My old friend Nick arrived in Seoul the Sunday before last to be an ESL teacher. He is in a suburb called Namyangu about an hour outside of Seoul by bus. He came in over the weekend and we went out to the Gangnam area. It's a popular nightlife spot but is much more Korean than Itaewon or Hongdae. We ended up going to a hip-hop club which was pretty funny in Korea. I'm pretty sure we were the only foreigners there and it was a huge club. And yesterday, I went out to visit him in Namyangu. It was the first time I saw anything like it in Korea. It was pretty much a small town. There was a little main street with shops and restaurants, but everything else was just apartment buildings...and lots of space. There were actually empty spaces. And trees. There were hardly any people in the streets, and when I left a few hours later it was completely dead. It was very, very quiet, and the air was noticeably cleaner. Everything was much cheaper as well. I had dinner for 3500 won, which is much less than the dinner we had when he came to Seoul (ended up being 36,000 for the two of us, much more expensive than usual, but still).
One of the teachers there had bought some package where he could watch any NFL game online (and up to four at once) without commercials. We went to a bar and put it up on a projector, and it was great to get to watch football again. It's definitely the best way to watch the sport. No commercials, only the plays, and you never have to wait for something to happen since there's always another game to watch. Four is actually too many though, I think two or three would be better. The Seahawks got beat and then the 49ers won in Arizona, so our playoff hopes are definitely still alive even though we're 4-7. If we beat the Seahawks next week, we're tied with them at 5-7. But Frank Gore got hurt in the Cardinals game so that pretty much ruins our season. The NFC West has got to be the most pathetic division in the history of sports, and I'm sure the division winner will be under .500.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Itaewon
That weekend I went to Itaewon (foreign town) for the first time. It's right by a military base and is the central place in Korea for foreigners. It's not that big but has lots of foreign shops and especially restaurants. You can find cuisine from just about any country you want, which was great (eating Korean food every meal, with the occasional McDonald's or Burger King gets old). I had some great Turkish food. Went to a lounge/club with one of my coworkers and it was cool (hardly any foreigners at that one). Went to another one afterwards for a bit that was also mainly Koreans and went home afterwards. Overall, I wasn't a fan, and I doubt I'll go more than every once in a very long while. The food is great but it's too far to go for a meal, and the whole scene is pretty trashy and too foreign for my tastes. It kind of reflects poorly on American culture, it seems to comprised of foreign English teachers looking for Korean girls and mostly a bunch of GI's. The GI's are everywhere and you can always tell that they aren't English teachers. They're usually stumbling around drunkenly with Korean prostitutes. It's too bad that these are the only foreigners Koreans are exposed to, and the Koreans have told me they have a terrible reputation here for being loud, obnoxious, and always looking for a fight.
Funny story
After that first game of soccer I headed home and ate dinner at McDonald's (it felt appropriate, after having been with a group of foreigners). While I was waiting for my food two Korean marines in full dress uniform (hat and everything) were standing next to me. One of them, with a red Asian glow, said "Hi! How are you doing?" so we talked for a little bit. We got our food and I asked if I could join them, and they really wanted me to. The one who first spoke to me in English went to Seoul National University (I live right by it and it's Korea's most competitive university, meaning it's about as hard to get into as any school in the world) and had a great command of the language. That was really nice, because when they don't speak the language too well there's not much you can talk about. The other one didn't speak English quite as well and went to a different university. He was an aspiring artist. I can't remember if they knew each other before the marines or not, but they were close friends.
I asked why on earth they were in the marines...it's the most hardcore military service you can do there (all Korean males are required to serve). You can be a policeman, and some guys can do some sort of non-combat volunteer thing. But I had no idea why an artist and an SNU student with great English would be in the marines. The artist said he wanted to do it for the experience, since that was part of being an artist, or something like that (his English wasn't so good). The SNU guy did it because the marines "were the best," he said. But they sure did hate it. Especially the artist. They were on some sort of leave and they were trying to have as much fun as possible before they had to go back, something they were really dreading. Being a Korean marine is not like being in the US military, they said, it's much harder. Judging by how hardcore their education system is, I don't even want to know what it's like to be a marine in Korea. So I asked them after the meal if they wanted to go drinking, and they thought it was a good idea.
We went to a restaurant/bar type place and order a bunch of typically spicy Korean food and some soju. They also called up a friend of there's who they said had good English (she didn't). They said she used to be able to drink more than all of them, but had a stomach problem and couldn't drink any more. After she came, she called up another friend who she said had great English (he did, he lived in the UK for two years and is an SNU student). We played all of these Korean drinking games, a few of which have equivalents in the US. The funniest part though is everytime you lose the game and have to take a shot, everyone does this song and dance (literally, it's a synchronized song and dance and everyone does the same motions) that I can't really describe, but it ends with all of them pointing at you and yelling "one shot!" We ordered a few bottles of soju and some pitchers and eventually the marines (who had had a big head start, of course) passed out at the table. We put them in a cab and sent them home, or wherever they had to go, and I went with the guy to another bar/restaurant and had some more food and drink. As we were leaving the bar, the owner, an ajomma (middle aged woman) told me (my friend translated the Korean) that I was very handsome and that she wanted me to come in at 11 PM tomorrow to meet her daughter, who would be working there at that time.
The next day I didn't have classes and figured I might as well go, what's the worst that could happen. I'd talk to some disfigured Korean girl for a few minutes and leave and it would be a funny story. So I walk into the restaurant a little after eleven, and there was a girl about my age working there who was possibly the best looking Korean I've seen in my month here. This must be some sort of joke, I thought. We'd talk for a little bit and then I'd see Ashton Kutcher running towards my table with a retarded grin on his face. Unfortunately the woman wasn't there, and this girl spoke no English whatsoever. There was no English on the menu so I picked a random item on the menu that ended up being terrible. After a while, her mom showed up, and motioned for my phone, and through charades somehow told me to call up my friend (not sure how I figured it out). She spoke to him in Korean and told him to come down. He did (and commented on my terrible food choice), and she brought her daughter over.
She was incredibly shy, but we talked to each other through my friend, the interpreter. Have you ever spoken through an interpreter? It is awesome! It makes you feel so badass, and that whatever you're saying is really important or profound. Anyways, we made some small talk, and she said she really wanted to talk to me but that she was embarassed about her English. She didn't speak a single word of English the entire time. My friend told me that she was the type that was obviously very shy around foreigners, but even around Koreans as well, especially guys. He said that she was very shy to him and could hardly talk to him or look him in the eye. She's an aspiring model and is going to school for it since someone told her she had the right facial structure or something like that, and the mom of course came over and asked if they looked alike, and was very proud when I said yes.
Anyway, the mom spoke to my friend and we made plans to get together the next Monday for a tour of Seoul (one of the girl's friends would come along so my friend would have someone to talk to). They asked me if I wanted to see traditional stuff or modern stuff, and I said traditional. On Sunday though my friend texted her and she said she was too busy at work to come (obviously not true since it was going to be on a Monday afternoon and since her mom was the one who wanted it to happen and would have let her have the day off). He told me that she was just too shy. I wanted to go again during the week but he was too busy with school (SNU), so maybe at some point this week maybe we can convince her. I doubt it. But it was a funny story nonetheless.
I asked why on earth they were in the marines...it's the most hardcore military service you can do there (all Korean males are required to serve). You can be a policeman, and some guys can do some sort of non-combat volunteer thing. But I had no idea why an artist and an SNU student with great English would be in the marines. The artist said he wanted to do it for the experience, since that was part of being an artist, or something like that (his English wasn't so good). The SNU guy did it because the marines "were the best," he said. But they sure did hate it. Especially the artist. They were on some sort of leave and they were trying to have as much fun as possible before they had to go back, something they were really dreading. Being a Korean marine is not like being in the US military, they said, it's much harder. Judging by how hardcore their education system is, I don't even want to know what it's like to be a marine in Korea. So I asked them after the meal if they wanted to go drinking, and they thought it was a good idea.
We went to a restaurant/bar type place and order a bunch of typically spicy Korean food and some soju. They also called up a friend of there's who they said had good English (she didn't). They said she used to be able to drink more than all of them, but had a stomach problem and couldn't drink any more. After she came, she called up another friend who she said had great English (he did, he lived in the UK for two years and is an SNU student). We played all of these Korean drinking games, a few of which have equivalents in the US. The funniest part though is everytime you lose the game and have to take a shot, everyone does this song and dance (literally, it's a synchronized song and dance and everyone does the same motions) that I can't really describe, but it ends with all of them pointing at you and yelling "one shot!" We ordered a few bottles of soju and some pitchers and eventually the marines (who had had a big head start, of course) passed out at the table. We put them in a cab and sent them home, or wherever they had to go, and I went with the guy to another bar/restaurant and had some more food and drink. As we were leaving the bar, the owner, an ajomma (middle aged woman) told me (my friend translated the Korean) that I was very handsome and that she wanted me to come in at 11 PM tomorrow to meet her daughter, who would be working there at that time.
The next day I didn't have classes and figured I might as well go, what's the worst that could happen. I'd talk to some disfigured Korean girl for a few minutes and leave and it would be a funny story. So I walk into the restaurant a little after eleven, and there was a girl about my age working there who was possibly the best looking Korean I've seen in my month here. This must be some sort of joke, I thought. We'd talk for a little bit and then I'd see Ashton Kutcher running towards my table with a retarded grin on his face. Unfortunately the woman wasn't there, and this girl spoke no English whatsoever. There was no English on the menu so I picked a random item on the menu that ended up being terrible. After a while, her mom showed up, and motioned for my phone, and through charades somehow told me to call up my friend (not sure how I figured it out). She spoke to him in Korean and told him to come down. He did (and commented on my terrible food choice), and she brought her daughter over.
She was incredibly shy, but we talked to each other through my friend, the interpreter. Have you ever spoken through an interpreter? It is awesome! It makes you feel so badass, and that whatever you're saying is really important or profound. Anyways, we made some small talk, and she said she really wanted to talk to me but that she was embarassed about her English. She didn't speak a single word of English the entire time. My friend told me that she was the type that was obviously very shy around foreigners, but even around Koreans as well, especially guys. He said that she was very shy to him and could hardly talk to him or look him in the eye. She's an aspiring model and is going to school for it since someone told her she had the right facial structure or something like that, and the mom of course came over and asked if they looked alike, and was very proud when I said yes.
Anyway, the mom spoke to my friend and we made plans to get together the next Monday for a tour of Seoul (one of the girl's friends would come along so my friend would have someone to talk to). They asked me if I wanted to see traditional stuff or modern stuff, and I said traditional. On Sunday though my friend texted her and she said she was too busy at work to come (obviously not true since it was going to be on a Monday afternoon and since her mom was the one who wanted it to happen and would have let her have the day off). He told me that she was just too shy. I wanted to go again during the week but he was too busy with school (SNU), so maybe at some point this week maybe we can convince her. I doubt it. But it was a funny story nonetheless.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Soccer (sorry for the delay)
I'd like to apologize to my three readers for the delay in the posts. It's easy to procrastinate on this stuff. I'll start off with exactly two weeks ago (I think). I played my first soccer game. I looked all over the ESL forum for anything soccer related, and it was hard to find. There were a few organized teams that played on weekends (something I can't commit too, since many of my few classes are on weekends), but that didn't appeal to me too much because they were probably really, really good (mainly people from the British Isles and Koreans, I'm guessing) and would be the type that would get really pissed off if you made a mistake. Pick-up is more fun. Anyways, there was one pickup game at 7AM on Saturdays far away, which really didn't appeal to me, and another one on Sundays at the same time as one of my classes. Luckily, I did find a group that plays on Tuesdays at 7, when I don't have class. The problem is it's really far away: in the suburbs of Seoul, and between an hour and an hour and a half from my house (though from my school it is much closer), but it's worth it because I really need some exercise. I don't like gyms and heard bad things about Korean gyms, and anyway, they're all between 60-70 dollars a month. Not worth it.
The field is gravel and pretty small with huge goals. We take it for granted in the US how many parks there are. There are two or three within a very short distance from my house that are very large, with nice grass. I've only seen a few parks in my entire time here. They never have any grass, usually only a basketball court or two, and a sort of courtyard with some benches where you can sit. I don't know what Koreans do for exercise. From what I hear the gym thing hasn't really caught on here too much, and they don't have much in terms of indoor soccer from what I hear. I think in the winter they just play badminton and in the summer, soccer and baseball, but I have no idea where they play those two.
Anyways, it was lots of fun to finally play soccer again. The first game I was terrible, there are a few English and Irish that come that are really good, and one of them might be one of the best soccer players I've ever played pick-up with (he's on a serious organized team as well). It's really hard to get used to controlling the ball on the surface, it rolls very easily, almost like playing indoor on a basketball court or something. After a couple weeks of playing I still can't really use my left foot. They decided to start playing twice a week though, so that's good, and I've gotten more used to it and had a couple of good games. But less and less people are showing up (weather, maybe? It's getting really cold here) so I don't know how much longer we'll be able to do it.
It was good though to meet up with a group of waegookin (foreigners) because it was only my second time doing so. They're a fairly likeable bunch so it'll be nice to have that during the week. We'll see how my schedule turns out, I might start getting night-time classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we might have to stop doing it for lack of interest.
