The Roundup

With only 9 days until we return to Canada, we've been busy - especially because we booked a final trip to Beijing from this Thursday morning until next Monday, which means that we've only got 5 days or so left in Korea.  Needless to say, we started trying to pawn off our furniture and pack early, and have nearly gutted our apartment of unnecessaries.

This final month of classes started off with a bang, slowed to a crawl mid-month (I might have gotten a little over-eager and made a to-do list too early in the game), and then whizzed to the final few days of work.  I find it hard to believe that Tuesday will be my last day of full-time work in over a year.  The way we've been going out for dinner lately would have you believe that I'm getting a promotion instead of entering a year of graduate school in September.

Jon ran a half-marathon on June 14 - in great time, of course - with Patrick.  I opted out of the race because the previous weeks had replaced workouts with eating out.  I also received a clear sign that I shouldn't run: Keedo ate my race chip.

The past few weekends have been spent with our friends, browsing knick-knack shops in Insa-dong, drinking beer on patios, and cruising around Hongdae, a hotspot for art students and club-goers.  We've finally tried noori-bang (i.e. karaoke rooms); bought lots of little Korean souvenirs; drunk cocktails from a bag on the street; tried out an ice bar; gone drinking with our managers (a must in Korean corporate culture - I kid not); planned the trip to Beijing; and generally just started preparing ourselves for life in Canada.  I welcome any advice on reverse culture shock from those who have also lived abroad for long periods of time.  Gangnam could not be more different from Georgetown or Gads Hill.

We've also started reminiscing a little early about Korea.  We'll miss cheap transportation, having nearly everything we needed close by, inexpensive meals out, being able to drink alcohol on the street, sharing food with everyone at the table, and Korean food, most definitely.  Our job has been enjoyable and the students we teach are, on the whole, pretty interesting.  Most of all, we've met some amazing friends that we'll really miss when we return.

There are, of course, some things we won't miss.  I won't miss having to throw used toilet paper into a smelly, open-top garbage can; the smell of rotting garbage on the street in summer time; air pollution, of course; and the inability to run in my own neighbourhood without dodging cars or hitting a red light.  I hope to never again have to wake up at 5:30am to get ready for work; or stay up really late to make a run-of-the-mill phone call home.

About some other things, I have mixed feelings.  The speed of life here is breakneck, making for an excitingly fast lifestyle that is sometimes impossible to keep up with.  The rabid consumer culture, while repulsively thoughtless at first, is recklessly fun.  About other things, it's just too early to tell.  I guess we'll know 9 days from now.

Why I can't join the <6 sleeping hours club.

Thank goodness it's Saturday.  The end has come to one of those long weeks - the kind that just make you want to crawl into bed and pull the blankets over your head ... even just for an hour.

It started out well enough.  I finished my long run on Monday fully pumped for the half marathon we've got coming up shortly (!) and walked home all happy.  Jon had made pasta for dinner, so I sat down to eat.  Then it started.

My appetite was sapped.  I, a person who really really likes a high-carb dinner, couldn't stomach more than a bite.  Nausea set in.  I curled up on the couch with Keedo, who knew something was wrong, and fell asleep for a few hours.  When I woke up I still wasn't hungry, but the nausea had subsided.  I ate a bland dinner of cereal and granola bars (which I'll eat any time of day), and passed out early - 9:30 or so.

Now, this meant that I got a good night's rest, but also meant that I'd not prepared for class the next day.  I woke up early, showered, and scrambled to work by 6am to google, print, photocopy and grade essays before my 6:40am class started.  The day went on as per usual, and Jon and I met up with some of his former students for a bite to eat after work.  A little bit of dongdongju (ice-cold Korean rice wine) on a weeknight never really hurt anyone, right?  We went home happy and satisfied after hearing some rollicking good stories from Fiona, a robust Korean woman with far too much personality to fit in here.

Out again for a drink (is this really Monday?) to meet Chi-ho, a friend we didn't expect to see after that night because we're leaving in just over a month.  We waited over an hour before we gave up on him and called it a night, jogged across the main street, ignoring a taxi driver motioning for us to stay on the median instead, and back to our flat.

