By Matt Minor
My mother-in-law has an expression she uses when people stay up too late, drink too much, and talk for hours on end about nothing in particular. Usually after a family gathering that goes into the late hours, she will greet me the next morning with a smile and say, “I heard you guys were up ´talking smart´ last night.” Normally she is spot on in her sarcastic assessment of our trivial banter, but one February weekend in 2016, my buddy Dunc and I actually did “talk smart” for once. The ideas from that long balcony conversation led to the production of this book.
When I moved to Korea in 2008, one of the first friends I made was Kevin Duncan. Although we only spent two years in the same country, our friendship has developed and strengthened through hundreds of conversations in the jungles of Laos, over color-filled sunsets in rural America, and on seaside balconies overlooking the Gulf of Thailand. When I met my wife Cailin, she joined us in our love of telling stories and making each other laugh. When Cailin and I eventually left Korea, we decided to make an effort to stay in touch with some of the core people who made our experience memorable. Our group of six international educators--who are now spread out over five countries--reunite every summer in a different city. A majority of what the “Korea Crew” does is sit around and entertain one another with interesting tales of students, travel, and experiences from the previous school year. So it wasn’t a totally foreign idea in February of 2016 when Dunc pitched the idea of creating a book of short stories from international teachers around the world.
By the time we finished “talking smart” on that balcón in Medellin, the goals for the book were set: to entertain, to enlighten, and to promote education. We wanted to entertain readers with intriguing stories from a collection of international teachers, to enlighten our families, friends, travelers, and prospective international school teachers by sharing what life is like for people in our profession, and to raise money to educate orphans in a country where opportunities and resources are limited.
Unlike most of our genius ideas (Me: “Let’s open a beach bar near an international school so teachers can grade essays with their toes in the sand!”), this one actually had a chance. Over the course of a few hours we began to recognize personal experiences worth sharing: signing a two-year contract to live in a country we’d never visited, Dunc’s roommate risking his life to save another teacher from a potentially deadly insect bite, entrusting our lives in the hands of a jungle guide who spoke a language we couldn’t quite comprehend, or experiencing the loss of my father when I was 2,500 miles from home. Our idea suddenly seemed like both a source of entertainment and a free therapy session.
Our plan for this book is to give 100% of our proceeds directly to the “Children of Haiti Project” that provides an education and learning environment that all children deserve. The overseas world has given us all so much; we are excited to have a chance to give back.
Sometimes when I talk with people from home they think I am in a “travel phase” before starting my own family or that I am getting something out of my system by living abroad. 9 years since first moving overseas, I have to disagree with them. This journey has helped shape who I am now and who I will become. To quote J.R.R. Tolkien, “Not all those who wander are lost."
My mother-in-law has an expression she uses when people stay up too late, drink too much, and talk for hours on end about nothing in particular. Usually after a family gathering that goes into the late hours, she will greet me the next morning with a smile and say, “I heard you guys were up ´talking smart´ last night.” Normally she is spot on in her sarcastic assessment of our trivial banter, but one February weekend in 2016, my buddy Dunc and I actually did “talk smart” for once. The ideas from that long balcony conversation led to the production of this book.
When I moved to Korea in 2008, one of the first friends I made was Kevin Duncan. Although we only spent two years in the same country, our friendship has developed and strengthened through hundreds of conversations in the jungles of Laos, over color-filled sunsets in rural America, and on seaside balconies overlooking the Gulf of Thailand. When I met my wife Cailin, she joined us in our love of telling stories and making each other laugh. When Cailin and I eventually left Korea, we decided to make an effort to stay in touch with some of the core people who made our experience memorable. Our group of six international educators--who are now spread out over five countries--reunite every summer in a different city. A majority of what the “Korea Crew” does is sit around and entertain one another with interesting tales of students, travel, and experiences from the previous school year. So it wasn’t a totally foreign idea in February of 2016 when Dunc pitched the idea of creating a book of short stories from international teachers around the world.
By the time we finished “talking smart” on that balcón in Medellin, the goals for the book were set: to entertain, to enlighten, and to promote education. We wanted to entertain readers with intriguing stories from a collection of international teachers, to enlighten our families, friends, travelers, and prospective international school teachers by sharing what life is like for people in our profession, and to raise money to educate orphans in a country where opportunities and resources are limited.
Unlike most of our genius ideas (Me: “Let’s open a beach bar near an international school so teachers can grade essays with their toes in the sand!”), this one actually had a chance. Over the course of a few hours we began to recognize personal experiences worth sharing: signing a two-year contract to live in a country we’d never visited, Dunc’s roommate risking his life to save another teacher from a potentially deadly insect bite, entrusting our lives in the hands of a jungle guide who spoke a language we couldn’t quite comprehend, or experiencing the loss of my father when I was 2,500 miles from home. Our idea suddenly seemed like both a source of entertainment and a free therapy session.
Our plan for this book is to give 100% of our proceeds directly to the “Children of Haiti Project” that provides an education and learning environment that all children deserve. The overseas world has given us all so much; we are excited to have a chance to give back.
Sometimes when I talk with people from home they think I am in a “travel phase” before starting my own family or that I am getting something out of my system by living abroad. 9 years since first moving overseas, I have to disagree with them. This journey has helped shape who I am now and who I will become. To quote J.R.R. Tolkien, “Not all those who wander are lost."