The field is gravel and pretty small with huge goals. We take it for granted in the US how many parks there are. There are two or three within a very short distance from my house that are very large, with nice grass. I've only seen a few parks in my entire time here. They never have any grass, usually only a basketball court or two, and a sort of courtyard with some benches where you can sit. I don't know what Koreans do for exercise. From what I hear the gym thing hasn't really caught on here too much, and they don't have much in terms of indoor soccer from what I hear. I think in the winter they just play badminton and in the summer, soccer and baseball, but I have no idea where they play those two.
Anyways, it was lots of fun to finally play soccer again. The first game I was terrible, there are a few English and Irish that come that are really good, and one of them might be one of the best soccer players I've ever played pick-up with (he's on a serious organized team as well). It's really hard to get used to controlling the ball on the surface, it rolls very easily, almost like playing indoor on a basketball court or something. After a couple weeks of playing I still can't really use my left foot. They decided to start playing twice a week though, so that's good, and I've gotten more used to it and had a couple of good games. But less and less people are showing up (weather, maybe? It's getting really cold here) so I don't know how much longer we'll be able to do it.
It was good though to meet up with a group of waegookin (foreigners) because it was only my second time doing so. They're a fairly likeable bunch so it'll be nice to have that during the week. We'll see how my schedule turns out, I might start getting night-time classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we might have to stop doing it for lack of interest.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Expats
They funniest part of that evening was this expat at the bar. I'd seen him twice before, he actually lives in the apartment complex right across the street from me. I've seen him smoking cigarettes outside there before, once really early in the morning. Anyways, he's the most stereotypical looking expat. In his 50's, dresses very sloppily, usually in sweats (I've seen him wearing sandals, too), smokes a lot of cigarettes, and is completely bald with long gray hair, and very fat. Kind of looked a little like a bum version of Jack Nicholson, actually.
He acts like the most stereotypical expat as well. He was alone at the bar I went to, and was really drunk and ocassionaly making conversation with the Koreans who wanted to practice their English. Speaking really loudly and slurring his speech in a really stereotypical American voice, like he was trying to assert his Amurrickan-ness. "Obama blah blah blah blah..." "People blame the Americans but it's the Europeans' fault!" And other lame conversation about America and the world. At one point I hear him yell to the Korean "I love you as a man. And I mean that, I'm not joking. I love your country..." I didn't hear anything after that but I'm pretty sure the Korean stopped talking to him shortly thereafter. He monopolized one of the bartender's time as well, and the poor girl had to oblige, of course. I heard him drunkingly yell at one point how much he loved her. She didn't look too pleased. And then of course when I had to go to the bathroom, I saw him get up too to join me and find an ear to talk to. He starts talking about getting old and not being able to pee, and I'm just like, "Yep. Happens to everybody," and left as soon as I could.
What is it with these expats? What do they do for a living? Koreans only want young English teachers and from what I hear, it's very difficult to get an ESL job over here if you're over 30. And why do they come here? I guess it's the same type of person, the old loser that can't fit in in America so he goes to some other country where he thinks they might not be able to tell the difference. No wonder we have such a bad reputation overseas. It's too bad that we have these types representing America abroad.
He acts like the most stereotypical expat as well. He was alone at the bar I went to, and was really drunk and ocassionaly making conversation with the Koreans who wanted to practice their English. Speaking really loudly and slurring his speech in a really stereotypical American voice, like he was trying to assert his Amurrickan-ness. "Obama blah blah blah blah..." "People blame the Americans but it's the Europeans' fault!" And other lame conversation about America and the world. At one point I hear him yell to the Korean "I love you as a man. And I mean that, I'm not joking. I love your country..." I didn't hear anything after that but I'm pretty sure the Korean stopped talking to him shortly thereafter. He monopolized one of the bartender's time as well, and the poor girl had to oblige, of course. I heard him drunkingly yell at one point how much he loved her. She didn't look too pleased. And then of course when I had to go to the bathroom, I saw him get up too to join me and find an ear to talk to. He starts talking about getting old and not being able to pee, and I'm just like, "Yep. Happens to everybody," and left as soon as I could.
What is it with these expats? What do they do for a living? Koreans only want young English teachers and from what I hear, it's very difficult to get an ESL job over here if you're over 30. And why do they come here? I guess it's the same type of person, the old loser that can't fit in in America so he goes to some other country where he thinks they might not be able to tell the difference. No wonder we have such a bad reputation overseas. It's too bad that we have these types representing America abroad.
Sometimes, it's not always an adventure
The thing with these types of trips is people make it sound like they're constantly having an adventure. As if they were having some crazy experience every minute. It's definitely not like that though, at least for me. Maybe I'm doing something wrong though. But I do think it's a good thing...if you were having an adventure every single minute, than none of it would be an adventure, would it? It would just be normal. You need to have boring times along with the good, so that way, when you do have a crazy experience, it stands out.
Last night was a perfect example. I went out to a bar very close to my house, hoping for an adventure. There wasn't one. I just sat there and had a beer or two and talked to the bartenders in English. Their English was surprisingly good but, nonetheless, still not good enough for decent conversation other than "How old are you?" and "What are you hobbies?" Mostly I just watched TV. Apocalyptico was on, which had English subtitles of course, and that's the type of movie you can be vaguely entertained by when you're at a bar. Then some movie came on where this pimply guy (he seriously had zits on his forehead even though he was in his 40s) who has this hot blond wife (who's cheating on him, but he cheated on her as well with some middle-aged lady), and they go to some Asian country and after he gets ice during their romantic evening he comes back to the room to find blood on the bed and his wife gone, and then he gets knocked out. The room is immaculate afterwards and when he talks to the detective, they don't seemt o believe him (of course there were no English subtitles and no volume so I'm just guessing).
None of the Koreans other than the bartender seemed to want to make conversation. There was a white guy and girl (maybe a couple) that came into the bar, and though I thought about running up to them and saying "Hey whities!" I decided against it. There's just too many foreigners in Seoul. When I was going home from the bar I actually ran into another white guy, who had the same jacket as I did (it was one I bought in Korea), but again, it's not that big of a deal to run into a white person here. In another town you would've immediately stopped and chatted and become good ol' pals but not here.
Last night was a perfect example. I went out to a bar very close to my house, hoping for an adventure. There wasn't one. I just sat there and had a beer or two and talked to the bartenders in English. Their English was surprisingly good but, nonetheless, still not good enough for decent conversation other than "How old are you?" and "What are you hobbies?" Mostly I just watched TV. Apocalyptico was on, which had English subtitles of course, and that's the type of movie you can be vaguely entertained by when you're at a bar. Then some movie came on where this pimply guy (he seriously had zits on his forehead even though he was in his 40s) who has this hot blond wife (who's cheating on him, but he cheated on her as well with some middle-aged lady), and they go to some Asian country and after he gets ice during their romantic evening he comes back to the room to find blood on the bed and his wife gone, and then he gets knocked out. The room is immaculate afterwards and when he talks to the detective, they don't seemt o believe him (of course there were no English subtitles and no volume so I'm just guessing).
None of the Koreans other than the bartender seemed to want to make conversation. There was a white guy and girl (maybe a couple) that came into the bar, and though I thought about running up to them and saying "Hey whities!" I decided against it. There's just too many foreigners in Seoul. When I was going home from the bar I actually ran into another white guy, who had the same jacket as I did (it was one I bought in Korea), but again, it's not that big of a deal to run into a white person here. In another town you would've immediately stopped and chatted and become good ol' pals but not here.
The roller-coaster ride of your opinion of Korea
The weird thing about Korea is your opinion of it changes daily, or more like hourly, in fact...sometimes, even minutely (can you use that as a word other than the other word minutely? I really doubt it). It's the craziest thing. I'll be sitting in a restaurant, and my opinion of Korea will change several times during the meal. I'll be sipping on the octopus soup, thinking about how glad I am to be here. Then I'm eating my rice, struggling with my chopsticks, and wondering how the hell I got here. It's completely absurd, and there's no way to predict it either. Your mood just sort of shifts constantly, mostly independent from environmental stimuli.
I talked to Valerie about it and she immediately agreed. In fact, she said, pretty much every foreigner in Korea talks about it constantly, and it's one of the main things that people relate on. Everyone gets the same mood shifts, and when people from home ask you about Korea, it's pretty hard to give a straight answer other than "Well, it's pretty crazy." It's a little weird, and I don't understand it, but I kind of like it, it adds to the whole adventure thing. So if you're coming to Korea and reading this, definitely be prepared for the roller coaster ride of emotions.
I talked to Valerie about it and she immediately agreed. In fact, she said, pretty much every foreigner in Korea talks about it constantly, and it's one of the main things that people relate on. Everyone gets the same mood shifts, and when people from home ask you about Korea, it's pretty hard to give a straight answer other than "Well, it's pretty crazy." It's a little weird, and I don't understand it, but I kind of like it, it adds to the whole adventure thing. So if you're coming to Korea and reading this, definitely be prepared for the roller coaster ride of emotions.
Bowing
You would not believe how much Koreans bow...it's amazing. Every time you enter a business, you bow and say "yo-bo-say-yo" or something like that, and they bow and say the same thing. And when you make a purchase/pay for your meal, the cashier usually bows to you, and I'm assuming you're supposed to bow back. Then when you leave, you do the yo-bo-say-yo bow exchange thing again. This applies everywhere, even the 7-11 on my street. So every time I enter it to get a snack, I have to go through this whole process of bowing and greeting in the most American of institutions just to get an ice cream bar late at night. A bit annoying at times, but usually I just find it funny.
Sick
Unfortunately I have a nasty cold here. This seems to happen to me in foreign countries. I get colds all of the time in the states, so I guess it's natural that I'd get sick as soon as I arrive here since I'm not immune to their sicknesses. Not as bad as in Argentina though. In my first two months there, I got colds twice that left me bed-ridden for days. I'm not exaggerating...literally, I was too weak to get out of bed. From a cold. Probably had something to do with the language. In Korea, I'm pretty much an alien and don't interact with them, but in Argentina, I was constantly interacting with the culture since I spoke Spanish, and speaking in a foreign language all day is incredibly taxing. So I think it just left me really weak. My cold here hasn't been nearly as bad, although I'm constantly congested and I sleep much, much longer than normal.
OK I seriously need to stop posting. I'm getting way too mundane. It's Friday night so I'm off to do some exploring for a little while.
OK I seriously need to stop posting. I'm getting way too mundane. It's Friday night so I'm off to do some exploring for a little while.
Middle-aged Korean women
The funniest thing about Korea is the uniform of the middle-aged woman. First of all, they're funny in that their main job seems to be to put their kids in school 18 hours a day as well as put tremendous pressure on them to succeed, and to be as strict as possible along the way of course. But they all wear the exact same outfit. I'm not joking. They all wear a visor and they dress as hikers. Most of the time it's a black pastic visor. They were hiking boots, nylon pants, and a nylon jacket, and a nice backpack. Often times they even have hiking poles, and sometimes they walk with them! I don't know how they decided this, if they had a convention or what, but it seems like every single one wears this outfit. It's unbelievable.
Eating in Korea
I thought I'd already written about this but I couldn't find it in the mass of text I've written (my liberal arts training has given me the ability produce huge bodies of text in a relatively short period of time without getting too bored), so I'm going to devote a quick post to it. I love Korean food, even though it's very spicy (I have a hard time with spicy food). I'm trying to build up my tolerance to it though, because there are so many great spicy foods in the world out there and I've really limited myself in never eating them. You just have to not think about it. I pride myself in being able to eat pretty much any food (I can't think of anything off of the top of my head that I don't like), and since the spicy food category is a big one, I better conquer it. I'm already pretty used to it. Anyway, as much as I love Korean food, I do get kind of sick of eating it every meal, every day, so I've definitely had my fair share of Burger King, McDonald's, and Subway.
In Korean restaurants you generally take your shoes off and sit on the floor (usually you get a thin pillow). It's hard for me though because my legs are really long and cross-legged I can't fit them under the low tables, so I have to shift from position to position and my back gets kind of sore. I kind of like the idea though, not having your shoes on and sitting on the floor makes you feel more at home. Usually every table has a stove (either gas or charcoal) and, if necessary (always with meats), they cook your food right in front of you (or you do it yourself, but since I'm a foreigner, they always do it for me).
Each table has a wooden box with metal spoons and chopsticks (Korea is the only country that uses metal chopsticks apparently), and usually stacks of cups, and they give you a container of water. You always get your food within 5 minutes of ordering it, and, by the way, you don't tip them. So you don't wait for food, you never have to wait for a table (I've never seen it happen), you refill your own water, and you don't tip them. Not to mention the prices are way lower than those of restaurants in the states. And you don't have to worry about some annoying server constantly interrupting your conversation and "taking care of you." When I have dinner, I don't need to be taken care of. I can take care of myself. Just give me a pitcher of water and leave me alone. If there's something wrong with the food, I'll let you know. Why can't we have restaurants like these in the states???? I guess it's no surprise that there are restaurants EVERYWHERE here. You wouldn't believe how many restaurants there are. Koreans must eat out all of the time because it's such a good deal.
There are tons of American places here as well. On the main street that's two blocks from my house, there's a Baskin Robbins (there seems to be one on every street), a Subway, a Coldstone Creamery (though it's extremely expensive, unfortunately), and McDonald's and Starbucks (those are on every street as well). There's a Burger King right by my work, which is apparently equally as popular as McDonald's here and came first. There's tons of Dunkin Donughts as well. There's Papa John's too, which they had at the hagwon the other night. I live a block away from a Korean pizza chain called Pizza School which is really good (it would do well in the states, especially with its prices and how fast it is). It has some interesting flavors...pork ribs (with a rib on each piece), pork loin crepe or something like that, Mexican bite pizza, Deutsche bite pizza (German themed I guess), and two potato pizzas, among other things. There's also a Korean fast food burger chain called Krazee Burger that's really good apparently but I haven't tried it since there aren't any near where I live or near my work.