Minus my wallet.

I went back to look for it no more than 20 minutes later, but the whole scene had already changed and the wallet was nowhere to be found.  That's when I realized that the taxi driver was trying to point it out to me, tell me that I'd dropped it.  So much for being able to tune out Seoul's millions ... serves me right.  From then on, for one reason or another, I got only 5 hours of sleep - this, for a girl who obviously needs closer to 7 or 8 to function properly.

On Thursday, I misplaced my glasses.  Friday morning, I thought I lost the gift certificate to Adidas I'd won after the race.  I forgot my cell at home one morning, and Keedo got at it.  Now, when I press 9, or text using 'prs', I get a question mark.  My feet have been soaking wet all week because of a few days of rain (morning until night) and I really just needed a recovery day.

The good news is that nobody used my cards before I cancelled them, but getting replacements will be a royal pain.  I'm bummed that I lost my wallet, a funky purple snakeskin single-fold (i.e. men's wallet) that I don't expect Club Monaco to carry again.  But mostly, I'm just a bit angry at myself for letting a few small things get to me so much.  I guess that's why I need to be babied a little - a full night's sleep for this one or all hell breaks loose.

Note: Since I initially wrote this post about 3 weeks ago, I have lost my cell phone, forgotten my glasses on my bedside table and had them chewed up by Keedo, temporarily misplaced my temporary wallet in the staff room at work, and become a bit of a laughing stock for it all.  I took the cell of a former coworker who left Korea in early June, locked the phone while trying to put it on vibrate and had to lie about ownership to get the cell unlocked.  The list goes on. This has been more than a wake-up call reminding me that I shouldn't go drinking twice on a weeknight and that I have a one of those rare patient and supportive boyfriends.  It has also helped me realize that this culture is just way too damn fast for me to keep up with.  I'm definitely looking forward to slowing down a little back in Canada when I return on July 7.

Soft Power For the (Still) Fairer Sex

"I felt more like an advice columnist than a secretary of state."

- Hilary Clinton, quoted from the NY Times.

It looks as though only the most beautiful Korean students were chosen to stand behind America's Secretary of State.  Note the double eyelids everywhere - 'eyelid surgery' is often a high school graduation gift from parents.

She reenergized many of The School's female student body with her visit to EWHA Woman's University during its orientation for new students (OT, as the students all it).

But what she said, or advised, exactly is not entirely clear.  Sure, her goal was to create future leaders in a social climate that still doesn't fully accept powerful women.  Yes, our school's CEO is a woman, but many female students openly dream of marriage or plastic surgery, not power.  As cute as it might seem at first, I suspect this is why a young Korean woman asked Mrs. Secretary of State how she met her husband.  Ambitious young thing, trying to peg a future president early on. (Here's a hint: go to a co-ed university.  As far as I know, that's where Bill and Hilary met).

My question is, however: in what language did Hilary give her speech?  Was it given only in English, to be understood only by the linguistically gifted or daughters of families rich enough to pay for years of extra English lessons?  Or did the organizers choose that cumbersome translation format, where everything is heard twice: once in English, then again in Korean, just like our staff parties? (Lucky for EWHA's students, the content would have been undoubtedly more stimulating than a staff meeting).

I tried to ask a few students what Mrs. Clinton had actually talked about.  You know, the question all students dread being asked by their teacher: "So, what was the main argument?" 

One lower-level student gave me a short answer with lots of enthusiasm, something predictable like, 'She talk about empower women and make me feel excited for university'.  An intermediate-level student gave me some vocabulary words in no particular order but using the stress and intonation that could have helped it pass for a full sentence: 'She said women empowerment important for ... uh, oppression ... uh, future empowerment women.'

The title of the speech was 'Women's Empowerment'.

But maybe I'm coming across a bit too harsh on these students.  I don't mind that they can't communicate the details of the speech to me or that their sentences sometimes just aren't.  I just hope the message wasn't totally lost on these women.  Some of them need all the non-surgeried, non-male-and-family-dependent inspiration they can get.

