Korea Once More

Posted on September 28, 2017 by brianwongderlust

I’ve made a bad habit (a good habit?) of living life without updating this blog for several months at a time, but as I say every time I post an update, it’s been a crazy few months. And it’s not without guilt; the writer inside of me dies a little every time I remember I haven’t written – it’s as though I’m losing parts of me with the passage of time as new memories replace personal histories. But curiosity consistently gets the best of me, prioritizing sunsets and new friends over paper and pencil. I do wish I could archive every wonderful memory to share with all of you, but there are too many memories I haven’t made yet pulling me in other directions.

It’s troubling sometimes.

Anyway, a lot has changed.

I’m teaching English in Korea again, but it’s different this time. I spent two months split between Thailand and Nepal between teaching jobs and it’s made an enormous difference. I rediscovered my reasons for traveling, for helping, and for growing with some of the greatest people life has ever known. And now that we’ve scattered to different lands, I travel with pieces of them supporting me with newfound strength and inspiration.

Here’s the update.

I was hired by the dream school. I think I wrote about it in a previous post, but there is this alternative school in Korea that I had applied to earlier in the year, putting all of my Korean eggs into this basket. When they told me they liked me but didn’t have the budget for a fulltime hire, I considered it the end of the Korea adventure and made my way south with different nomadic goals.

Somewhere in the haze of web development and volunteering, the alternative school reached out to me to let me know that some budget had been freed up for an English teacher. The pay was less than my previous teaching job, but the opportunity to be exposed to this different style of school was more than enough to pull me back to Korea after my Nepal stint had ended (and oh, how it ended so wonderfully).

And after being at this school for about five months, I can honestly say that coming back to this country was the right decision. While the public school system didn’t agree with a lot of my moral and creative compasses, this alternative school is completely different.

  • First of all, the school is incredibly student focused. This alternative school takes in students who don’t fit in the normal public school system and gives them personalized attention. We even have a three-hour meeting every Friday night to talk about individual student progress and teaching approaches.
  • The students are amazing. Like I said, our student base is made up of students who had trouble in public school, so we have students who were bullies, students who were bullied, students who have different learning styles, students who don’t do well on tests, students who have different learning disabilities, students with different levels of social skills, and students with different personal situations at home. And we take individual care of each and every one of them through specialized lessons and small class sizes. We even have child who was left an orphan and sent to live with nuns before arriving at our school.
  • The culture is supportive. The students, whether they are in high school or elementary to kindergarten all care for each other. I’ve seen countless times when older students help younger ones with meals, work, communicating, or just during playtime. And this isn’t a culture that was born easily – the teachers here have worked hard to promote acceptance in an environment with students from so many different backgrounds.
  • The teachers have creative freedom. During my short time here, I’ve been able to teach so much more than just English. I’ve held classes about pickpocketing, social engineering, and ethical hacking simply because the students showed interest in them. I’ve taught about the powers and dangers of social networks and have led debates about ethical punishment for different crimes. I’ve had classes about volunteering and may even be leading a volunteer trip before the semester is over (maybe!). I can choose my own textbook or completely go off book and teach anything as long as I pitch and get a curriculum approved. So far, my classes have not seen a textbook once.
  • There is an open and honest environment for feedback. This is so, so important for engagement. Whenever there is a conflict between the students and administration, we hold a meeting. We hold several, actually. Some between just the students, some just the teachers, and some with everyone involved where the students are able to present their issues and we work together to compromise. And at the end of the semester, we all stand in a circle and talk about some highlights or lows of the semester before choosing a successor to speak, giving a reason of why we would like to hear from the next speaker. While this may sound flowery, I’ve witnessed one of these and the brutal honesty about problems or highlights between students or teachers has been so incredible and constructive from these meetings.
  • I am growing so much and so quickly as a teacher. Another part of this school is the lack of televisions and computers in each room. I have been able to conduct my classes largely without the use of technology, and this has helped me improve as a teacher in ways I couldn’t ever imagine. I haven’t used one PowerPoint to teach yet, and the students are more engaged, and I am more prepared for each lesson. There is a connection between students and teachers I experience here that I didn’t have lecturing speak and repeat lessons with PowerPoints in public school. I also have the opportunity to teach all ages, from kindergarten to high school, some college students, and even parents and teachers, so my ability to handle different levels has been challenged.

There’s so much more, but this post is getting preachy, so I’ll end it with those major points. I will try to post more often, but we know what usually happens when I make promises.

TL;DR – I had an incredible time off, but I’m back in Korea teaching at an alternative school and loving it! Also, I’m sorry for not posting to this blog too often.

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Thank you – To the volunteers who built a family

Posted on May 17, 2017 by brianwongderlust

When we were building the schools and then realised we built our second home too.
~ Gréta Čandová

Photo credit: Pam Gamboa

One of the beautiful byproducts of building a school in a relatively remote mountain village with only thirty volunteers has been the campsite home we created and the family who filled it throughout the project.