In Korean restaurants you generally take your shoes off and sit on the floor (usually you get a thin pillow). It's hard for me though because my legs are really long and cross-legged I can't fit them under the low tables, so I have to shift from position to position and my back gets kind of sore. I kind of like the idea though, not having your shoes on and sitting on the floor makes you feel more at home. Usually every table has a stove (either gas or charcoal) and, if necessary (always with meats), they cook your food right in front of you (or you do it yourself, but since I'm a foreigner, they always do it for me).
Each table has a wooden box with metal spoons and chopsticks (Korea is the only country that uses metal chopsticks apparently), and usually stacks of cups, and they give you a container of water. You always get your food within 5 minutes of ordering it, and, by the way, you don't tip them. So you don't wait for food, you never have to wait for a table (I've never seen it happen), you refill your own water, and you don't tip them. Not to mention the prices are way lower than those of restaurants in the states. And you don't have to worry about some annoying server constantly interrupting your conversation and "taking care of you." When I have dinner, I don't need to be taken care of. I can take care of myself. Just give me a pitcher of water and leave me alone. If there's something wrong with the food, I'll let you know. Why can't we have restaurants like these in the states???? I guess it's no surprise that there are restaurants EVERYWHERE here. You wouldn't believe how many restaurants there are. Koreans must eat out all of the time because it's such a good deal.
There are tons of American places here as well. On the main street that's two blocks from my house, there's a Baskin Robbins (there seems to be one on every street), a Subway, a Coldstone Creamery (though it's extremely expensive, unfortunately), and McDonald's and Starbucks (those are on every street as well). There's a Burger King right by my work, which is apparently equally as popular as McDonald's here and came first. There's tons of Dunkin Donughts as well. There's Papa John's too, which they had at the hagwon the other night. I live a block away from a Korean pizza chain called Pizza School which is really good (it would do well in the states, especially with its prices and how fast it is). It has some interesting flavors...pork ribs (with a rib on each piece), pork loin crepe or something like that, Mexican bite pizza, Deutsche bite pizza (German themed I guess), and two potato pizzas, among other things. There's also a Korean fast food burger chain called Krazee Burger that's really good apparently but I haven't tried it since there aren't any near where I live or near my work.
G20 summit
When I arrived in Seoul the G20 was just starting, and yesterday and today, Obama spoke. I'm not sure how long he's in Korea. Anyways, I was excited at first...I mean, what are the chances that a hugely important economic conference would kick off in the same city right when I arrived? But after thinking about it for 30 seconds I realized that it provides absolutely no entertainment value. Even though there's hardly any foreigners here, it's not like that entitles you to mixing with the world leaders. And none of it is open to the public, not to mention all of the businesses in the area close down. The area is also extremely tightly patrolled by Korean cops and military personnel, who don't f around. Apparently Korea declared martial law in that area, so I'd be liable to get my ass kicked if I went there. There are two areas where people are allowed to protest (very far away from the summit), but that wouldn't be a good idea either. I wouldn't want to risk the wrath of the Korean riot police, not to mention getting involved in a political incident probably wouldn't be good for my E-2 visa.
Sometimes, Korean food isn't so good
Today I spent several hours walking through Seoul and exploring (I'm able to do this because I don't have many hours right now). I headed west on a street that I hadn't gone to far down. I was only probably 10-15 blocks or so from my apartment before I got to a hill. At the top of the hill I was shocked to see that I could see the hillsides surrounding Seoul very easily, and only another 15-20 blocks in a different direction was a large hill covered in trees. There were some huge skyscrapers as well that were pretty isolated. I kept heading west and was hungry so I stopped at a restaurant that was cheap and had pictures with prices under them, meaning it'd be simple to order. It was in between lunch and dinner, so not a peak time for restaurants, and no one was eating there. I should've listened to the advice I received: if a restaurant is crowded, it must be good. If not, than it sucks. Well, I had the worst meal I've had here yet. I'm not sure if it was the quality of the restaurant or just a dish I don't like, but it was hard to finish. It was a soup of either liver or morcillo (I don't know the word in English for this, it's common in Argentina, it's coagulated pig's blood or something like that). Anyways, not good.
Another hilarious thing about Korean culture is how they advertise for sales. Often times they'll blare loud music outside of the store and there'll be a girl with a microphone talking about the products, I'm guessing. Sometimes, they'll have girls dancing too. I was walking home and an appliance store was having a sale, and they had huge speakers blaring music you could hear from blocks away, a girl talking into a microphone, and another girl dancing in skimpy clothes, which must've sucked because it was freezing outside.
Another hilarious thing about Korean culture is how they advertise for sales. Often times they'll blare loud music outside of the store and there'll be a girl with a microphone talking about the products, I'm guessing. Sometimes, they'll have girls dancing too. I was walking home and an appliance store was having a sale, and they had huge speakers blaring music you could hear from blocks away, a girl talking into a microphone, and another girl dancing in skimpy clothes, which must've sucked because it was freezing outside.
Stovetop
I have the weirdest stovetop in my apartment. I couldn't figure out how to turn it on. Whenever I did, it would beep and hum and then stop. Then, sometimes when I tried it, it wouldn't even go on at all. I had one of my coworkers (not sure what I should call them...fellow teachers?) email the guy who used to live there, and he said that you needed a certain type of pot or pan for it to work. When one of the people at the front desk called the landlord, he said the same thing, though they didn't believe him...none of them had heard of such a thing. Eventually, my boss and I had dinner in my area and then he went to my apartment to check it out. The landlord told him that you need to have a certain type of metal on the bottom, one that a magnet would stick to...ferris, he said, or something like that. The teakettle I bought was aluminum. There was one for 13,000 won at the store that I'm sure would've worked, but no, I had to get the fancy one with a guard on the spout for 22,000 won (there was one of that kind for like 17,000 won, but it was pink so I broke down and bought the more expensive one). Anyways, 22,000 won wasted. I bought another one for 15,000 and it works. Finally I can eat oatmeal and ramen!
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
McDonald's in Korea
See, I'm already starting to do the little mini-posts! Anyways, Burger King apparently came to Korea before McDonald's, and is equally as popular here. I eat Burger King maybe once or twice a year, but since there's one right next to my work, and occasionally I get these incredible cravings for Western food that I recognize, I've already indulged myself three times. I've eaten McDonald's a few times as well (and once or twice for a shake or ice cream, which are as good as ever). Bad I know, and I'm going to be cutting back. It's my first couple weeks, so give me a break, OK? It's hard to immediately go from American food every meal to eating Korean food every meal. I mean, I love Korean food, but for every single meal it gets excessive. Anyways, McDonald's and Burger King pretty much taste the same, though of course the coke is much better. What a shame that Coca-Cola, one of the great America icons, is terrible in America and better in any other country in the world. But McDonald's in Korea has a few different meals. There's the Bacon Tomato Deluxe, which is a double stacker burger with bacon and tomatoes. It's awesome, and more filling than the Big Mac. A Big Mac meal is pretty much a snack for me. And there #1 is not the Big Mac, it's the Bulgogi Burger, and the #2 is the Double Bulgogi Burger. I tried it today, and it's very good. The patty is a little different, and it's covered in some sort of sauce...I think it's a thick soy sauce. Anyways, I thought it was the same calibre as McDonald's other burgers, although the Bacon Tomato Deluxe will certainly be my usual here in Korea.
Summary of the past week and a half (very long)
OK, sorry for the lack of posting. I fell out of the habit after that first weekend and kept putting it off. Anyways, I'm not going to be so detailed anymore, there's just not enough time. I'll just talk about some highlights as well as some general posts about Korea.
My second full day was a Friday, and I went out to a club that night that people had recommended on Dave's (eslcafe.com, it's the site that all ESL teachers go to). On the way back from work (I had a meeting with a student or something like that I think) I met an American who was coming back from a party who said we'd be in touch at some point, so that was good. I got a late start and of course got lost on the way there. Google maps is a huge pain. Since everything is in Korean, you can't use the directions feature, you just have to try and figure it out from the map. You wouldn't think this would be difficult, but I keep getting lost doing that. Not sure if it's my fault or not, but that night was the perfect example. According to google maps, the address was in between two subway stations (Gangam I think and some other one, it seemed to be closer to the other one). I went to the other subway station and tried to find my way from there, but later on, everyone told me it was right next to Gangam. Anyways, ended up having to ask some Koreans to explain where I was trying to go to a cab driver.
It was pretty expensive but the venue was really nice, as good as any I've seen. The sound system was great and there was pretty much a full blown laser show. The whole culture though is quite different from anything western, even young Koreans out drinking are pretty uptight for the most part. One Korean starting speaking to me in English and was really enthusiastic about having a foreign friend. His English wasn't too good though so communication was pretty difficult, and he got frustrated at times. He kind of showed me around and introduced me to some other Koreans. They were actually really friendly, and it seems that it takes a lot of drinking for them to open up and try and speak to westerners. When they do though they're quite friendly.
There were a few foreigners there, some Americans, a Canadian, a Spaniard, a Dutchman, and a few guys that looked like Brits. I didn't talk to anyone extensively other than the Spaniard (of course he insisted on speaking in English, just like the other Spaniards I'd meet the next day), but they were pretty nice. The problem with Seoul though is that there are so many foreigners that it's not really a community. If I were in any other city in Korea, there are so few foreigners that it's a very close-knit community, and you're pretty much friends with any westerners from the get-go. That's why I wanted to go to Busan: there'd be a large enough foreign population that there'd be a lot of people to choose from, but not so big that it'd be impersonal and unfriendly. In Seoul there are just so many foreigners that it's not a big deal at all to run into one, and there's not that immediate bond you'd get in any other Korean city. So I learned quickly that you can't really just go up to another white person and act like it's a big deal that you're both in Korea.
I was out until way late at the club and took a taxi back to my apartment. I woke up early and couldn't sleep, so I was a wreck the next day. I was planning on going to bed early, and all of the sudden I got an email from my friend Valerie (we worked on the CDA paint crew together, doing maintenance work for our school district during the summer after my freshman year) who I'd learned a month or two a ago was in Korea as well, in a small town called Jeomchon. She was going to be in Seoul that night with a group of couchsurfers! I don't know a lot about it but couchsurfing is some website you go to if you're traveling and people put you up on their couch if you want a place to stay. I think you're required to provide an hour of conversation or something like that, too.
Anyways, we went to Hongdae, which is apparently the best clubbing district in Seoul. It was packed with foreigners because it was Halloween eve, as I guess you'd call it, and a lot of the Koreans dressed up in costumes as well. Some got really into it. I saw these two Koreans who had really well-done zombie costumes and they were acting like zombies and had these westerners take a picture of them.
The best part though was when Valerie and I were looking for the group. She had separated from them to find me and we were trying to find them. The whole thing was confusing but apparently there was a couch surfer's party that a bunch of people were going to, and that's where the group was headed. We ran into another guy that was looking for it as well, and he brought his friend over, and we were going to try and find it together.
Valerie then got a call and I guess we were heading somewhere else, but we were talking to the guy and his friend asked us where we were from. "Idaho," I said. "No way," he said, "what town?" "Coeur d'Alene," I said. He was speechless but gave me a huge hug. He was from Coeur d'Alene too! Then he asks what high school we went to, and I said I went to Lake City my freshman year and transferred to Gonzaga Prep (not the best answer) and Valerie said she went to Coeur d'Alene. He gave Valerie a big hug and started talking shit about Lake City (he was a CdA high school guy through and through and so proud of it, you know the type). Then he goes, "Don't look at my balls!" and pulls his pants down to show a tattoo of Lake Coeur d'Alene on his thigh. We talked about Coeur d'Alene for a bit, and he was a bigtime Coeur d'Alene guy: absolutely loves it and thinks it's the best place on earth, and his friends told us how much he loves and talks about Coeur d'Alene and that they knew a lot about from the town from hearing him talk about it. So that was a pretty cool moment for my third night there. There were two Spaniards there (Catalans) that I had just been talking to, and they didn't get it. They thought we were crazy for making such a big deal about it. "I guess it's because the United States is very big," one of them said to the other. I don't know, what do you think? Isn't a coincidence that out of every English teacher from all the different countries we ran into, we happened to run into one from our hometown of 40,000 people? Valerie hadn't met anyone from Idaho up to that point.
Anyway, we went to a hookah bar, then for some food, and then to a really high-end Nori-bong (karaoke room). You go in, take off your shoes since that's what Koreans love to do (they put them in compartments), wait a little while, and then go to your room (the building had several stories). There are couches, a big TV, a karaoke machine, and microphones, and you buy a few hours of karaoke. The selection wasn't too good unfortunately but it was fun. When it was over everyone was tired and went home. Valerie and I thought about meeting up with some of the other couchsurfers (the group had split) but I was exhausted from the night before so I wanted to go home. Of course, the subway was going to start running in less than two hours, so we decided to wait it out rather than pay for a cab. We finally got to my apartment very late and crashed for a few hours. After she left I couldn't really go back to sleep and felt pretty dead so all of Sunday and some of Monday was devoted to recovering.