New Year's (Take Two) and Other Surprises

Well, I was hoping to split this into a few posts and make it look as though I had posted our events in a timely manner.  Instead, I've pretended to do so in two bursts of posting.  This is the second burst (for the first, see the two previous posts, below). Please forgive me if I am repeating myself a little.

Since New Year's, we've had a few interesting events.  I've been given a few more advanced classes (Pschool Intensive Program, or PIP classes) teaching reading and writing in addition to speaking and listening.  This means that I'm with the same group of students for either two or three hours each day of the week, and have actually begun to feel like a teacher.  At first, I felt torn in many different directions and spread a bit thin, covering three or four different activities in an hour rather than presenting one long activity like in the conversation classes (Speaking, Listening and Expression, or SLE classes).  Now, the SLE classes seem slow and monotonous in comparison.

While I was adjusting to these new classes, we got a piece of ... interesting news.  While we were at work, a pipe burst in the apartment above us, causing water to stream down our walls and onto my laptop.  Jon discovered this in the afternoon when he finished work (one of his classes was cancelled so he formally finishes work at 3pm).  I got the call at work at about 4.  My computer was fried, about one or two months after buying it.  And yes, because I made some stupidly impulsive decisions, it was already the second laptop I had bought since I arrived in Korea.

To make a long story short, we were moved back into our old studio for five days while they re-wallpapered our current place and fixed the flooring.  Keedo had been sent to a dog hotel overnight to make this move easier and to test out a place we've had in mind for him during our upcoming holidays.  During his overnight stay, the trainers noticed a bit of blood around his mouth, took him to our vet and found that he needed a tooth removed. Lets call this surgery number one.  Jon then took him back to the vet for a follow-up visit and the vet suggested that the other K-9 also be removed.  Surgery number two.  Keedo came home to a different apartment feeling drugged, woozy and a little bit abandoned.  All of this on the day before and during Jon's birthday.

Jon's birthday!

January 14 is his date, and it was celebrated with lots of food gifts and 'Happy Birthday' serenades from his students (especially the girls ;) ) and a pre-wrapped corporate gift from The School.  Turns out it was a ladies' perfume set - whoops!  For dinner, we went to a traditional Korean restaurant nearby with our close friends David and Richard (others were still working through dinner) and had some makkoli (Korean rice wine) and padjeon (a giant Korean pancake mixed with vegetables and slices of octopus - deelish!).  Then we all hurried off to bed to ready up for a big Thursday ... we'll continue to celebrate Jon's birthday this coming weekend.

A few days after Jon's big day, we moved back into our apartment to find they'd just cranked up the heat to dry the floorboards (heat comes through the floor in most Korean homes - AC from the ceiling.  Heat rises and cool air falls, right?  It just makes so much sense ...).  I got a new laptop identical to my old one within three days.  Keedo got new toys from the dog hotel and Jon got ... a year wiser.

So now it's the night of Friday the 22nd and we're resting up for the last day of a 14-day working streak.  We're a little pooped and would probably be grumpy, too, if it wasn't for our weekend plans.  We're going to Shanghai for the lunar new year.

It's been in the works for about a month now.  We got a great deal on the plane ticket, have our visas ready and secured travel insurance long ago.  We invited some friends to go with us, so there will be seven of us in all.  Jon got in touch with an old coworker, Ken, from the university he worked at in China to help us find a place to stay, and the plan is to meet up with Ken and take it from there.

We're pretty excited!  We'll be back on the evening of the 27th (and start work early on the 28th) so will have photos and stories to share in the near future.

Oh - one last thing.  For the first (real) time and maybe the last, it snowed!!!

Hello 2009!

Turns out that Christmas was such a hit we were nominated to host New Year's, too!  I immediately promised myself that I would not get too Martha Stewart-y (years of Marilyn Dennis on CityLine after school has taken its expensive, time-consuming toll already).  No new decorations, no new foods (we still had unused food and leftovers from Christmas); only a place to hang out on another day off.

I had to work until 10pm that night, the final day of classes, so Jon took care of the setup.  I had thought that, being New Year's and all, I might have no students show up for class - especially the later ones - and might get to leave early.  I had forgotten that Education is the biggest religion in Korea.  I had full classes during the day, and regular classes until my last class at 8pm.