When I left Project Leyte in the Philippines, I wrote a post to remember the volunteers who had impacted me the most, and as I sit in this pizza restaurant on my last night in Kathmandu, it feels appropriate to reflect on the ones who have been such a positive force this time around. And I recognize that all of the words I write will never be enough to thank all of the volunteers for creating the hope that this world needs, but I wish for this post to be a start.

So thank you.

Thank you to the best Project Director in existence, who made both Leyte and Sindhupalchowk the most magical bases in the world. I will forever think of you washing your shoes when I hear that one Nepali song.

Thank you to the two English blokes for filling the campfire air with your nonstop after-work banter. May your Nepali experience and biscuit tattoos never fade.

Thank you to the fall Frenchman who found the sixty rupee chow mein place in Kathmandu. Your inappropriate question of the day suggestions were très magnifique.

Thank you to the girl who hates when people say “Why lahk diss?” I was sad to miss you in Thailand, but I’ll see you in Australia ;).

Thank you to the volunteer who messaged me while I was in Thailand, telling me you were flying back to Nepal to finish the school. It was just the push I needed to buy a ticket myself. Hope to see you in Australia as well!

Thank you to the team lead who embodies the very definition and every value of what it means to be an All Hands Volunteer. We will never forget your Uptown Funk and tribal raksi dances.

Thank you to the landscaper who was never anybody but herself. How I wish we could have seen you dance at the handover but how I have so much respect for you that you never let anyone pressure you into anything you didn’t want to do.

Thank you to the girl with blue hair who took a leap of faith. You can do more than you ever thought possible if you continue to seek the company of positive people.

Thank you to the Alaskan couple who built their own house for showing up and taking the project by storm. You have been role models to so many of us – I hope I am half as cool as you two when I eventually grow up.

Thank you to the backpack hoarder who brings the best beats with her wherever she goes – even to the toilet. Just let me know when your knee heals and we’ll conquer the circuit together.

Thank you to my Pokhara roommate for the peanut brittle. I will forever think of you when I hear the word “biscuit,” and for some reason, also “Jaffa Cake.”

Thank you to the girl with two names who spoke to me from the other side of the toilet. I feel like I met you in the Philippines, but I didn’t know you until Nepal.

Thank you to the girl who taught us how to move our hips at culture night. Your English is so much better than you give yourself credit for.

Thank you to the girl who is returning home early to surprise her friends and family. I think it’s impossible for anyone to look at your smile without smiling back themselves.

Thank you to the volunteer I met in the Philippines who has graduated to pre-con staff in Nepal. It was a relief to see that your heart hasn’t changed – that you still dance and laugh like the breath of fresh air I met a year and a half ago.

Thank you to the girl who unintentionally sang me to sleep and taught me about astronauts. You were the only one to stop and watch the stars with me.

Thank you to the kindest base manager and human being (read: angel) I’m convinced I will ever meet in my entire life. The way you approach life and see humanity is the most beautiful thing I have ever witnessed. You deserve a mountain, a hammock, and all of the wonderful experiences I’m sure you have in store for you.

Thank you to my partner in sickness and in dance. I tried your slack line when no one was looking and fell on my ass.

Thank you to the poet with three stars on his water bottle and to the architect who didn’t tell us until she left. Thank you to the PM who will head straight to another project, and thank you to the PC who will do the same. Thank you to the woman who wanted to take a picture of us mooning the camera and thank you to the woman who refused to have it happen. It’s probably better that image doesn’t exist anyway. Thank you to the English couple I met in January and the English couple I met in April who somehow met up in Kathmandu – ping pong and toilet trench alliteration buddies for life! Thank you to the volunteer who left and returned more times than I can count, to the volunteer who extended until the end, and to the volunteer who stayed the whole time. Thank you to the German couple who taught us how to make bread on sticks and the girl whose last name is a different color than her Facebook profile leads you to believe. Thank you to the girl with cactus in her toe who still walks around barefoot and thank you to the woman who shouted my name from the campfire when I came back. Thank you to the musician with the beautiful voice and thank you to “Samantha.” Thank you to the cute bear and thank you to the ping pong master (you’ve still never beaten me though you’ve still never played me either).

And thank you to the rest of you crazy-beautiful outdoorsy morning/not-so-morning people for making all of this possible. We built a school, we built a washroom, we built a playground.

High up in the mountains, across a scary suspension bridge, sitting on a rice terrace, we pitched tents, threw up a few showers and toilets, and we called it a base. But it wasn’t until you showed up that this bamboo and CGI camp site started to feel like a home. And through culture nights, tea time chatter, and early-morning bowls of porridge, we filled it with memories. The kinds of memories that will stick with us for a lifetime.

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The end of an era: A goodbye speech

Posted on May 17, 2017 by brianwongderlust

The dreaded goodbye speech. How can anyone put such a life-altering experience into words and then share it with a group of people you cant say goodbye to without breaking down into tears?

