the participants try their hands at making goldongban today, said, “I’ve given lectures several times, but the lessons for native speaker teachers show them to have a great attitude towards them and a lot of interest in Korea.” Gwon Suk-jeong, who was a participant at the first lesson and a volunteer helper at the second, said, “the lesson wasn’t an easy one, but the participants were very enthusiastic. I was impressed by the deep attitude of the native speaker teachers who were enthusiastic about this voluntary lesson and I decided to be a volunteer.”

Put salt on the diagonally cut cucumbers, boil the Chinese bellflower, fry the fernbrake, season the bean sprouts…. in groups of four and five, the cooking lesson lasted until past 7:30. The final portion of the lesson was making goldongban. After placing the oiled and salted ingredients onto the rice and arranging them attractively, lecturer Lee added the “special gochujang” and mixed it all up, producing excellent bibimbap. The Museum provided clear soup to accompany it. The volunteers and the more than ten native speaker teachers emptied their bowls.

Jeon Gi-seok said, “last month over 30 native speaker teachers from schools in Dongjak visited the museum and participated in the royal culture experience program. Reaction was very positive, so we plan to offer more, and more diverse, programs to native speaker teachers.”