One student, a young and exceptionally cheery woman named Song (her Korean first name was similar to Seong Yu) arrived in class early and eager to chat with her classmates ... who, it turned out, felt they had better things to do on New Year's Eve than brave the partying crowds to get to a sterile classroom to talk for a few hours.  Uncomfortable as she was being the only student in the class, we went out for a bite to eat nearby (any new setting that gives us something to talk about is always, always welcome).  We filled the two hours by sharing travel, family and relationship stories (the big 3, again, aside from school), and parted ways, she, glad to have finished class and ready for a night out, and me, desperate to get home to friends who had been there for hours, chatting away without the pressure of filling the airtime with (sometimes hollow) questions.

Little did I know that it would be the night of North Korean soju and rounds of drinking games.

This stuff is more potent than the Southern stuff - 6% more potent, in fact, and still much easier to drink than its Russian cousin, Vodka.  And within about an hour and two or three drinking games, it had turned both Richard and David into happy, hatted men.

Richard didn't know his hat was pink for about two hours ... by the time he realized, he had gone outside to smoke about six times and been given strange looks by many Koreans who knew a little more than he did about his topper.

A few more joined us than had at Christmas; Rob Davis from Vancouver and his Korean girlfriend, Cecil (who has offered to teach me Korean), David's girlfriend Yuri, and Richard's soon-to-be-girlfriend, Christina/Hazel (she renamed herself before entering our place, leaving Richard confused for weeks).  All this meant that seating was on the floor with Keedo.

This is, one could say, a 'talking picture'.  Apologies that the photos are not so stellar this time around: better photos are on their way in future posts!

Lucky for a few of the drinkers we know, we got a holiday on New Year's Day.  Then, the real work began - January, I've been told, is the busiest month of the year at The School.  After working two weeks of ten to twelve hour days, I believe it.  More about January to come!

Schedule Update

Hellooo split shift!

For those who are interested in the mundane, our schedule runs as follows for September:

Wake at 6 to throw Keedo's tacky made-in-China light up ball; to eat breakfast before being able to see it; and to try to look presentable to our 7 am classes.

Rush to The School for 6:40 to sign in with a fingerprint (no cheating there) and check email before class. No new classes for either of us this month, so we're coasting on the prep of previous months.

Teach from 7am until 9am on Mondays, Wednesdays and most Fridays; until noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Take a break until 6pm. That's right - we have more time between our morning and evening classes than during the night between our evening and morning classes! Nine hours, some days, during which we walk-slash-coax-slash-drag our little dog around the neighbourhood, go to the gym (I still drag myself there - Jon's much more committed, or addicted, some would say), read and nap. Oh yes, also eat both lunch and half a dinner within this break.

Then we get dressed for work a second time, trying not to look too different from our morning appearance (except for the wet mop I usually wear after the gym), for the final four hours of class.

Home at 10pm, then another walk/drag for Keedo, a snack and a quick nap before we start our day all over again. I can't wait until more teachers leave, replacements arrive and we move up in the ranks to avoid this split-shift situation. But like Jon says, after this year, it'll be tough to work a full eight hours in a row...

Midnight Fire at The School: Thursday Classes Cancelled

Man, news sure does travel fast.  Jon and I woke up at 6am this morning to get ready for our daily 7am classes, sat down to a breakfast of cereal, some PB&J and a biiig coffee each.  Less than two minutes into breakfast, I got a text from a former student of mine and a current student of Jon's:

"Arla,U&Jon are alright? i just heard there was fire in PANGDA(7th floor)."

I replied that we were fine, hadn't even been to the school yet, and thanked Jinny (from her Korean name, Jin Hee) for her concern.

A few minutes later, Jon got a call from our most competent manager, Soo, who informed us that classes were cancelled today and might be cancelled tomorrow.  She would call later if tomorrow's classes would, in fact, be in session.

So we went to the gym and then arranged to meet a friend of ours, Rob, for a hike.  Walking to the subway station on our way to the mountain, we approached The School - and smelled it before we saw it.  With smell of burning rubber as faint as that smell can be in our noses, we turned the corner and saw this:

It appears as though at least 20 windows were broken: at left, seven at the north side on the seventh floor, at least one window on each floor of the stairwell at the right of the building, and a few scattered windows on upper floors.  On the sixth floor, we noticed that lights were on in each room, and it seemed that there was little to no damage below the seventh floor.