I ended up writing my goodbye speech down on scraps of paper before reading it to a campfire of puffy eyes and nostalgic minds. And as I breathed the last words into the fire pit in front of me, I realized that the tears in my eyes and the stuttering in my speech probably hid the fact that what I had written was intended to be a poem. So, here it is.

Photo credit: Pam Gamboa

The first time I left this place,
I had a pit in my stomach
that ended up lasting for two months.
The cure, as it turns out,
ended up being a plane back to Kathmandu
and a bus back to Sindhupalchowk.
And when I looked across the rice terraces
and spotted the rows of tents up the hill,
I knew I was home.

But when I woke up in these mountains for the second time this year,
there were new faces.
New colors added to the rainbow of tents
that I never knew existed.
And there were old colors too.
Ones who planted roots and grew with the school they built.
There was a school where there once was a pile of dirt,
and there was a brick building where there was once one made of CGI.
There was an empty patch of land where I remembered an office,
and there were four toilets where I remembered an empty patch of land.
But we still had dal bhat for lunch,
we still ate flat rice on Wednesdays,
and I still felt the same sense of peace sipping tea around the fire after work.
Everything had changed, except nothing had.

And you became my new family.
Each from different corners of this wonderful world,
brought together on this side of a mountain for one shared purpose:
To build the school.
And though each of you come from different countries,
different villages,
at different phases in your lives,
with different reasons for traveling,
you are all such inspiring,
hardworking,
crazy-wonderful,
amazing human beings.

You are stunning,
you are breathtaking,
and you are beautiful.

When you are covered in sweat,
pushing wheelbarrows of sand and gravel,
you are beautiful.
When you are mixing cement in full gear,
with a face mask and fake tattoo sleeves,
you are beautiful.
When you are cleaning toilets with a rubber glove,
or plastered from head to toe in oil based paints,
you are beautiful.
When you haven’t shit in twelve days,
or you can’t stop shitting twelve times a day,
you are beautiful.
And when you dance to “Free Tibet” when the day is done
and the school is handed over,
you are beautiful.

You are the most beautiful souls in this universe,
and you have done something incredible on this mountainside.
And as tonight ends,
and we go our separate ways,
remember the beautiful legacy you leave.

You finished this project.
You changed these lives.
You built this school.
You made a difference.

And maybe, one day in the future,
we can do it again sometime.

Posted in Nepal, travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Why I came back

Posted on May 17, 2017 by brianwongderlust

Photo credit: Britany Marin (Instagram)

In late January, I spent the shortest amount of time I have ever spent on an All Hands Volunteers project – six days. It was a whirlwind of excitement: From cold bucket showers to shitting in a hole to hanging out after work by a roaring fire under the clear night sky, everything about those six days seemed magical. So when I learned that the project would be finishing sometime in April, I decided to book a flight to help out for the last few weeks after another friend had told me he would be returning as well. But that’s not the only reason…

I came back to finish the school.

I came back because home is a bright blue t-shirt with paint smudges and pit stains from its previous owners.

I came back because there are two teenage girls in the village by our campsite who are the strongest-willed English students I may have ever taught.

I came back because I’ve never seen stars as bright as the ones above our tents at night or the ones in the eyes of the children running down the hill to school in the morning.

I came back because there was a mountain I had seen but had yet to climb; a view from the rocks above of the school we built below.

I came back because Ru came back. Because Gréta came back. Because Sergio came back. Because Jack came back. Because it’s impossible to stay away from something so unanimously positive and wonderful for everyone involved.

I came back because rum is seventy cents a bottle, and evening fireside banter is priceless.

I came back because I witnessed people from six different continents working together as equals. As friends. As family.

I came back because sometimes you meet someone who changes your life for good and you want nothing more than to meet them for a second time.

I came back because my first time on project, a girl sang a lullaby as I drifted into dreams, and I fell in love with a sunrise the next morning.

I came back because happiness has many forms, and one of them is momos and chili chips with friends around a campfire.

I came back because, “It’s for the kids.” We said it every so often throughout the project, but it really was for the kids. From the kids who lived right by the school and watched us build it brick by brick to the ones who would trek for hours up and down the mountain to reach our finished building. The kids who have lost houses, family, and friends to an unforgiving earthen thunder, but still smile and laugh while asking “Whatisyourname?” and teaching you their secret handshake. It’s for the kids whose mothers run out of the house screaming when a tremor shakes the earth, and whose families banded together to rebuild houses and communities before we even arrived. It’s for the kids who have experienced the unfair cruelties that life can bring, but have also experienced the hope that people can create together when faced with unrelenting disaster.

I came back to help create this hope.

And I came back because I will always keep coming back – to the Philippines, Nepal, Peru, the USA, or wherever the next big disaster hits. Because there are people all around this world who are forced into survival mode by sudden acts of nature. People who don’t have any other choice but to rebuild what has been lost.

