When I first arrived to Korea, one of the first questions that my co-teacher asked me was whether I wanted to have a portion of my salary applied towards school lunches. Due to the language barrier and his lack of fluency in English, I was a bit confused by this idea. However, this turned out to be one of the things I liked the most about Korea!
A very small amount is deducted from my paycheck each month and in return, I was provided with an individual carton of milk each morning, and served a hot lunch every afternoon. Lunch always included rice, soup, kimchi and a bunch of different side dishes. The lunch ladies work very hard to churn out enough food for the entire school, and there always seemed to be enough, even if you wanted seconds.
It took me a little while to get used to the whole thing. The food was different from what I knew, and I had never eaten off of a silver tray before either. The first time I saw it, it made me feel like a bit of a prisoner but I slowly came to realize that it was very common in Asia. After a couple of months, I started really looking forward to what was on the menu each day. I figured I had a chance to try many Korean foods that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to, since I wouldn’t have known about some of this stuff. It also made it so easy in that I never had to worry about bringing lunch to school. In the time I spent in Korea, I never learned to like kimchi that much, so I would often refuse it and have an empty spot on my tray.
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