On Monday evening I went out exploring (I'm able to do all of this because October and November are the slowest months of the year for this type of hagwon, since all of the Korean exams are in October, so I have hardly any hours until December). I went to Donggogae, which was the last subway stop heading out to the northeast, as far away as I could possibly go from my apartment by using the subway. There wasn't much there. Not that it wasn't very urban and densely populated, but it was nothing but housing, a bunch of restaurants (there are tons of restaurants EVERYWHERE in Seoul, Seoulites must eat out constantly or something), and a few small shops. I had a beer at a restaurant (Korean beer is awful, I'm learning) and watched a recap of the Euro 2008 on TV. I was in Argentina at the time so it brought back memories. After that, I headed back into the downtown center. I saw a westerner on the first or second stop after that, which was quite odd considering how far out it was, and asked her for some help. She was happy to give me suggestions on where to go, and she had been living there for 7 years! She was getting back from a Korean lesson, and from what I gathered, she's almost fluent. Anyways, she told me to go to this district in the middle of Seoul (can't remember the name or what stop on the subway it was, which is unfortunate) which has a lot of cool shops and restaurants.
Funny side-story: at one point I asked some Koreans for directions, and we talked for a little bit (couldn't make much conversation though because of their English). One of them was a Taekwondo expert, and then wanted to show me something since he was proud of his skills. He gave his friends his wallet and phone, and then proceded to do a front-flip! He didn't quite come around though so when he landed, he stumbled a bit. Immediately afterwards he ran inside and didn't come back out. I guess he 'lost face,' which is the worst thing for a Korean.
Next, I had dinner and noticed some westerners at the table next to me. I asked them if they were living in Seoul (to get recommendations on where to go), and they said no but to pull up a chair. They were really cool people: professional musicians who were trying out for the Seoul Philharmonic! A Korean-American composer was there too who they were friends with in the states. He was from California but his English was pretty much unintelligible. I have a hard time understanding people with bad accents, especially Asian ones, which is a pain if you're in Asia.
After that, I started to walk around for a while. It was getting pretty late and I was going to call it a night, but there were a group of drunken Koreans that I thought were my age, so I thought if I asked them for a lighter I might be able to start some conversation with them. I was right and they were very, very friendly and wanted me to go out drinking with them. As it turns out, they were in their late 20s (I can't figure out the ages of Koreans, anyone from 12-40 looks the same to me). We went to this restaurant-in-a-tent and had some food (very good but very spicy, as is the case with almost all Korean food) and started drinking soju. Soju is the national drink of Korea. They sell it in these bottles (either 500 ML or 750 ML or something like that, I don't know metrics, point is, it's about the size of a coke or beer bottle), so you'd think you could just drink it out of the bottle and finish the bottle yourself. That's definitely not the case though. It's clear and sort of like vodka but much better tasting, so it's easy to drink a lot. The drunk sort of creeps up on you though, it's weird. You have a lot, you think you're fine, and then all of the sudden you're stumbling through the streets of Seoul without any idea of what you're doing.
Anyways, I learned a little bit about Korean drinking culture. They take the age thing very, very seriously. The social hierarchy is entirely based around how old you are. The oldest guy in the group was their boss as well (they worked at a World store; World is one of the two big phone companies in Korea) and you could easily tell he was on top of the hierarchy. In the case of drinking, the youngest person pours the shots for the people in the group, in order of their ages beginning with the oldest (I was the youngest). They hold their glass up to you and you pour in the soju (it's very bad manners to handle their glass I guess), and later I learned that you have to hold your glass with two hands. And the pourer has to put his other hand on his sleeve (back in the day, they wore baggy silk robes and would have to do this). Apparently, if you're drinking with someone who is much older, you cover your mouth and glass with your hand while you drink. They don't drink shots like we do in the west, at least not with soju it seems, they just slow sip from the shot glass and then you pour them more. It alternates though I guess, so different people will pour the soju, and I think the youngest go first the second time, I think. One of them spoke English fairly well, so he was pretty much the translator, and I learned a few Korean words (thank you, cheers, etc.). They were pretty hilarious but I can't really describe it to you, you'd have to see it for yourself. One funny thing was apparently it's not a big deal in Korea to compliment a guy for being handsome, they kept on telling me how handsome I was. "You very handsome! Very smart!" They kept saying.
Eventually, we went our own ways (they were all really drunk) but I went to a bar with the one who spoke good English as well as this other guy. He had big plastic glasses that kept falling down on his face and he wore a suit. His name was Mister Hundred or something like that (if you can imagine that being said with an extremely think Korean accent) and he kept repeating it to me over and over again and would quiz me on what his name was. After the bar they were pretty much stumbling and I took a cab home. They left me their email address on my subway map, which I lost the other day, but I think I remember it so we'll see if I see them again.
As I was going home I saw another group of young Koreans so I decided to use the same trick, I asked them for a lighter. Again they were extremely friendly, and since they all around 20 or 21, they spoke much better English so that made it more fun. We went to a restaurant, drank soju and had some food. Again, they complimented me on how handsome I was and then asked me which one in the group was the most handsome. They all look the same to me. Anyways, it was really late at that point so we parted ways and they left me their number (I texted it yesterday when I got my phone, but didn't hear back). I didn't really think I had that much to drink (the soju tastes good so you think it's not very strong) but when I got back to the apartment, I couldn't believe how much my head was spinning. I passed out and woke up the next morning to possibly the worst hangover of my life. Keep that in mind if you ever try soju, it gives you possibly the worst hangover of any common drink, and I've had this confirmed after talking to other people. So a lot of Tuesday was devoted to recovering.
I had had a class a few days before, on Saturday I believe, with the 7th, 8th, and 9th graders. It's a combined reading, writing, and grammar class, and I'm to teach the reading section. The kids are total zombies. They're exhausted and completely burned out, and are very, very quiet. When you do get them to speak, the speak so softly that you can't really hear them (I guess they're self-conscious about their English). So it was kind of a challenge teaching that class. On Wednesday, I had my first "real" class (a one on one class in US history, I'll be teaching a lot of these alongside SAT stuff and it's basically what I've been hired to do). It was a typical Korean thing in that I received two hours notice for it and wasn't told what I was going to be lecturing her on (they didn't know where she was in her class, it wouldn't be an AP prep class but simply to help her with her homework). I arrive to class and she says she's on John Adams, so then I am to lecture her on US history to that point for two hours off of the top of my head. My boss had asked me earlier if I was too tired to do it, but since I wasn't feeling tired, I stupidly said "No, I can teach it." Anyways, I need to be able to prep for these classes, it's really hard to give a lecture without notes or prep time.
I can't talk about my job since I idiotically put my first and last name in the domain name, but I will say that the Korean hagwon culture is absolutely insane. The kids sleep 3-4 hours a night, 6 if they're really sleeping in (this lifestyle starts in middle school). They spend their vacations cramming in year-long AP classes over the course of several weeks (mostly what I do), or they take one on one weekly tutoring sessions over the course of the year to do an AP class on the side (in 30-40 hours, an average AP class in the US is 150 hours). Another popular thing to do is to spend hours each day after school doing SAT prep classes. In the SAT prep classes and the open (group) AP classes, the kids take an AP test after every class, and their parents are texted the scores. One of the teachers at my school told me that one of her students wasn't allowed to eat past 7 o'clock, and another one had to do an hour of jump-rope at 1AM every night. By western standards, it's pretty much abusive, but I guess they're used to it and it's their culture so it's OK? Even the "slacker" Koreans who aren't as motivated go to the hagwon every day for English I think, unless they come from a very poor family who can't afford it. Apparently the hagwon industry is worth like 18 billion dollars in Korea, which is astounding considering how small it is. Now I understand why the Korean middle schoolers that come to Coeur d'Alene are so happy when they're in America. They're only in school until 3 o'clock, what a concept! And then they can do what they want for the rest of the day...it's paradise for them.
They spend lots and lots of money to take these classes (their mothers push them to do this and seem to be the motivation behind this whole culture, as one Korean student told me, Korean gender roles are that the fathers work and the mothers make them go to hagwon), so if one little thing is off, and it isn't completely perfect, they complain. The Korean parents (especially the mothers) are extremely pushy, so when they have a complaint, they will call the school several times a day and demand a refund. I can't complain about this since it gives me a well-paying job, but it puts an incredible amount of pressure on the students of course, but also the teachers. If I make one mistake (for example, Korean students will ask you obscure questions that they know the answer to, and if you can't answer correctly, they will tell their mom, who will complain to the hagwon and ask for a refund, though luckily I haven't had this happen yet), or have one bad lecture resulting in a student complaint, it's grounds for being fired.
So basically my job is on the line every class. Quite different from teaching in the states, and very few American teachers would last here. Anyways, I have hardly any hours right now (it starts picking up in December, since Koreans take exams in October, these schools are pretty much dead in October and November), but that puts a lot of stress on you, and there was about a three day period where I didn't even feel like leaving the apartment. Now I've decided that you just have ignore it and do the best that you can. If I get fired, oh well, I'll teach ESL somewhere and have a much more relaxed experience. Other than this though it's a good job, I'm not sure if I'll like teaching SAT prep stuff, but basically I get paid very good money to lecture motivated students (no babysitting). Not a bad gig. My co-workers are very cool as well (there are two other Americans working there, and apparently they'll hire one or two more, whom I think already have worked at the school previously).
Not much else to report, it has been uneventful other than this (the stress from the job kind of killed my motivation to explore for a couple of days). On Monday, I decided to go to Costco to buy oatmeal and whatever I might find there, as well as do some exploring. I got a real late start since I had some errands to do. I looked on google maps for directions to costco (looking at the map, since everything was in Korean). The directions seemed simple enough, head out exit 7 on this particular stop on the subway, straight for three blocks, and then take a right and go a little farther.
But of course it wasn't that simple, and I ended up being lost in downtown Seoul for over three hours (later, I learned that I just had to go a few blocks farther before the right turn and I would've found it). Not fun when it's about 20 degrees with the windchill and you're very hungry, and it turned into one of those 'I hate Korea' days. One problem was that there was no Exit 7 on this subway. Above ground there was a sign for it, but there was no exit. Perhaps there used to be one and they got rid of it, or they had yet to build it. At one point, I gave up and went to a PC cafe and showed the guy working their on google maps. He called a better English speaker to translate (Koreans often times do this rather than trying to figure it out themselves), his girlfriend, whose English wasn't so good. Eventually she just told me to take a taxi because it was complicated. They told me to tell the taxi driver the simple instructions: Yeongpyong Costco!
I tried three taxi drivers before one finally understood what I was saying. The signs on the taxis say that if you say 'free interprer,' they'll get you a translator for free, but that's not the case. Or maybe they just don't want to deal with it. One finally seems to get it, and after driving for a while, drops me off at an apartment building. Yeongpyong costco! He says. It says 'coop' on the apartment building, so I'm guessing it was the Yeongpyong coop. Anyways, I was completely lost at this point, but somehow made it back to the original area where I took the taxi (not far from the subway station where I got off). I asked one taxi driver, and he didn't want to deal with me, and the second one told me in broken English that it was very close. He told me to head to the left and then to the right. So I tried that, and still couldn't find it. So I went into a huge Homeplus (a big chain in Korea, I haven't heard of it in the states), but they don't really have food there, mostly just clothes and appliances. I had to eat something and just ate at the McDonald's there (I wanted to eat at the costco, one of my favorite places to eat, to see the difference between American and Korean costco, but I couldn't wait any longer), and decided to take a taxi afterwards. I figured I still had time (it closed at 10).
But when I finally got in a taxi, it was 9:49! I finally got to the costco, and luckily they let me through without a member's card. I ran into some guys from Jordan but they didn't know what oatmeal was. One was friendly but the others weren't. After looking all over the store, I couldn't find food, and one of the employees actually understood what oatmeal was (when I went to a large grocery store several days earlier looking for oatmeal, they had no idea what I was talking about) and told me exactly where it was in the downstairs food section! They're pretty lenient about closing, because it was probably 10:15 at this point. The food court had closed but I bought a huge box of oatmeal (the packets, to my pleasant surprise) as well as a huge jar of peanut butter (they only sell that type of thing in bulk). They were kind of expensive, and when I got to the cashier, I learned that it was like the states and that you did need a member's card to buy stuff (I was hoping you didn't need one).
No big deal I thought, I'll get a member's card since I'll probably want to shop there in the future, and they won't tell me it's too late, at least I hoped not. So I asked for how to get a member's card. They brought another employee who gave me some paperwork. Then they told me the bad news: it was 35,000 won for a members card. The oatmeal and peanut butter was a total of 37,000, and I only had 47,000 won. I was absolutely devastated. And then, the lady looked annoyed and said something along the lines that today she'd make an exception, but that in the future I'd need a member's card. It was one of the best moments I've had in Korea, and I guess if you've had a run of bad luck, you can count on something good happening in the end to even it out, or [insert BS line about karma here].
Anyways, yesterday (Tuesday) I finally got my ARC (alien registration card), which enabled me to get a phone! A big step for me, and it makes me an official resident of Korea, though I'd say that the phone is actually more important than the ARC. You have no idea what it's like to not have a phone until you don't have one, especially in a foreign country. It's pretty much your umbilical cord to life. This is especially the case with my job; since my schedule changes daily, I need to be constantly informed about it, so the only way they could do this before I had my phone was to talk to me on google chat, meaning I had to be logged on as much as possible. With my ARC I can finally open a bank account as well, which I'll probably do tomorrow. It's great though to finally have the ARC, since now I have my passport back and can exchange currency. Why Korea won't let you do this without a passport is beyond me, my driver's license, credit cards, and social security card wasn't enough for them; very typical of Korean culture and its attitude towards waegookin (foreigner in Korean).