I came back because I do have a choice, and for as long as I am able, I will continue to make it.

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What have I been doing for the past month?

Posted on March 30, 2017 by brianwongderlust

If you follow me on Instagram or know me personally, you’ve heard that I packed up my belongings and left Korea on March 8th. For the past month, I’ve been living in Chiang Mai, Thailand and volunteering on a farm in Mae Wang, about 40km from the main city. The story of why I left Korea and how I ended up on this farm is long and complicated, but it’s probably about time I tell it. Each section comes with a nifty TL;DR section if you don’t want to know every single detail of my life.

Why did I leave Korea?

I was teaching English in South Korea at a public school through the EPIK program. When I signed my contract last year, I was tied to my school for exactly one year, and the option to renew for an additional year presented itself in December 2016. I have to admit, I was tempted to sign the papers and stay another year – my rent was paid for, I was saving a good amount of money every month, and I loved my kids. But in my past, I have had a tendency to settle for the most comfortable option, instead of seeking out the correct one. And as much as I would have been comfortable in my stable Korean teaching job, I wasn’t sure I was going to be learning anything new.

The curriculum would remain the same. My co-teachers would remain the same. And from what I understood, we would be doing many of the same activities we had done over the past year, just with new students. Classes would be taught based on the same book, with the same television in the front of the classroom and only slightly different PowerPoint presentations, altered for quality but never remade. As a teacher, I had this lingering feeling that there was more I could do in a different environment. If I was only thinking about my financial stability, healthcare availability, and quality of living, I might have signed the renewal offer, but there is more to life than that.

I do miss Korea, but it was the right choice to leave.

So I didn’t sign the renewal contract. Instead, I was on my own to figure out my next steps. I had a few leads in different countries – working for a nonprofit, volunteering for food and housing, traveling and having an extended holiday, teaching in another school or in another country, or moving to another country first and finding a job afterwards.

Tl;DR: I left Korea because the world is big and there is more to learn in other countries or jobs. Staying would have been settling for comfort over personal growth.

Why did I go to Thailand?

I’m at a point in my life where I don’t know what I want for a career. What I do know is that I want to continue traveling, continue learning, and continue helping others. Whatever form this takes is fine by me. It’s not a lot to go off of, but it nudged me in the direction away from another year in Korean public school.

I met a man in Nepal back in August who identified as something called a “Digital Nomad,” or someone who works mainly through the internet, maintaining a location independent lifestyle. Digital Nomads can be online teachers, web developers, virtual assistants, business owners, or any job that doesn’t require a physical presence in a single place. This man was a mobile app developer, and he took freelance jobs to fund his travel, working his way from place to place and volunteering in his free time. Needless to say, I was inspired by this and set it as a temporary end goal.

Co-working space in Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai, located in Northern Thailand, is a hub for Digital Nomads, with co-working spaces and expats popping up there over the past years. I visited Thailand on holiday while working in Korea, and I liked Chiang Mai enough to decide to move there and see if I could catch the Digital Nomad bug, maybe working with an already-established business owner in return for learning new skills that could make me location independent. The extremely low cost of living helped as well – it is possible to get a private room in a hostel for about $130 a month, and meals can be budgeted to be about $1 a meal.

…and it’s delicious

Anyway, that was the original plan, but we all know that life is mysterious and unpredictable, so it’s not exactly what ended up happening. Prior to leaving South Korea, I fell in love with a potential job in a private school in Seoul. Different from public schools, this private “alternative” school followed no government curriculum and didn’t even administer tests or quantitative assessments. The aim of Korean alternative schools is to provide education for students who do not do well in the traditional Korean school system. Each student learns best in his or her own way, and these schools try to identify these differences and help the students thrive. If I had to compare it to something back in the USA, I would say it is similar to a charter school, but it is its own thing in its own right.

Either way, this alternative school had an opening for an English teacher. The position would be responsible for teaching English, but also other subjects in English, such as debate or maybe even science. I would be able to design my own curriculum and even pitch entire courses to the school that I would be able to teach if they were approved. This school’s vision and how they approach education was so different from anything I had ever experienced in Korea that I knew I had to give it a shot, so I applied.

After meeting the departing native English teacher, some of the faculty, and sitting in on classes for a day at the school, I was told that the school couldn’t hire me immediately because of budget reasons, but they wanted me to return in a few months and see how they were doing then. In the meantime, one of the teachers at the alternative school had family in Chiang Mai, so they suggested I look them up to see if we could connect. So, another reason to move to Thailand presented itself, and I took it as a sign.

TL;DR: Digital Nomadism, Alternative Schools, a fantastic holiday, affordable living, and warmer climate all led me to Thailand.

What have I been doing for the past month in Chiang Mai?

