JAG Journeys: Lunch with religion class

Out of all the classes I would be teaching, religion class had me the most worried when I first got here to teach at the Seocheonan (West Cheonan) institute. "How will I be able to make up material for an hour long religion class every day?" I wondered. Our first day at the institute, Fabrice showed us a folder conveniently located on our computer's desktop. "In here are PDFs of different religion materials," he told us. We looked through some of the already-prepared religion materials and each picked out our own topics. I chose 'What does God think of families?' a study on various daughters, sons, mothers and fathers in the Bible. Although I, and some of my students, have found quite a number of typos and other grammatical errors in the worksheets, I'm really enjoying going through some commonly known Bible stories with my five religion students. Each lesson includes a Bible text about the story, a corresponding idiom, vocabulary words and definitions, a key thought paragraph, a grammar exercise using the vocab words and then discussion questions. I have no idea if my students are actually learning anything from me, but I'm sure learning a lot from them. When we discuss the idioms they often tell me about a Korean proverb or traditional story that contains the same message as the English idiom. And when we talk about the key thought and go through the discussion questions I learn more and more about Korean culture and my students own personal beliefs. Religion is quickly becoming one of my favourite classes to teach!

Of course, when you have students like mine, it's very easy to enjoy teaching religion class. As we were wrapping up our class on Tuesday morning, one woman in my class, Mia, said she had an idea. "I was speaking to my husband last night and we thought we would like to take our class out to eat lunch together sometime. Would that work for everyone?" she asked. Mia's husband, Neo, was my very first religion student. The first day of class he was the only one to sign up and we had a very interesting discussion on Canada, Korea and many religious topics. He has been coming faithfully ever since and his wife joined him on Monday. "That would be wonderful!" I exclaimed. "I would really enjoy that." The other members of our class agreed and we concluded that Thursday at noon would work best for our class meal. Then my students talked quickly in Korean to decide on a good place for lunch. "Oh," Mia added as the students picked up their books and papers to leave class, "we also want your husband to join us. Please invite him to come, too." I agreed and assured them that Jonathan would be out of class during that time.

Lunch yesterday was wonderful! Right at noon Neo met Jonathan and me at the front desk and walked us to his car where Mia sat waiting. We had a pleasant discussion on the five-minute drive to the restaurant. Mia and Neo told us a little bit about the traditional Korean restaurant where we would be eating. Once inside the restaurant we took off our shoes and went to the booth where the other religion student who could make it for lunch, Elizabeth, was already sitting. The tables were low and there were thin cushions on the floor-level bench for us to sit on. I had no problem sitting cross-legged with my legs under the table, but Jonathan's legs didn't quite fit when he tried to sit cross-legged. Mia and Elizabeth, who were sitting across the table from Jonathan, insisted that he could stretch his legs under the table next to theirs so he did, but he said later that it was a bit awkward. As soon as we were settled and had taken our coats off the food started coming. Our entire table was absolutely filled with white plates and bowls! Neo and Mia explained what each dish was and told us which ones contained meat. While many dishes had meat in them, there were still plenty of vegetarian ones for Jonathan and me to eat. During the meal Mia told me that as soon as she saw me she knew I was vegetarian. I asked her how and she said it was in my eyes. Interesting, eh? I've always heard that eyes are the windows to your soul, but I never knew that mine told others that I was a vegetarian! Every time we emptied one dish the waitresses brought out another kind of Korean food. There were quite a few types of kimchi, most spicy, but one not spicy. We ended the meal with a container of rice with some different types of beans and soybeans mixed in and a glass of cold prune tea each. I was a little wary of the prune tea until I tasted it. I honestly think it might have been the most delicious fruit juice I have ever tasted! Elizabeth looked up the Korean name for the tea on her phone and said it was also called plum tea or Japanese cherry blossom tea. By the time I had finished my glass of the cold tea I was wishing for another pitcher full! We all felt full by the end of our meal, but there were still quite a few dishes of food left on the table. I couldn't believe how many types of food we had finished and how many were still left! We walked back to the shoe racks, put on our shoes, and then got a few pictures together outside the restaurant before Neo and Mia took us back to the institute. It was such a nice time together and I feel like I know my religion students even better now that we spent a lunch with each other.