Well, I guess that's about it. I promise none of my posts will ever be anywhere near this long, and in the future, there'll be lots of little posts here and there.
My second full day was a Friday, and I went out to a club that night that people had recommended on Dave's (eslcafe.com, it's the site that all ESL teachers go to). On the way back from work (I had a meeting with a student or something like that I think) I met an American who was coming back from a party who said we'd be in touch at some point, so that was good. I got a late start and of course got lost on the way there. Google maps is a huge pain. Since everything is in Korean, you can't use the directions feature, you just have to try and figure it out from the map. You wouldn't think this would be difficult, but I keep getting lost doing that. Not sure if it's my fault or not, but that night was the perfect example. According to google maps, the address was in between two subway stations (Gangam I think and some other one, it seemed to be closer to the other one). I went to the other subway station and tried to find my way from there, but later on, everyone told me it was right next to Gangam. Anyways, ended up having to ask some Koreans to explain where I was trying to go to a cab driver.
It was pretty expensive but the venue was really nice, as good as any I've seen. The sound system was great and there was pretty much a full blown laser show. The whole culture though is quite different from anything western, even young Koreans out drinking are pretty uptight for the most part. One Korean starting speaking to me in English and was really enthusiastic about having a foreign friend. His English wasn't too good though so communication was pretty difficult, and he got frustrated at times. He kind of showed me around and introduced me to some other Koreans. They were actually really friendly, and it seems that it takes a lot of drinking for them to open up and try and speak to westerners. When they do though they're quite friendly.
There were a few foreigners there, some Americans, a Canadian, a Spaniard, a Dutchman, and a few guys that looked like Brits. I didn't talk to anyone extensively other than the Spaniard (of course he insisted on speaking in English, just like the other Spaniards I'd meet the next day), but they were pretty nice. The problem with Seoul though is that there are so many foreigners that it's not really a community. If I were in any other city in Korea, there are so few foreigners that it's a very close-knit community, and you're pretty much friends with any westerners from the get-go. That's why I wanted to go to Busan: there'd be a large enough foreign population that there'd be a lot of people to choose from, but not so big that it'd be impersonal and unfriendly. In Seoul there are just so many foreigners that it's not a big deal at all to run into one, and there's not that immediate bond you'd get in any other Korean city. So I learned quickly that you can't really just go up to another white person and act like it's a big deal that you're both in Korea.
I was out until way late at the club and took a taxi back to my apartment. I woke up early and couldn't sleep, so I was a wreck the next day. I was planning on going to bed early, and all of the sudden I got an email from my friend Valerie (we worked on the CDA paint crew together, doing maintenance work for our school district during the summer after my freshman year) who I'd learned a month or two a ago was in Korea as well, in a small town called Jeomchon. She was going to be in Seoul that night with a group of couchsurfers! I don't know a lot about it but couchsurfing is some website you go to if you're traveling and people put you up on their couch if you want a place to stay. I think you're required to provide an hour of conversation or something like that, too.
Anyways, we went to Hongdae, which is apparently the best clubbing district in Seoul. It was packed with foreigners because it was Halloween eve, as I guess you'd call it, and a lot of the Koreans dressed up in costumes as well. Some got really into it. I saw these two Koreans who had really well-done zombie costumes and they were acting like zombies and had these westerners take a picture of them.
The best part though was when Valerie and I were looking for the group. She had separated from them to find me and we were trying to find them. The whole thing was confusing but apparently there was a couch surfer's party that a bunch of people were going to, and that's where the group was headed. We ran into another guy that was looking for it as well, and he brought his friend over, and we were going to try and find it together.
Valerie then got a call and I guess we were heading somewhere else, but we were talking to the guy and his friend asked us where we were from. "Idaho," I said. "No way," he said, "what town?" "Coeur d'Alene," I said. He was speechless but gave me a huge hug. He was from Coeur d'Alene too! Then he asks what high school we went to, and I said I went to Lake City my freshman year and transferred to Gonzaga Prep (not the best answer) and Valerie said she went to Coeur d'Alene. He gave Valerie a big hug and started talking shit about Lake City (he was a CdA high school guy through and through and so proud of it, you know the type). Then he goes, "Don't look at my balls!" and pulls his pants down to show a tattoo of Lake Coeur d'Alene on his thigh. We talked about Coeur d'Alene for a bit, and he was a bigtime Coeur d'Alene guy: absolutely loves it and thinks it's the best place on earth, and his friends told us how much he loves and talks about Coeur d'Alene and that they knew a lot about from the town from hearing him talk about it. So that was a pretty cool moment for my third night there. There were two Spaniards there (Catalans) that I had just been talking to, and they didn't get it. They thought we were crazy for making such a big deal about it. "I guess it's because the United States is very big," one of them said to the other. I don't know, what do you think? Isn't a coincidence that out of every English teacher from all the different countries we ran into, we happened to run into one from our hometown of 40,000 people? Valerie hadn't met anyone from Idaho up to that point.
Anyway, we went to a hookah bar, then for some food, and then to a really high-end Nori-bong (karaoke room). You go in, take off your shoes since that's what Koreans love to do (they put them in compartments), wait a little while, and then go to your room (the building had several stories). There are couches, a big TV, a karaoke machine, and microphones, and you buy a few hours of karaoke. The selection wasn't too good unfortunately but it was fun. When it was over everyone was tired and went home. Valerie and I thought about meeting up with some of the other couchsurfers (the group had split) but I was exhausted from the night before so I wanted to go home. Of course, the subway was going to start running in less than two hours, so we decided to wait it out rather than pay for a cab. We finally got to my apartment very late and crashed for a few hours. After she left I couldn't really go back to sleep and felt pretty dead so all of Sunday and some of Monday was devoted to recovering.
On Monday evening I went out exploring (I'm able to do all of this because October and November are the slowest months of the year for this type of hagwon, since all of the Korean exams are in October, so I have hardly any hours until December). I went to Donggogae, which was the last subway stop heading out to the northeast, as far away as I could possibly go from my apartment by using the subway. There wasn't much there. Not that it wasn't very urban and densely populated, but it was nothing but housing, a bunch of restaurants (there are tons of restaurants EVERYWHERE in Seoul, Seoulites must eat out constantly or something), and a few small shops. I had a beer at a restaurant (Korean beer is awful, I'm learning) and watched a recap of the Euro 2008 on TV. I was in Argentina at the time so it brought back memories. After that, I headed back into the downtown center. I saw a westerner on the first or second stop after that, which was quite odd considering how far out it was, and asked her for some help. She was happy to give me suggestions on where to go, and she had been living there for 7 years! She was getting back from a Korean lesson, and from what I gathered, she's almost fluent. Anyways, she told me to go to this district in the middle of Seoul (can't remember the name or what stop on the subway it was, which is unfortunate) which has a lot of cool shops and restaurants.
Funny side-story: at one point I asked some Koreans for directions, and we talked for a little bit (couldn't make much conversation though because of their English). One of them was a Taekwondo expert, and then wanted to show me something since he was proud of his skills. He gave his friends his wallet and phone, and then proceded to do a front-flip! He didn't quite come around though so when he landed, he stumbled a bit. Immediately afterwards he ran inside and didn't come back out. I guess he 'lost face,' which is the worst thing for a Korean.
Next, I had dinner and noticed some westerners at the table next to me. I asked them if they were living in Seoul (to get recommendations on where to go), and they said no but to pull up a chair. They were really cool people: professional musicians who were trying out for the Seoul Philharmonic! A Korean-American composer was there too who they were friends with in the states. He was from California but his English was pretty much unintelligible. I have a hard time understanding people with bad accents, especially Asian ones, which is a pain if you're in Asia.
After that, I started to walk around for a while. It was getting pretty late and I was going to call it a night, but there were a group of drunken Koreans that I thought were my age, so I thought if I asked them for a lighter I might be able to start some conversation with them. I was right and they were very, very friendly and wanted me to go out drinking with them. As it turns out, they were in their late 20s (I can't figure out the ages of Koreans, anyone from 12-40 looks the same to me). We went to this restaurant-in-a-tent and had some food (very good but very spicy, as is the case with almost all Korean food) and started drinking soju. Soju is the national drink of Korea. They sell it in these bottles (either 500 ML or 750 ML or something like that, I don't know metrics, point is, it's about the size of a coke or beer bottle), so you'd think you could just drink it out of the bottle and finish the bottle yourself. That's definitely not the case though. It's clear and sort of like vodka but much better tasting, so it's easy to drink a lot. The drunk sort of creeps up on you though, it's weird. You have a lot, you think you're fine, and then all of the sudden you're stumbling through the streets of Seoul without any idea of what you're doing.
Anyways, I learned a little bit about Korean drinking culture. They take the age thing very, very seriously. The social hierarchy is entirely based around how old you are. The oldest guy in the group was their boss as well (they worked at a World store; World is one of the two big phone companies in Korea) and you could easily tell he was on top of the hierarchy. In the case of drinking, the youngest person pours the shots for the people in the group, in order of their ages beginning with the oldest (I was the youngest). They hold their glass up to you and you pour in the soju (it's very bad manners to handle their glass I guess), and later I learned that you have to hold your glass with two hands. And the pourer has to put his other hand on his sleeve (back in the day, they wore baggy silk robes and would have to do this). Apparently, if you're drinking with someone who is much older, you cover your mouth and glass with your hand while you drink. They don't drink shots like we do in the west, at least not with soju it seems, they just slow sip from the shot glass and then you pour them more. It alternates though I guess, so different people will pour the soju, and I think the youngest go first the second time, I think. One of them spoke English fairly well, so he was pretty much the translator, and I learned a few Korean words (thank you, cheers, etc.). They were pretty hilarious but I can't really describe it to you, you'd have to see it for yourself. One funny thing was apparently it's not a big deal in Korea to compliment a guy for being handsome, they kept on telling me how handsome I was. "You very handsome! Very smart!" They kept saying.
Eventually, we went our own ways (they were all really drunk) but I went to a bar with the one who spoke good English as well as this other guy. He had big plastic glasses that kept falling down on his face and he wore a suit. His name was Mister Hundred or something like that (if you can imagine that being said with an extremely think Korean accent) and he kept repeating it to me over and over again and would quiz me on what his name was. After the bar they were pretty much stumbling and I took a cab home. They left me their email address on my subway map, which I lost the other day, but I think I remember it so we'll see if I see them again.
As I was going home I saw another group of young Koreans so I decided to use the same trick, I asked them for a lighter. Again they were extremely friendly, and since they all around 20 or 21, they spoke much better English so that made it more fun. We went to a restaurant, drank soju and had some food. Again, they complimented me on how handsome I was and then asked me which one in the group was the most handsome. They all look the same to me. Anyways, it was really late at that point so we parted ways and they left me their number (I texted it yesterday when I got my phone, but didn't hear back). I didn't really think I had that much to drink (the soju tastes good so you think it's not very strong) but when I got back to the apartment, I couldn't believe how much my head was spinning. I passed out and woke up the next morning to possibly the worst hangover of my life. Keep that in mind if you ever try soju, it gives you possibly the worst hangover of any common drink, and I've had this confirmed after talking to other people. So a lot of Tuesday was devoted to recovering.
I had had a class a few days before, on Saturday I believe, with the 7th, 8th, and 9th graders. It's a combined reading, writing, and grammar class, and I'm to teach the reading section. The kids are total zombies. They're exhausted and completely burned out, and are very, very quiet. When you do get them to speak, the speak so softly that you can't really hear them (I guess they're self-conscious about their English). So it was kind of a challenge teaching that class. On Wednesday, I had my first "real" class (a one on one class in US history, I'll be teaching a lot of these alongside SAT stuff and it's basically what I've been hired to do). It was a typical Korean thing in that I received two hours notice for it and wasn't told what I was going to be lecturing her on (they didn't know where she was in her class, it wouldn't be an AP prep class but simply to help her with her homework). I arrive to class and she says she's on John Adams, so then I am to lecture her on US history to that point for two hours off of the top of my head. My boss had asked me earlier if I was too tired to do it, but since I wasn't feeling tired, I stupidly said "No, I can teach it." Anyways, I need to be able to prep for these classes, it's really hard to give a lecture without notes or prep time.
I can't talk about my job since I idiotically put my first and last name in the domain name, but I will say that the Korean hagwon culture is absolutely insane. The kids sleep 3-4 hours a night, 6 if they're really sleeping in (this lifestyle starts in middle school). They spend their vacations cramming in year-long AP classes over the course of several weeks (mostly what I do), or they take one on one weekly tutoring sessions over the course of the year to do an AP class on the side (in 30-40 hours, an average AP class in the US is 150 hours). Another popular thing to do is to spend hours each day after school doing SAT prep classes. In the SAT prep classes and the open (group) AP classes, the kids take an AP test after every class, and their parents are texted the scores. One of the teachers at my school told me that one of her students wasn't allowed to eat past 7 o'clock, and another one had to do an hour of jump-rope at 1AM every night. By western standards, it's pretty much abusive, but I guess they're used to it and it's their culture so it's OK? Even the "slacker" Koreans who aren't as motivated go to the hagwon every day for English I think, unless they come from a very poor family who can't afford it. Apparently the hagwon industry is worth like 18 billion dollars in Korea, which is astounding considering how small it is. Now I understand why the Korean middle schoolers that come to Coeur d'Alene are so happy when they're in America. They're only in school until 3 o'clock, what a concept! And then they can do what they want for the rest of the day...it's paradise for them.