I ended up looking up the Korean family in Chiang Mai, and it turns out they own a farm that they are prepping to open for farm stays and spiritual retreats. But before I met up with the family, I had a few days to spend in Chiang Mai on my own, so I hit the Digital Nomad scene, checking out some of the co-working spaces and trying my hand at some web development. I ended up building my own website that I can update and hopefully use later on in life to get some contracts as a digital nomad once I build up my portfolio.

Working at CAMP, co-working space

When I finally met up with the family and moved all of my belongings to the farm, I learned that the husband lived on the farm alone while his wife and three daughters lived in a house closer to downtown Chiang Mai in order to be closer to their school. As a result, I have spent a lot of time with him and less time with the rest of the family. The farm, located in a part of Chiang Mai called Mae Wang (40km from the main city) is called the Eco Healing Farm, and is based on an Eco School that the husband helped run back in Korea.

Natural beauty on the Eco Healing Farm

When the farm is completed, they will offer anywhere from one day stays to month stays where visitors can partake in yoga, meditation, massage, and many other activities around the farm. All food served on the farm will be grown in the organic garden or sourced from local farmers. The farm stay program will serve as a place for visitors to disconnect from the busy world around them and connect with the natural beauty of the Thai countryside.

Beauty around the countryside

But my time on the farm has been spent mostly on construction of guest houses/a clay oven as well as helping the farmer out with a website. While my personal site is fairly basic, I have been working on a website for the farm for much longer. By the time I leave, most of the site will be functional, with the exception of some of the language translations for foreign visitors. On weekends (and when our water pump system breaks…which has happened about three times so far), we visit the rest of his family and see the sites around Chiang Mai or work on the website in the city’s co-working spaces. Either way, I am continuing to learn a lot, from web design all the way to some of the Korean language while volunteering on this farm.

When we are on the farm, we interact with the local community pretty often, from visiting the markets to purchase fresh produce to sitting at restaurants and enjoying a $1 meal. The farmer has been in the area for about a year and a half, so he has built up some great relationships with the locals, even though communicating with a common language is often difficult. But every time we get on his motorbike or in his truck to drive around Mae Wang, the wind rushes past my face and I feel thankful for this opportunity. I’ve started to prefer living and experiencing day to day life in foreign countries over coming as a tourist, so this has definitely been a great decision.

TL;DR: I’ve been volunteering on a farm with construction as well as learning how to code so I can make websites and hopefully eventually become location independent.

What will I do when I leave Thailand?

Unfortunately, my stay in Thailand is limited to 30 days at a time (with an extension opportunity that I didn’t learn about until I had purchased an exit flight already), so I will be leaving Thailand on April 5th. Right now, my next steps are a little bit of a secret that I’ll be using to surprise some people, but suffice it to say I will be staying in Asia.

While I do have some savings, I prefer not to spend so much at a time, so I’ll be looking to live in places that are equally affordable (and perhaps find myself back in Thailand sometime soon). I’m looking to volunteer or find a paid opportunity to do some web design, so if you know anything, let me know!

I’ve also been in contact with the alternative school in Korea and while they are still not ready to bring me on board, it does sound like the opportunity may present itself in the coming months, so I am staying optimistic about that. Until then, I’ll keep a backpack by my side and a sense of adventure in my heart.

TL;DR: Haha, I can’t tell you.

So, that’s my life right now. Love you all! Sorry for the lack of posts!

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The hardest part of leaving

Posted on March 8, 2017 by brianwongderlust

This isn’t my first time here.
This isn’t my last time here.
These aren’t the last words I’ll share.
But just in case, I’m trying my hardest to get it right this time around.
~ Sarah Kay

The hardest part of leaving is deciding which lie to tell.
See you soon, I’ll visit you later, my couch is always open.
Everywhere I go, I hear echoes from nomadic mouths
Telling me that people are like moments:
Existing only in a short second
Only for a short part of the journey
Before disappearing into a scrapbook
Buried in the backs of our minds.
All of the hopes of reuniting and promises to keep in touch
Are just lies we tell ourselves to make goodbye feel a little bit easier.
It’s better to just plan on missing each other instead.

But the first time I walked away,
With my bags full of dirty laundry
And the air full of open promises,
I told everyone that it wasn’t over.
That we’d find another island.
Another beach.
Another rooftop.
And we’d fall asleep under the stars once more.

And though these words were only meant for a few,
They are uttered to every kind soul I’ve met.
And I’m still trying my hardest
To make good on all of the open invitations that have escaped my mouth.
And I’m aiming to make sure these words of hope
Of friendship, of reconnecting, of more than just single moments
Are heard by the ones who need to hear them.

My passport reads like an open-ended novel,
With chapters filled with indecision and countless options,
Linking each new place to dozens of new possibilities.
And yours,
Well, yours weaves in and out of countries and continents
Along rivers and through valleys
Searching for something that only you can know.

Our stories are separate and our moments are isolated
But if we want, we can make them intersect every so often.
The world is only as big as we think it is.
And as I plan the next steps of this journey,
It’s easy to lie and say one day I’ll see you again,
With no intent to follow through on that blanket promise we make with every new passport stamp.