A few teachers arrived at the school at 6am, only to find debris below the broken windows and smoke-stained concrete frames.  This was cleaned up by noon, when we passed by the building.

The east side of The School showed worse damage than the north side.  Although notices at the front of the building claimed it would reopen in four to five days, our managers insist that weekend classes will continue.

A big surprise.  Later in the afternoon, senior teachers told us the cause of the fire: a photocopier on the seventh floor, the transformer/converter of which had overheated and caught fire.  Combine heat with a lot of nearby paper and you have yourself a growing fire.

Although nobody from The School was in the building, other students have told us that there were some injuries in the health clinic on the upper floors (also known as a plastic surgery clinic).  I have yet to find an English-language article on the fire/blast that could give me more reliable details, but will post any that I find.

Until the building reopens or we get news from our managers, many teachers are concerned about their income and their schedule.  Enrollment has dropped off significantly now that students are in university during the daytime, and teachers have about seven hours of class on average, instead of the opportunity to take on more classes to make more money.  Weekend classes have been jeopardized, since they had already been condensed into three four-hour sessions instead of four three-hour sessions.  And current students will likely want to make up their classes at another time.  Although this would not normally be an issue, many teachers think we'll be asked to hold makeup classes at the beginning of October - which had previously been a holiday.  Teachers have invited family to come for this 5-day weekend, have booked plane tickets to various paradises in SE Asia and have made more local plans within Korea.

In sum, everybody loses.  Students have classes carried into October, teachers have the inconvenience of a broken-up holiday and the rest of The School's staff have to deal with administrative chaos and cleanup of this kind of delay.  Not to mention the injuries of the plasticized above us.

The upside?  We might get new photocopiers.

The revolving doors

The revolving door is both reality and obvious metaphor here at The School.

Students sail through one of the two circular things on their way to and from class.  Teachers must do the same, as does upper management.  It's a one-at-a-time process, unless a couple is silly enough to squish together and shuffle through at a snail's pace, causing many to scoff and enter or exit through the other door.

From what The School's recruiter had told us, the company depends on a high volume of students to make its profit.  Apparently, the government has capped what a hagwon (English language school) can charge students - $6 per 50-minute lesson.  Given its prime location in Seoul, the operating costs of the air conditioner in the dead of summer and the huge volume of free food and School-brand gifts, the school needs the doors to keep turning from morning to night.  And they do.

It's not only the students flowing through these doors.  Teacher turnover in this industry is incredibly high - and, if anything, seems lower at The School than at other hagwons.  While some teachers have taught here for four to five years - some are married or engaged to a Korean - others, like ourselves, only intend on staying for the duration of our one-year contract.  June through August are holiday months for Korean university students, and are consequently The School's busiest training/teaching months.

There's a simultaneous purge at the other end of the contract.  At least three teachers left the school at the end of last month, necessitating combined going-away events.  True to Korean corporate style, drinking into the wee hours is the best way to go out with a bang!

So out we went to a going away costume party with a latin theme - a cross-dressing Shakira greeted us alongside our host, a proud Matador, and various other characters using the costume party as an excuse to showcase their favourite physical attributes (modesty was not the order of the day).  

Known for hosting such extravagant going away parties, The Matador in an apartment overlooking the American army base in Itaewon, at the centre of the city.  I tried to sneak a peek over the wall of the base - after a few drinks I even walked up to the brick wall and jumped a foot or so in the air to try and see over the top of it - but to no avail.  Lights were off and nobody on patrol. I shouldn't have been surprised.  If I had stopped for a moment beforehand to consider the stagnant presence of the US in Korea, I would have expected - in the most exciting scenario - a parking lot.  All presence and patrol - no real action.

As my high school French teacher used to admit, I digress.  If you would like to read news regarding ongoing Korea-US relations, check out the Korea Herald.  Top story of the day: "Bush arrives in Seoul: accompanying security forces outnumber ongoing Army presence" (Kidding, kidding ...)