They spend lots and lots of money to take these classes (their mothers push them to do this and seem to be the motivation behind this whole culture, as one Korean student told me, Korean gender roles are that the fathers work and the mothers make them go to hagwon), so if one little thing is off, and it isn't completely perfect, they complain. The Korean parents (especially the mothers) are extremely pushy, so when they have a complaint, they will call the school several times a day and demand a refund. I can't complain about this since it gives me a well-paying job, but it puts an incredible amount of pressure on the students of course, but also the teachers. If I make one mistake (for example, Korean students will ask you obscure questions that they know the answer to, and if you can't answer correctly, they will tell their mom, who will complain to the hagwon and ask for a refund, though luckily I haven't had this happen yet), or have one bad lecture resulting in a student complaint, it's grounds for being fired.
So basically my job is on the line every class. Quite different from teaching in the states, and very few American teachers would last here. Anyways, I have hardly any hours right now (it starts picking up in December, since Koreans take exams in October, these schools are pretty much dead in October and November), but that puts a lot of stress on you, and there was about a three day period where I didn't even feel like leaving the apartment. Now I've decided that you just have ignore it and do the best that you can. If I get fired, oh well, I'll teach ESL somewhere and have a much more relaxed experience. Other than this though it's a good job, I'm not sure if I'll like teaching SAT prep stuff, but basically I get paid very good money to lecture motivated students (no babysitting). Not a bad gig. My co-workers are very cool as well (there are two other Americans working there, and apparently they'll hire one or two more, whom I think already have worked at the school previously).
Not much else to report, it has been uneventful other than this (the stress from the job kind of killed my motivation to explore for a couple of days). On Monday, I decided to go to Costco to buy oatmeal and whatever I might find there, as well as do some exploring. I got a real late start since I had some errands to do. I looked on google maps for directions to costco (looking at the map, since everything was in Korean). The directions seemed simple enough, head out exit 7 on this particular stop on the subway, straight for three blocks, and then take a right and go a little farther.
But of course it wasn't that simple, and I ended up being lost in downtown Seoul for over three hours (later, I learned that I just had to go a few blocks farther before the right turn and I would've found it). Not fun when it's about 20 degrees with the windchill and you're very hungry, and it turned into one of those 'I hate Korea' days. One problem was that there was no Exit 7 on this subway. Above ground there was a sign for it, but there was no exit. Perhaps there used to be one and they got rid of it, or they had yet to build it. At one point, I gave up and went to a PC cafe and showed the guy working their on google maps. He called a better English speaker to translate (Koreans often times do this rather than trying to figure it out themselves), his girlfriend, whose English wasn't so good. Eventually she just told me to take a taxi because it was complicated. They told me to tell the taxi driver the simple instructions: Yeongpyong Costco!
I tried three taxi drivers before one finally understood what I was saying. The signs on the taxis say that if you say 'free interprer,' they'll get you a translator for free, but that's not the case. Or maybe they just don't want to deal with it. One finally seems to get it, and after driving for a while, drops me off at an apartment building. Yeongpyong costco! He says. It says 'coop' on the apartment building, so I'm guessing it was the Yeongpyong coop. Anyways, I was completely lost at this point, but somehow made it back to the original area where I took the taxi (not far from the subway station where I got off). I asked one taxi driver, and he didn't want to deal with me, and the second one told me in broken English that it was very close. He told me to head to the left and then to the right. So I tried that, and still couldn't find it. So I went into a huge Homeplus (a big chain in Korea, I haven't heard of it in the states), but they don't really have food there, mostly just clothes and appliances. I had to eat something and just ate at the McDonald's there (I wanted to eat at the costco, one of my favorite places to eat, to see the difference between American and Korean costco, but I couldn't wait any longer), and decided to take a taxi afterwards. I figured I still had time (it closed at 10).
But when I finally got in a taxi, it was 9:49! I finally got to the costco, and luckily they let me through without a member's card. I ran into some guys from Jordan but they didn't know what oatmeal was. One was friendly but the others weren't. After looking all over the store, I couldn't find food, and one of the employees actually understood what oatmeal was (when I went to a large grocery store several days earlier looking for oatmeal, they had no idea what I was talking about) and told me exactly where it was in the downstairs food section! They're pretty lenient about closing, because it was probably 10:15 at this point. The food court had closed but I bought a huge box of oatmeal (the packets, to my pleasant surprise) as well as a huge jar of peanut butter (they only sell that type of thing in bulk). They were kind of expensive, and when I got to the cashier, I learned that it was like the states and that you did need a member's card to buy stuff (I was hoping you didn't need one).
No big deal I thought, I'll get a member's card since I'll probably want to shop there in the future, and they won't tell me it's too late, at least I hoped not. So I asked for how to get a member's card. They brought another employee who gave me some paperwork. Then they told me the bad news: it was 35,000 won for a members card. The oatmeal and peanut butter was a total of 37,000, and I only had 47,000 won. I was absolutely devastated. And then, the lady looked annoyed and said something along the lines that today she'd make an exception, but that in the future I'd need a member's card. It was one of the best moments I've had in Korea, and I guess if you've had a run of bad luck, you can count on something good happening in the end to even it out, or [insert BS line about karma here].
Anyways, yesterday (Tuesday) I finally got my ARC (alien registration card), which enabled me to get a phone! A big step for me, and it makes me an official resident of Korea, though I'd say that the phone is actually more important than the ARC. You have no idea what it's like to not have a phone until you don't have one, especially in a foreign country. It's pretty much your umbilical cord to life. This is especially the case with my job; since my schedule changes daily, I need to be constantly informed about it, so the only way they could do this before I had my phone was to talk to me on google chat, meaning I had to be logged on as much as possible. With my ARC I can finally open a bank account as well, which I'll probably do tomorrow. It's great though to finally have the ARC, since now I have my passport back and can exchange currency. Why Korea won't let you do this without a passport is beyond me, my driver's license, credit cards, and social security card wasn't enough for them; very typical of Korean culture and its attitude towards waegookin (foreigner in Korean).
Well, I guess that's about it. I promise none of my posts will ever be anywhere near this long, and in the future, there'll be lots of little posts here and there.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Note
The main reason I'm doing this isn't for you it's for me. My mom always hassles me about keeping a diary when I go abroad, and it's one of her good ideas that I always think about and plan on doing but don't actually follow through with. I really regret not having one in Argentina. So I'm going to try to do it this time around. Anyway, there's going to be lots of mundane stuff in here, and most of it won't be interesting to you, but I'm not trying to entertain anyone. So I wouldn't recommend reading this unless you're bored.
Seoul-day 1 (first full day)
I finally went to bed around 1.30ish and was only able to sleep for five hours or so. I just couldn't fall back to sleep for some reason, and part of it was probably because my apartment is next door to a big construction site. After I laid in bed for a long time, I finally got up to take a shower, but there was no hot water so I couldn't. There was a thermostat in the main room but it was in Korean, so I couldn't figure it out.
After that, I decided to go to breakfast. I can't really describe well where I live: it's on a backstreet, but you walk a block or two and you're on a really big main street. On my block there are a couple of restaurants and a 7-11. I went into the 7-11 for some breakfast, which wasn't too difficult because most of the products were in English. I bought a notepad and paper (to keep track of expenses and write down what I needed to buy), some orange juice, yogurt, and some pastries. The guy working there speaks no English and always bows to me. There's lots of bowing in Korean culture from what I've seen so far.
After breakfast I walked around and tried to find some other necessities. The first thing I wanted to get was an adapter (Korean plugs aren't American plugs). I went into a cell phone store and asked where I could find one. They didn't speak English but he called up a friend who did and I was able to communicate what I was looking for after a little bit. He pointed me in the general direction of a place where I'd be able to find one. I was walking along the street and some Korean guy came up to me and said "Hello!" It was the first time someone just tried to talk to me in English other than for helping me. That was about the only word he knew though. So I said "Park Ji Sung" and he started talking about soccer in Korean. I explained to him with hand motions that I wanted to find an adapter. Then he pointed to a computer store that was on the street (probably the same one the other guy was trying to direct me to). I went in, and the guy working there didn't speak English either. But through gestures I found an adapter.
Next, I bought a plastic cylindrical bin at some little market that I'd use as a trash can. It was a tiny building but it was amazing how much stuff they could fit in there. Next, I went to a grocery store. I wanted to find trash bags and clothes hangars so I could start unpacking. It took me a very long time but I found some clothes hangars, and found trash bags after an attendant helped me. They were at the information desk in the back along with some other stuff. I bought the biggest ones I could but they didn't really fit and they're terrible. They're not like normal trash bags, they're plastic and they have four flaps at the opening that don't do anything useful.
After that I went to my hagwon. Simon had drawn me a map of how to get to the subway, and told me that the hagwon was only 7 or 8 stops away, but he didn't mention which direction I had to go to (he probably did and I just forgot). I hoped I could figure it out. But when I got there I realized it wouldn't be so simple. Simon said that I had to get a subway card at a local convenience store. The guy at my 711 didn't speak English and it seemed like it would be hard to communicate. So I was just standing there, looking at the map and trying to figure out what to do and where to go. Some Korean comes up to me and in a perfect Australian accent asked me if I was lost. Turns out he was an Australian-Korean who had just left everything behind to come here and teach English. He didn't like his contract and had just pulled a runner, I think, and was staying with a friend and wandering around. Anyways, I had the address with me in Korean (but not in Konglish, which probably would've helped me) and he looked it up on his iphone and figured out which stop I had to get off of and where I had to go. After that, he showed me the whole process of how to get a card and how to put money on it. There's no way I could have figured it out myself.
I got off at the subway stop and was hungry for lunch. There was a burger king right there, and for whatever reason, it appealed to me. I had a number 8 (bacon double cheese) but of course it was way too small (it tasted just like it does in the US though). After that I started looking for the hagwon. I went to the street it was on and saw a sign high on a building that said TOEFL and SAT, so I went up to that floor, thinking it was my hagwon. I showed them the address and asked where it was, and the lady went and asked someone else and they said it was a couple building over to the right. It obviously wasn't there though. So I showed the address to a few people, and finally they showed it to me. It was the next building over and to the left (the opposite direction that the lady told me). My school's sign was very obvious but the other school's sign blocked it, which is why I couldn't see it. Later they told me that the other school was a rival and made a huge sign like that on purpose so you couldn't see my school's. So I'm pretty sure they gave me the wrong directions on purpose, and there's no way the lady at the front desk wouldn't have known where my school was.
So I got to the school and had a meeting with my boss and the people at the front desk. My boss told me what I would be teaching within the next few days, and I had a meeting scheduled that night to discuss a class I'd be teaching on Saturday. He also told me about a girl I'd be tutoring on Sundays. Later, Simon told me this is the fastest a teacher had ever started after arriving (usually they waited around two weeks). It's because the teacher I'm replacing left the day after I came (when they were going out for drinks the night I arrived as a going away thing), so I have to take over his classes.
After that, I had a meeting with the people at the front desk. They're the ones that schedule our classes so it's really important to have good rapport with them. They sort of understand English but don't speak it to well, so Simon was the translator. They wanted to know about my teaching style and what type of student I wanted, questions I don't really have the answer to. They said to Simon though that I was very studious looking.
After the meeting, Simon and one of them went to lunch with me (burger king hadn't filled me up). We had some excellent Italian food. The other one was very nice and complementary, she said that she had a feeling that I'd be a good teacher and said that it was the only time in 7 years of working there that she'd felt that way (I'm guessing exaggeration in flattery is part of the culture or something). They were also shocked I didn't know my blood type. They told me that Koreans think you can judge a person by their blood type and were surprised that Americans don't care about it. It was a lot of fun. After that, Simon found me an adapter (my computer plug didn't quite fit into the other one, it was some sort of weird European one I guess, holes for three prongs that are slightly smaller than ours).
Then, I went home for a little while (and got lost from exiting the wrong way out of the subway). I tried to find a digital alarm clock but couldn't. I found a non-digital one but decided to wait until I could find a digital. I went home and tried to figure out the internet (they explained to me how to plug it in) but after I plugged it in it still didn't work. I tried calling Simon on the phone like they told me but it was only an intercom phone and didn't have any numbers on it. I took pictures of the thermostat and internet plug in with my computer camera. I figured out the thermostat after pressing random buttons, one of which turned the thing one, and turned up the middle dial to the max like they had told me to (I'm very confused by the whole thing, apparently the only source of heating in the apartment is a radiator in the floor that heats the water, and Simon had said I'd want to buy a floor heater). They said that by turning the middle dial it would only heat the water and not the whole apartment. After watching a little Korean TV I headed back to the hagwon for my meeting.
We voted on the books we're going to teach and I'm going to be teaching reading. So I have to have Call of the Wild ready by Saturday (a day and a half later). which I should be reading instead of writing this. I met the other two American teachers at the school. One of them is Korean-American and the other is half Indian (matters of ethnicity are very important to Koreans). They seem really cool, but I was pretty disappointed that right after the meeting they just left and didn't invite me to dinner or anything. Maybe they were going to but didn't after I started asking Steven some questions about the apartment. So I went to a random restaurant and had dumpling soup. It was very good and looked healthy. I headed home to drop off my computer, and the apartment was a sauna. The hot water worked, but middle dial had turned up the heat as well. The thermostat said 27 degrees Celsius, which is what it felt like. I turned the middle dial way down but when I woke up the next morning, it was said it was 26 (but if felt much cooler). I was going to go to the PC cafe and a drink afterwards but I was too tired, so I just passed out, and slept in until 8.30 this morning. I still felt tired but decided to get up. I'll write on the rest of the day at some other point.