But we aren’t that kind of moment, and this isn’t that kind of goodbye.
We make the effort for the people we think are worth it.
So if I tell you that I’ll see you again,
Keep your head forward and your eyes on the next journey,
And I’ll meet you somewhere along the way.

Posted in Korea, Thailand | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Swipe right if you want to go on an adventure

Posted on February 28, 2017 by brianwongderlust

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Swipe right if you want to go on an adventure.

Climb aboard this red-striped bus, and we’ll watch this town disappear in the rearview mirror. There’s so much more to this country than city lights, so sit next to me and share this private movie screen as the landscape passes us by. Watch the country open up before us on straight roads lined with rice paddies and unopened photo albums. We’ll find a small town that no one’s ever heard of and fill our news feeds with wanderlust-laced beauty. Let’s visit a land before computers, where history meets tradition and the slow life swallows us whole. We have a map and an afternoon, so let’s find something to remember.

Climb with me to the top of this mountain, the tip of this rock whose brothers and sisters have claimed the land around us. Lay down a mat, lie beside me, and let’s paint the clouds with stories from our pasts. Unpack a bottle of soju, a bag of rice crackers, and fill the air with words and laughter while we gaze out at the horizon. Rest your legs and feel the ground beneath us, solid, firm, and unmoving. We are warriors. We are conquerors. We are explorers and pioneers charting these forests with our sneakers. Empty the bottle slowly, for the trail has twists and turns and we must make it back before sunset.

Grab this day planner and draft a weekend with me. Let’s dream of unseen lands and faraway customs – experiences for many but tradition for few. Run your hand along these murals, and feel years and years of paint, reapplied over time to roughly resemble what lies beneath. Tables with warm food and muted laughter, secrets held by those who have swallowed these delicacies for centuries with family and friends. Lay out a sleeping bag and sleep with the stars, the sticks, the stones, the trees, and the temples. Let’s look for something different from the flashing lights and the wifi-enabled beaches in the countryside of this nation. Follow me down this dirt road and turn left at the fork.

Let’s write a history book for the people who live in houses. The ones whose reflections follow them around the fields, knee-deep in water with steady hands and open hearts. Listen to their stories and breathe in their pages, written by ancestors and passed down through whispers and bedtime tales. Travel back to a simpler time, and note that life only gets complicated because we make it so. And when the sun kisses the tops of the mountains, rest your head on the window, and let these wheels take us home.

Swipe right if you’re looking for an adventure, and let’s find one together.

Originally posted on Thought Catalog.

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An open letter to the Korean students I didn’t teach

Posted on February 16, 2017 by brianwongderlust
Empty chairs at empty tables

Empty chairs at empty tables

During my last classes at my elementary school in Korea, I made sure my students heard a few choice words from me in the form of a farewell speech. This open letter is a summary of those words, posted online so other teachers may share with their students if they think it is appropriate.

Dear student,

Right now, it may seem like getting good grades and doing well on tests are the most important things in the world. You’ve been living in a cycle of continuous education that tells you this, and it’s reinforced every single day. You wake up in the morning, go to school, go to afterschool classes or private academies, and then you go home and do homework until you fall asleep, only to wake up the next morning and do it all again. Some of you even went to private academies during summer and winter vacation instead of taking time off from school.

And I get it – when you spend so much time at school or working on homework, it’s logical to think that grades are important. They’re the reason you are working so hard after all. And in this society, in this world, they are important. But they’re not the most important. Don’t study so hard that you forget to learn something in the process.

Someday, someone is going to give you a grade and tell you that it’s what you are worth. That your future, your university, and your potential jobs are determined by this grade, and that it defines you. This grade will tell you what you are and what you can be. And your friends and your classmates will believe it.

But I want to tell you right now that you are more than this. You are more than a number or letter, more than the results of a single exam on a single given day. Your worth cannot be measured by any educational assessment. You are more than something that someone else tells you that you are.

You are your likes and dislikes, your interests, and your hobbies. You are the things that make you smile and the things that make you cry. You are the people that you love and the ones who love you back in return. You are your favorite song, your favorite food, and your favorite movie. You are the things that make you different from everyone else, and these are the things that make you special.

Remember to be different. Everyone goes to school, studies hard, and tries to get good grades. Everyone takes tests and focuses on academic excellence. But not everyone plays guitar. Not everyone likes science, and not everyone likes English. Not everyone wants to travel the world and not everyone wants to be a diplomat or an ambassador. The dreams you have and the activities you do outside of any school building or classroom will tell you more about yourself than any letter or number grade ever will.

And when it comes down to it, these differences are what will set you apart from everyone else. If you are worried that grades will determine your future, I want to tell you that your passions and interests will shape your future self much more than your test scores. Both are important, but only one can make you happy.

So remember to work hard, but also remember to be different. Find the things you like to do and do them. Find the friends and family you love and be with them. Find the things that make you different and be yourself.