After that, I decided to go to breakfast. I can't really describe well where I live: it's on a backstreet, but you walk a block or two and you're on a really big main street. On my block there are a couple of restaurants and a 7-11. I went into the 7-11 for some breakfast, which wasn't too difficult because most of the products were in English. I bought a notepad and paper (to keep track of expenses and write down what I needed to buy), some orange juice, yogurt, and some pastries. The guy working there speaks no English and always bows to me. There's lots of bowing in Korean culture from what I've seen so far.
After breakfast I walked around and tried to find some other necessities. The first thing I wanted to get was an adapter (Korean plugs aren't American plugs). I went into a cell phone store and asked where I could find one. They didn't speak English but he called up a friend who did and I was able to communicate what I was looking for after a little bit. He pointed me in the general direction of a place where I'd be able to find one. I was walking along the street and some Korean guy came up to me and said "Hello!" It was the first time someone just tried to talk to me in English other than for helping me. That was about the only word he knew though. So I said "Park Ji Sung" and he started talking about soccer in Korean. I explained to him with hand motions that I wanted to find an adapter. Then he pointed to a computer store that was on the street (probably the same one the other guy was trying to direct me to). I went in, and the guy working there didn't speak English either. But through gestures I found an adapter.
Next, I bought a plastic cylindrical bin at some little market that I'd use as a trash can. It was a tiny building but it was amazing how much stuff they could fit in there. Next, I went to a grocery store. I wanted to find trash bags and clothes hangars so I could start unpacking. It took me a very long time but I found some clothes hangars, and found trash bags after an attendant helped me. They were at the information desk in the back along with some other stuff. I bought the biggest ones I could but they didn't really fit and they're terrible. They're not like normal trash bags, they're plastic and they have four flaps at the opening that don't do anything useful.
After that I went to my hagwon. Simon had drawn me a map of how to get to the subway, and told me that the hagwon was only 7 or 8 stops away, but he didn't mention which direction I had to go to (he probably did and I just forgot). I hoped I could figure it out. But when I got there I realized it wouldn't be so simple. Simon said that I had to get a subway card at a local convenience store. The guy at my 711 didn't speak English and it seemed like it would be hard to communicate. So I was just standing there, looking at the map and trying to figure out what to do and where to go. Some Korean comes up to me and in a perfect Australian accent asked me if I was lost. Turns out he was an Australian-Korean who had just left everything behind to come here and teach English. He didn't like his contract and had just pulled a runner, I think, and was staying with a friend and wandering around. Anyways, I had the address with me in Korean (but not in Konglish, which probably would've helped me) and he looked it up on his iphone and figured out which stop I had to get off of and where I had to go. After that, he showed me the whole process of how to get a card and how to put money on it. There's no way I could have figured it out myself.
I got off at the subway stop and was hungry for lunch. There was a burger king right there, and for whatever reason, it appealed to me. I had a number 8 (bacon double cheese) but of course it was way too small (it tasted just like it does in the US though). After that I started looking for the hagwon. I went to the street it was on and saw a sign high on a building that said TOEFL and SAT, so I went up to that floor, thinking it was my hagwon. I showed them the address and asked where it was, and the lady went and asked someone else and they said it was a couple building over to the right. It obviously wasn't there though. So I showed the address to a few people, and finally they showed it to me. It was the next building over and to the left (the opposite direction that the lady told me). My school's sign was very obvious but the other school's sign blocked it, which is why I couldn't see it. Later they told me that the other school was a rival and made a huge sign like that on purpose so you couldn't see my school's. So I'm pretty sure they gave me the wrong directions on purpose, and there's no way the lady at the front desk wouldn't have known where my school was.
So I got to the school and had a meeting with my boss and the people at the front desk. My boss told me what I would be teaching within the next few days, and I had a meeting scheduled that night to discuss a class I'd be teaching on Saturday. He also told me about a girl I'd be tutoring on Sundays. Later, Simon told me this is the fastest a teacher had ever started after arriving (usually they waited around two weeks). It's because the teacher I'm replacing left the day after I came (when they were going out for drinks the night I arrived as a going away thing), so I have to take over his classes.
After that, I had a meeting with the people at the front desk. They're the ones that schedule our classes so it's really important to have good rapport with them. They sort of understand English but don't speak it to well, so Simon was the translator. They wanted to know about my teaching style and what type of student I wanted, questions I don't really have the answer to. They said to Simon though that I was very studious looking.
After the meeting, Simon and one of them went to lunch with me (burger king hadn't filled me up). We had some excellent Italian food. The other one was very nice and complementary, she said that she had a feeling that I'd be a good teacher and said that it was the only time in 7 years of working there that she'd felt that way (I'm guessing exaggeration in flattery is part of the culture or something). They were also shocked I didn't know my blood type. They told me that Koreans think you can judge a person by their blood type and were surprised that Americans don't care about it. It was a lot of fun. After that, Simon found me an adapter (my computer plug didn't quite fit into the other one, it was some sort of weird European one I guess, holes for three prongs that are slightly smaller than ours).
Then, I went home for a little while (and got lost from exiting the wrong way out of the subway). I tried to find a digital alarm clock but couldn't. I found a non-digital one but decided to wait until I could find a digital. I went home and tried to figure out the internet (they explained to me how to plug it in) but after I plugged it in it still didn't work. I tried calling Simon on the phone like they told me but it was only an intercom phone and didn't have any numbers on it. I took pictures of the thermostat and internet plug in with my computer camera. I figured out the thermostat after pressing random buttons, one of which turned the thing one, and turned up the middle dial to the max like they had told me to (I'm very confused by the whole thing, apparently the only source of heating in the apartment is a radiator in the floor that heats the water, and Simon had said I'd want to buy a floor heater). They said that by turning the middle dial it would only heat the water and not the whole apartment. After watching a little Korean TV I headed back to the hagwon for my meeting.
We voted on the books we're going to teach and I'm going to be teaching reading. So I have to have Call of the Wild ready by Saturday (a day and a half later). which I should be reading instead of writing this. I met the other two American teachers at the school. One of them is Korean-American and the other is half Indian (matters of ethnicity are very important to Koreans). They seem really cool, but I was pretty disappointed that right after the meeting they just left and didn't invite me to dinner or anything. Maybe they were going to but didn't after I started asking Steven some questions about the apartment. So I went to a random restaurant and had dumpling soup. It was very good and looked healthy. I headed home to drop off my computer, and the apartment was a sauna. The hot water worked, but middle dial had turned up the heat as well. The thermostat said 27 degrees Celsius, which is what it felt like. I turned the middle dial way down but when I woke up the next morning, it was said it was 26 (but if felt much cooler). I was going to go to the PC cafe and a drink afterwards but I was too tired, so I just passed out, and slept in until 8.30 this morning. I still felt tired but decided to get up. I'll write on the rest of the day at some other point.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
In Seoul
I flew from Spokane to Seattle, and left Seattle at 2.20 for a direct flight to Seoul on Korean Airlines. It was a great flight. It lasted under 12 hours, making it as speedy as any flight to Seoul (many are 20 hour affairs that involve several stops), and Korean Airlines is great. Everyone gets their own personal TV and they can watch whatever they want and even play games. There was a Uruguayan film available and I was very pleased with the opportunity to listen to some Spanish, but there was hardly any dialogue in the movie that lasted more than a sentence or two. After that I played this soccer game for a while and quit after it got too easy. Then I slept for about 4 hours. After that, I watched the news (BBC, CNN, and KBS, the Korean news) and read the newspaper articles that were available as well. Then I read my magazines until we landed. The flight was almost entirely over the ocean, though at one point I opened my window to look at the Pacific and was shocked to see nothing but mountains. I thought we'd only be flying over the ocean but we fly northward to account for the curviture of the earth's surface, so we flew over the peninsula that separates the Sea of Okhotsk from the Bering Sea...I don't know what it's called. Anyway, it was nothing but snowy-peaked mountains, and there was a settlement on the coast. We flew over the Japanese countryside as well, but only saw a little bit. Eventually we got to Korea and flew over Suwon (I believe) which had several sports stadiums.
The Incheon airport was very nice, as good as any I've seen in the states. I got my bags immediately (no wait) and bought a bus ticket, and the bus showed up right away. The people on the bus were very helpful and let me know when I had to get off. I got off at the stop and was supposed to call a cab to take me to the school (that's what the instructions seemed to indicate). I tried flagging a taxi but none would stop. Then, this girl came up to me and asked if I needed help. I told her I needed a taxi, but the ones we stopped wouldn't take me because my bags were too big. So she called a taxi to pick me up, and a few minutes later just went ahead and called the number they had left me. She told them to pick me up, so after about a half an hour they came. She is an English teacher and very nice and friendly, she left me her number and said that she and her husband could show me around Seoul anytime I wanted. And while she was waiting with me she called and cancelled an English lesson with one of her students, just so she could help me! I wouldn't have let her but she told me after she had already done it.
So they dropped me off at my apartment and I put my stuff there, and then Simon (the guy helping me; he works at the front desk at my school) showed me a restaurant and I had some great beef soup. The other teachers at the school were having a drink very close by. Initially I was going to go out and meet them but in the end I decided I was too tired. So he took me to a 'PC room' instead so I could write this blog post. It's pretty hilarious, it's midnight and it's full of Korean kids smoking cigarettes and playing World of Warcraft. Everything is very high-tech here from what I've seen, and all of the computers are very nice and have huge monitors. Nothing like the e-cafes I've been to in Latin America.
Well, I'm absolutely exhausted (it's like 8.20 AM my time)m so I'm going to quit here. Maybe I'll edit it later and add more or something.
The Incheon airport was very nice, as good as any I've seen in the states. I got my bags immediately (no wait) and bought a bus ticket, and the bus showed up right away. The people on the bus were very helpful and let me know when I had to get off. I got off at the stop and was supposed to call a cab to take me to the school (that's what the instructions seemed to indicate). I tried flagging a taxi but none would stop. Then, this girl came up to me and asked if I needed help. I told her I needed a taxi, but the ones we stopped wouldn't take me because my bags were too big. So she called a taxi to pick me up, and a few minutes later just went ahead and called the number they had left me. She told them to pick me up, so after about a half an hour they came. She is an English teacher and very nice and friendly, she left me her number and said that she and her husband could show me around Seoul anytime I wanted. And while she was waiting with me she called and cancelled an English lesson with one of her students, just so she could help me! I wouldn't have let her but she told me after she had already done it.
So they dropped me off at my apartment and I put my stuff there, and then Simon (the guy helping me; he works at the front desk at my school) showed me a restaurant and I had some great beef soup. The other teachers at the school were having a drink very close by. Initially I was going to go out and meet them but in the end I decided I was too tired. So he took me to a 'PC room' instead so I could write this blog post. It's pretty hilarious, it's midnight and it's full of Korean kids smoking cigarettes and playing World of Warcraft. Everything is very high-tech here from what I've seen, and all of the computers are very nice and have huge monitors. Nothing like the e-cafes I've been to in Latin America.
Well, I'm absolutely exhausted (it's like 8.20 AM my time)m so I'm going to quit here. Maybe I'll edit it later and add more or something.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Seattle trip
The Seattle trip went well. Unfortunately, I couldn't renew my Mexican passport; they made a rule recently that you have to make an appointment to renew it. I tried to set one up over the phone for that day (which was incredibly difficult, it was impossible to understand the guy's English over the noise of the traffic and a few times I had to ask him to repeat the same sentences about 10 times). I successfully obtained my Korean visa in the next few days, it's pretty cool: it's like a whole page in my passport. After that I volunteered with my friend Nick in voter protection for Patty Murray. It was pretty cool, and then they let me volunteer for crowd control at her event, which Barrack Obama was to speak at! It was great, I got to direct the people walking in and let everyone know that the floor seating was standing room only.
There were several speakers there, starting with the UW class president and some King County executive moving up through Bill Insley, Norm Dicks, Christine Gregoire, Patty, and then Barrack Obama. Obama was awesome: he has a great presence. It was pretty amazing to see someone that famous, that you only see on TV, right there in person. And he totally looked at me a few times. He focuses on certain people in the crowd during his speech, and I was standing by myself in the volunteer's seating section with a striped sweatshirt, so I stood out. His speech was pretty negative though, the whole thing was about how all of our problems were caused by the Republicans in the 00s. So that was different. Earlier on his message had always been positive, talking about all that hopey-changey stuff, and he didn't have to play the blame game with the Republicans. But now that the past two years have been so horrible and his approval ratings are so low that it's all he can do. I think it's an indicator of the political climate right now and I don't think it's inconceivable for the Republicans to take both houses.
There were several speakers there, starting with the UW class president and some King County executive moving up through Bill Insley, Norm Dicks, Christine Gregoire, Patty, and then Barrack Obama. Obama was awesome: he has a great presence. It was pretty amazing to see someone that famous, that you only see on TV, right there in person. And he totally looked at me a few times. He focuses on certain people in the crowd during his speech, and I was standing by myself in the volunteer's seating section with a striped sweatshirt, so I stood out. His speech was pretty negative though, the whole thing was about how all of our problems were caused by the Republicans in the 00s. So that was different. Earlier on his message had always been positive, talking about all that hopey-changey stuff, and he didn't have to play the blame game with the Republicans. But now that the past two years have been so horrible and his approval ratings are so low that it's all he can do. I think it's an indicator of the political climate right now and I don't think it's inconceivable for the Republicans to take both houses.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Last step: Seattle
So now I'm off to Seattle for a few days on Sunday to get my visa. This is the last part of a long and tedious process to get my visa. I've had to fill out mountains of paperwork that span several states across the country, but I finally got all of my stuff sent to Seoul. Then they gave me a visa number, so I set up an appointment on Tuesday with the consulate in Seattle to fill out more paperwork and to get my passport stamped the next day. I'm also going to renew my Mexican passport. Might as well if I'm going to be there for a few days. After that, I'm approved to go teach in Korea!
What I'm doing (my job)
Here I'll explain what my job is. After living in Williamstown, Massachusetts for four years, and Coeur d'Alene (a metropolis in comparison) for years before that, I'm ready to live in a new place. I want to live in a city, and my priorities in my first post-grad year are traveling and enjoying the last bit of my waning youth. So I decided I wanted to teach English in Korea. The southern one. Why Korea, you might ask?
Initially I wanted to go to Japan. But I learned from research that teaching English there is not what it used to be. It has been a popular destination for the ESL world for years and is now completely oversaturated with English teachers. It's basically impossible to make a living there if you don't have a lot of prior experience (it's also the most expensive country in the world) and I'd probably have to commute to two different schools.
The next idea was China. And I could learn Chinese there in my spare time, which is supposedly what everyone is supposed to do. But the ESL industry there looked pretty sketchy, not to mention living in a third-world country with a billion people and the worst pollution in the world wasn't exactly what I wanted. Now don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with living in third world countries. Living with a host family for three weeks in Nicaragua was one of my favorite experiences. But lounging on the beaches of San Juan del Sur sounds much more enjoyable than navigating my way through Beijing and being unable to see 10 feet in front of me because of the smog. Living in a big city, such as Buenos Aires, is crazy enough, but living in a Chinese big city just sounds like too much.
Then it was Thailand. The pictures make it look like paradise, and apparently it has some of the best beaches and surfing in the world. But the ESL industry over there is even worse, and the students apparently have absolutely no motivation nor the ability to behave in a classroom setting.
Then I looked into Korea and Taiwan, and they definitely seemed like the best bet. They have the most reputable ESL industries, where almost every kid there goes to an afterschool program to learn English. They also use the most advanced teaching methods that focus on conversational English as opposed to grammar-based instruction taught as a content course. So the teaching would be enjoyable. The salary was good, and since there was such a high demand for teachers, you could get any type of job wherever you wanted. Taiwan seemed too small so I chose Korea.
Of course then there was this recession. A few years ago, there were 10 jobs for every teacher. You could get a job there in two days if you wanted to. They were begging people to come. Now, they're cutting back on hiring, all of the teachers already there are extending their contracts since there's no work in their home countries, and just about every recent college grad has decided they want to teach English in Korea. So, the job search wasn't going well. I found a job that would've been great, but since I didn't have all my documents ready in time, they gave it to someone else.
Most of the other offers I got were in the middle of nowhere or wanted me to leave the next day, before I had everything ready (note: if you're going through this process, make sure you get all of your documents ready beforehand). I really wanted to be in Busan, which definitely seems like the best city in Korea: big and cosmopolitan enough that there's plenty to do and I wouldn't get homesick or culture shock, but not crazy like Seoul or too westernized. I'd have beaches to go to as well as mild weather year round (in the rest of the country, the winters are harsh, something I'm really sick of, and the summers are very hot and humid, something I can't deal with).
And then this job came up. The recruiter (they're the ones who put you with the schools) saw that I went to Williams, so he thought I'd be qualified to teach at an AP test prep hagwon (these kids are so good that instead of going to after school English classes, they go to after school AP classes). I had an interview, impressed my boss enough in the quiz section I guess, and so I got the job. I'll be teaching AP US government, comparative politics, and probably European and American history as well. I'll also be teaching SAT prep classes as well as some grammar and reading and writing classes. They pay for housing and the hourly is good, so it'll be a good way to save money. But, I'll be working 6-7 days a week, usually around 60 teaching hours. And there's going to be lots of prep time. So you do the math...
So there won't be the weekend trips I was planning and I won't get to hang out with all the other people my age, who'll be going out on weekends (this is when I have lots of hours, the students aren't in school on the weekends so that's when most of their classes are). There won't really even be free time to explore Seoul. But I guess I can suck it up for a year. Or maybe less. I teach my classes based on student demand. So if my classes are good, lots of kids sign up and I get lots of hours. If not, I don't get hours, and I get fired quickly. So we'll see how it goes. Now on to Seattle!
Initially I wanted to go to Japan. But I learned from research that teaching English there is not what it used to be. It has been a popular destination for the ESL world for years and is now completely oversaturated with English teachers. It's basically impossible to make a living there if you don't have a lot of prior experience (it's also the most expensive country in the world) and I'd probably have to commute to two different schools.
The next idea was China. And I could learn Chinese there in my spare time, which is supposedly what everyone is supposed to do. But the ESL industry there looked pretty sketchy, not to mention living in a third-world country with a billion people and the worst pollution in the world wasn't exactly what I wanted. Now don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with living in third world countries. Living with a host family for three weeks in Nicaragua was one of my favorite experiences. But lounging on the beaches of San Juan del Sur sounds much more enjoyable than navigating my way through Beijing and being unable to see 10 feet in front of me because of the smog. Living in a big city, such as Buenos Aires, is crazy enough, but living in a Chinese big city just sounds like too much.
Then it was Thailand. The pictures make it look like paradise, and apparently it has some of the best beaches and surfing in the world. But the ESL industry over there is even worse, and the students apparently have absolutely no motivation nor the ability to behave in a classroom setting.
Then I looked into Korea and Taiwan, and they definitely seemed like the best bet. They have the most reputable ESL industries, where almost every kid there goes to an afterschool program to learn English. They also use the most advanced teaching methods that focus on conversational English as opposed to grammar-based instruction taught as a content course. So the teaching would be enjoyable. The salary was good, and since there was such a high demand for teachers, you could get any type of job wherever you wanted. Taiwan seemed too small so I chose Korea.
Of course then there was this recession. A few years ago, there were 10 jobs for every teacher. You could get a job there in two days if you wanted to. They were begging people to come. Now, they're cutting back on hiring, all of the teachers already there are extending their contracts since there's no work in their home countries, and just about every recent college grad has decided they want to teach English in Korea. So, the job search wasn't going well. I found a job that would've been great, but since I didn't have all my documents ready in time, they gave it to someone else.
Most of the other offers I got were in the middle of nowhere or wanted me to leave the next day, before I had everything ready (note: if you're going through this process, make sure you get all of your documents ready beforehand). I really wanted to be in Busan, which definitely seems like the best city in Korea: big and cosmopolitan enough that there's plenty to do and I wouldn't get homesick or culture shock, but not crazy like Seoul or too westernized. I'd have beaches to go to as well as mild weather year round (in the rest of the country, the winters are harsh, something I'm really sick of, and the summers are very hot and humid, something I can't deal with).
And then this job came up. The recruiter (they're the ones who put you with the schools) saw that I went to Williams, so he thought I'd be qualified to teach at an AP test prep hagwon (these kids are so good that instead of going to after school English classes, they go to after school AP classes). I had an interview, impressed my boss enough in the quiz section I guess, and so I got the job. I'll be teaching AP US government, comparative politics, and probably European and American history as well. I'll also be teaching SAT prep classes as well as some grammar and reading and writing classes. They pay for housing and the hourly is good, so it'll be a good way to save money. But, I'll be working 6-7 days a week, usually around 60 teaching hours. And there's going to be lots of prep time. So you do the math...
So there won't be the weekend trips I was planning and I won't get to hang out with all the other people my age, who'll be going out on weekends (this is when I have lots of hours, the students aren't in school on the weekends so that's when most of their classes are). There won't really even be free time to explore Seoul. But I guess I can suck it up for a year. Or maybe less. I teach my classes based on student demand. So if my classes are good, lots of kids sign up and I get lots of hours. If not, I don't get hours, and I get fired quickly. So we'll see how it goes. Now on to Seattle!
First post
So, I've decided to become one of those lame people with a blog. I'm conflicted, because in my opinion there's nothing worse than becoming a part of the graphomania that epitomizes our generation. We're the facebook kids, who insist on publishing every mundane detail of our lives on the internet and document them with hundreds of photos. I've always prided myself in not being one of those people (which includes just about everyone my age), and I do my best to try and avoid participating in such facebookery. It's completely worthless: even its chat feature, the one thing it's useful for, sucks (and I suck at using that too, maybe it's because I waited until I got to school to talk to my friends instead of using messenger as a kid, but for me it's no surprise that for my generation we had to invent a form of conversation even more difficult and awkward that talking on the phone). And I don't want to lower myself to the level where I've made a webpage presenting myself to the world that has my interests, favorite TV shows, quotes, relationship status, and more! It was lame, but then people outside of the 18-25 age group starting using facebook, since the .edu was no longer a requirement (Mark Zuckerberg, you suck and you've become a corporate sellout). That's when it got REALLY lame.
On a level slightly above that are the bloggers. They insist on making webpages chronicling the adventures of their cats or narrating their experiences in the grocery store or showing off their artwork. Or they start spouting off their ill-informed political beliefs to an uninterested audience that doesn't have time to actually read the millions of blogs online. Then there's that post-college kid you know posting about his adventurous travels in a far-away foreign land (usually Southeast Asia) from the safety of an e-cafe with wireless internet. So why then, with this pretentious sense of superiority, am I becoming part of the problem and making my own blog?
It's completely for practical reasons. That's my excuse. I'm going to have dozens of people constantly asking me the same questions over and over again: what am I doing, how's Korea, how are my classes going, etc. etc. etc. This is not because I'm a socialite who has hundreds of friends who care about what I'm doing. My parents are though, and for whatever reason their thousands of friends are curious as to what I'm up to. There's also relatives to think about, and maybe there will be the occasional friend from Idaho or Spokane who I've lost touch with thanks to my poor facebook habits (that probably didn't happen all that much in the pre-facebook or pre-cell phone era, imagine that) that might be bored enough in the USA to wonder what I'm doing. So with a blog I don't have to constantly send out mass emails, and I save myself from the embarassment of documenting my life on facebook. And I don't have to worry about my Korean students scrutinizing everything I have to say about them. They can find my on facebook but they can't find me here. Although, maybe they can, it was a real stupid idea to put my full name in the web address. But most importantly, it'll be my diary, so I can remember my experiences later on. It's more for me than for you.
So, I'll have this blog here, and if you want to know what I'm up to, I'll just point you here rather than have an actual conversation about it. That's no offense to you, it's just that there won't be time. I'm going to have 40-60 teaching hours a week with this job, teaching highly condensed AP classes. And unlike high school teachers, I'm going to be teaching several different subjects that I have to write curriculums for. So yeah, it's going to be at least an 80 hour work week, and I'm not going to have time to talk to you. The very little free time I will get will be spent exploring Seoul. So don't take it personally.
And BTW what is with these paragraphs? Why are they so narrow? I can only write three sentences before it becomes too long for people to read (for the old it's because of their eyesight, for the young, it's because they're so used to messenger and facebook that a normal sized paragraph is nearly impossible to read). Any suggestions?
On a level slightly above that are the bloggers. They insist on making webpages chronicling the adventures of their cats or narrating their experiences in the grocery store or showing off their artwork. Or they start spouting off their ill-informed political beliefs to an uninterested audience that doesn't have time to actually read the millions of blogs online. Then there's that post-college kid you know posting about his adventurous travels in a far-away foreign land (usually Southeast Asia) from the safety of an e-cafe with wireless internet. So why then, with this pretentious sense of superiority, am I becoming part of the problem and making my own blog?
It's completely for practical reasons. That's my excuse. I'm going to have dozens of people constantly asking me the same questions over and over again: what am I doing, how's Korea, how are my classes going, etc. etc. etc. This is not because I'm a socialite who has hundreds of friends who care about what I'm doing. My parents are though, and for whatever reason their thousands of friends are curious as to what I'm up to. There's also relatives to think about, and maybe there will be the occasional friend from Idaho or Spokane who I've lost touch with thanks to my poor facebook habits (that probably didn't happen all that much in the pre-facebook or pre-cell phone era, imagine that) that might be bored enough in the USA to wonder what I'm doing. So with a blog I don't have to constantly send out mass emails, and I save myself from the embarassment of documenting my life on facebook. And I don't have to worry about my Korean students scrutinizing everything I have to say about them. They can find my on facebook but they can't find me here. Although, maybe they can, it was a real stupid idea to put my full name in the web address. But most importantly, it'll be my diary, so I can remember my experiences later on. It's more for me than for you.
So, I'll have this blog here, and if you want to know what I'm up to, I'll just point you here rather than have an actual conversation about it. That's no offense to you, it's just that there won't be time. I'm going to have 40-60 teaching hours a week with this job, teaching highly condensed AP classes. And unlike high school teachers, I'm going to be teaching several different subjects that I have to write curriculums for. So yeah, it's going to be at least an 80 hour work week, and I'm not going to have time to talk to you. The very little free time I will get will be spent exploring Seoul. So don't take it personally.
And BTW what is with these paragraphs? Why are they so narrow? I can only write three sentences before it becomes too long for people to read (for the old it's because of their eyesight, for the young, it's because they're so used to messenger and facebook that a normal sized paragraph is nearly impossible to read). Any suggestions?
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