And you will do wonderful things.

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Bachchhala Devi Project Overview

Posted on February 12, 2017 by brianwongderlust
Artsy shot of the work area for Bachchhala Devi

Artsy shot of the work area for Bachchhala Devi

The main project at the Sindhupalchowk All Hands base is a school build named Bachchhala Devi, which is broken down into three smaller projects. The main school building we are making will be three classrooms built on one floor. It will supplement an already-standing permanent structure and a temporary structure currently supporting about 300 students. We are using a building design from an organization called Room to Read, as the design has already been approved by the Nepali government. The building will have a concrete foundation and brick walls, which will be reinforced by a layer of concrete all the way around the building every few layers of bricks. The second subproject is to build a bathroom with the WASH initiative, which is trying to install separate bathrooms in schools for boys and girls in different countries. Lastly, we are rebuilding a retaining wall for a structure built by JICA, a Japanese organization that built a temporary building for the school after the earthquake. The current retaining wall has been damaged, so we will need to repair it. This project as a whole is sponsored by two organizations – The Lincoln Schools and Happy Hearts, who are funding part of the project.

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Main school build – will be one structure with one floor an three classrooms

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(Left) Existing permanent school structure (Right) Temporary structure built by JICA (Straight) WASH bathroom location

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Just by this old building is the old retaining wall for the JICA structure that we need to repair

Rebuilding the retaining wall means digging a new trench, which means breaking some rocks buried in the ground!

Rebuilding the retaining wall means digging a new trench, which means breaking some rocks buried in the ground!

The project site is a mere ten minute walk from our lovely base, and all supplies and tools are kept on site so we don’t have to bring supplies with us in the morning. About every day, building materials are brought directly to site on a truck, and volunteers work to unload them. While I was on base, we received deliveries of sand, gravel, concrete, and bricks on different days.

The project site is in an area near the town of Bharabise called Sano Sakhuwa, and it is absolutely beautiful. We are on the side of a mountain, and you can even see parts of Tibet in the distance. Most of the surrounding community is above us on the mountain, and there is mountainside farmland below our site.

The day is broken up into four working segments. We have breakfast on base in the morning, then head to site at 7:30. We work until our mid-morning water break, which lasts 15 minutes. We then work again until lunch, where we walk back to base and to a local family’s home, who serve us Dal Bhat. We then hang out around base for a while before returning to the work site at 12:45. We work the rest of the afternoon until 4:00 with one 15-minute water break in the middle. Then we head back to base, take bucket showers (if you want…it’s quite common to go days without a shower, or that’s what I told myself anyway) and have a meeting at 6:00 to go through the day’s accomplishments, tomorrow’s goals, new people, leaving people, and any random meeting topics people want to talk about. Dinner soon follows, which is by the school site, and then we have free time for the rest of night.

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Water break!

Other side projects going around base while I was in Sindhupalchowk included a fence around base to prevent untimely falls down the mountain, stair construction and repairs around base to help volunteers navigate our space better, and bathroom construction and pit digging, since our main bathroom pit was filling up.

I was also given the opportunity to use my teaching skills while I was here, as some of the volunteers had been helping the kids around base learn English after the work day had ended. Around 4:00, we went to the house where we had lunch each day to teach English to two sixteen-year-old girls, Rupa and Sabita, as well as any other surprise visitors who stopped by. It was such a different experience from teaching large groups of kids in Korea. Instead, a volunteer from Slovakia, a volunteer from Colombia, and I taught a small group of kids basic English vocabulary and phrases from what they were learning at the time in school to whatever words they wanted to lean. The kids were older than the younger group I teach in Korea, but they were so heavily engaged and curious that it was refreshing to teach them. This part of volunteering especially moved me, as I wanted to stay and teach every day, but I was only there for a week and wasn’t able to build up much of a teaching base during that time. But I walked away from this experience inspired and filled with hope – here we were in the middle of the mountains, and volunteers were taking their free time after a long 8-hour day of working in the sun to teach these kids. In a world full of corruption and power struggle, there were still these kind people who want nothing more than to help others, and there were still these curious souls wanting nothing more than to learn what others were willing to teach. I don’t know where my life will lead me, but if I have any more experiences like this one, then I know I’m on the right track.

On a completely different note, while I was on site, we had enough volunteers to try to build a ping pong table as a side project. The entire project would have taken about a day, but our working time was cut short by rain. The basic premise was simple – we would dig holes for the feet of the table, which would be built out of bamboo, and then use a sheet of plywood as the table surface. We’d paint the plywood to protect it from water, and then make a net in the center of the table with more plywood. One of our volunteers knew basic table dimensions so we tried to make it as close to regulation size as our spare materials would let us. Before the rain, we were able to get the feet sturdily in the ground, and we finished construction of the table top and net. We didn’t have enough time to paint it, and as it was my last day on site I wasn’t able to see the table through to completion, but we did have a functional product to use when the rain stopped. Check it out!

Functional ping pong table! Not yet painted, but still able to be used

Functional (and level!) ping pong table! Not yet painted, but still able to be used

The first official game!

The first official game!

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Sindhupalchowk, Nepal Base Overview

Posted on February 5, 2017 by brianwongderlust
All Hands Sindhupalchowk

All Hands Sindhupalchowk

After taking a bus for five hours away from Kathmandu, I arrived in Bharabise, the closest town to the All Hands Sindhupalchowk base. From there, I caught another bus for forty minutes up rocky, sandy terrain to put me closer to base, but still not quite there. The mountain this bus climbed (astonishingly, without breaking down or slipping) was so rocky and sandy that a group of volunteers who had hired a private car to base the day before had to get out of their car and push it up when they became stuck.

Made it to Bharabise, but still a while until base!

Made it to Bharabise, but still a while until base!

I finally reached Sano Sakhuwa after asking the bus driver where we were at each stop, and I hopped off the bus to find myself on a dusty road, with a mountain on one side and a steep drop to a rushing river on the other.

Bus stop near Sano Sakhuwa

Bus stop near Sano Sakhuwa

The only directions you need to get to base

The only directions you need to get to base

Further along the road, a steep slope led to some crudely-formed stairs, leading to my worst nightmare, a suspension bridge swinging freely as the only way of passage to the other side of the river.

Gulp. Almost there.

Gulp. Almost there.

A wobbly sprint across and a few dozen steep mountain-side stairs later, I arrived at the All Hands base.

Home sweet home

Home sweet home

It was a little different from the other bases I had been to in the past, as there was no brick and mortar building for us to live in, but rather a few dozen tents and a few free standing structures made of bamboo and CGI. Luckily for me, a bunkhouse had been finished two weeks earlier, so I didn’t have to bring a tent to base. Another bonus was that the worksite was a simple walk away – in only five minutes, we could get to and from the school site!

Tents!

Tents!

The base was centered around a fire pit, with most of the tents pitched in a semi-circle around the pit. Next to the tents, there was a stand-alone kitchen with a table area for food. On the other edge of the tents was the bunkhouse, holding several bunks for volunteers without tents. As the dirt in our area was particularly dusty, the floor of the bunkhouse was coated with a combination of buffalo feces and clay to make a smooth dust-free surface. Luckily, I didn’t find this out until the end of my stay, and there was no apparent smell.

Inside the cozy bunkhouse

Inside the cozy bunkhouse

Our showers, bathrooms, and toolshed were all made of the same magic bamboo and CGI as the other structures, and a garden to grow fresh vegetables was in the works. Our toilets were built over a massive pit, so all of our waste would be collected under the bamboo structure, while our showers were built over a series of buckets and pipes, draining excess water into a different pit nearby. We had no running water, so we took bucket showers comprised of part boiling water from a kettle and part cold water from a nearby water source. Our drinking water was also from the nearby water source, but was filtered by some strange box that seemed to work, as I avoided the usual stomach problems that come with international travel.

Shower stalls. Bring a bucket inside!

Shower stalls. Bring a bucket inside!

Toilet! Was relieved to see it wasn't just a hole in the ground! Yes, I did bring my camera into the bathroom. No, nobody saw me (I hope).

Toilet! Was relieved to see it wasn’t just a hole in the ground! Yes, I did bring my camera into the bathroom. No, nobody saw me (I hope).

Kitchen

Kitchen

Magic water filtration thingy

Magic water filtration thingy

During the day, we charged small solar powered box lights in the sun so that when night fell we had some source of light. Because these were the only lights apart from the fire pit, they were strategically strewn about the base in places like the bathrooms and path to the bathrooms. However, the solar charges only lasted until a little after 2:00am, so I avoided drinking a lot of water before bed to avoid the walk in the pure darkness.

Base life = best life

Base life = best life

Life on base was dirty, dusty, and a little bit smelly, but I’d never felt more at home. There’s something about living with the kindest strangers from all around the world with no wifi and limited electricity that made me feel like I was exactly where I wanted to be. I feel like with the hectic nomadic life I have chosen, teaching students and visiting as many countries as I can manage, it’s nice to get a break every so often to return to a place I can call home. And home doesn’t have to be a place where you know everyone, or even anyone at all. Home doesn’t have to be a place you grew up, or even a place you have been before. Home is, simply put, a place you feel at home. A place familiar and comfortable, where even the simplest things can put a smile on your face.

So as I sat down in a pile of dust, reclining in the dirt as it covered my clothes while the sun shone on my face, as I sat by a fire with a cup of tea after a long day of work with friendly strangers, as I laughed with faces hidden by the darkness as curfew rapidly approached, as I laid on the ground and stared at the clear night sky, filled with stars I never knew existed, I caught myself smiling, because I had found my way home.

...and I will be back

…and I will be back

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