Ah yes, the party ... the party moved to a local bar in Itaewon, Bar Nana.  Low lighting and deep red walls created a cozy atmosphere that made most teachers feel comfortable sitting cross-legged on dirty pillows.  The smoke was inescapable, and the music turned up too loud in order to compensate for an otherwise empty bar.  The vets among us seemed to fit right in, chain-smoking and shouting as if they'd done so each weekend since they'd arrived.

The following week was the last full week for Liz (American?), the only black teacher in the school.  A vivacious woman, I think that she was a force of social change in Korea, where (I've heard) people with dark skin are often dismissed as inferior to Koreans, considered theives, and sometimes even feared.

A 5-year veteran, Jodey, has moved onto teaching business English at a nearby university after putting in far too many hours at The School.  Two weeks after his final working day, he was still interviewing new students, advising new teachers, and spending most of his days in the teachers' lounge.  Must be hard for him to adjust to a quieter, more serious working environment.

The bad news came at the beginning of the week: Irish John, a tall, gay and eccentric English major got a call from home, telling him that his ill father had taken a turn for the worse.  He flew home the following day, skipping the last few classes of the month in order to be with his father.  We found out the next day that John's father had died while he was on the plane home. Rob, a teacher seven months into his term, broke the news quietly and sincerely (having lost his father only a few months prior, I believe) to teachers and managers. I don't expect to see John at The School again.

So, for better or for worse, seniority at The School is relatively easy to come by.  I recognize a certain frantic look on the faces of new teachers - even those who have already taught elsewhere - and am learning the names of new coworkers alongside the names of this month's batch of students.  I have a few students in my classes for a second month, know that others have also re-enrolled, and have caught word about which teachers are leaving at the end of August.  It's no wonder that The School invests heavily in marketing and teacher recruitment, trying to make sure that there is a replacement for each student and teacher that walks out its revolving doors.

Welcome to Gangnam/Kangnam!

Arla here --

To bring everybody up to speed, I thought that I would post a brief summary of what it's been like here so far. I hope that you don't mind the quick Q & A format ... this message was originally written for Lex (Jon's sister), who asked: Are you enjoying the teaching / new culture?

My lengthy reply was as follows:

"I think that the teaching gig has been going really well for us so far! Better than expected, at least. It's ridiculous that it's my job to teach my native language to a group of people, really ... Most of them have been learning English since high school at the latest. Their grammar is good and their vocabulary extensive. I only wish I could speak French as well as my students speak English. I guess the hardest part is keeping people's attention on the topic, and understanding Konglish (a strange mix of Korean expressions using English words, like 'skinship'). Oh, and reading Korean, which I really can't do for the life of me. I'm absolutely illiterate over here. Jon and I both have cell phones with this handy little Korean to English dictionary function that has proven handy for normal things, like understanding how to work our washing machine. Lifesaver!

To give you an idea of what we do ... the most complicated things I have to teach are English expressions because, I find, that they don't often have a root in common sense. Why, for example, do you see ghosts, but feel spirits? What is the paranormal? Why don't we have 80 different words for the 80 different types of buses that exist in Seoul and area? Why does a bus have a route, but a subway has a line? And these examples are just from one class, 50 minutes long. Put on the spot, I often try to come up with an educated guess ... like that a ghost may have a spirit but a spirit never had a visible body ... that the terms 'inter-city' and 'intra-city' buses include dozens of bus sub-types, etcetera.

Of course, if you were concerned about getting the answers exactly correct, you might feel bombarded with questions that are very difficult to answer correctly (especially with the little prep time that we've got each day for seven hours of class). Maybe that makes me a lazy teacher, even a horrible one. But I'm guessing that my students need a functional answer, not an impeccably correct one, or that they're often just curious when they're digging for more information. So I'll try not to stress about it too much during my first month here.

The new culture is loads of fun! It's like almost anything goes as long as the institutions of marriage, education, work and shame are respected. Women wear anything as long as it's paired with high heels. Yellow is a feminine colour. Not pink. The food is spicy and often paired with soju, a vodka-type drink with 20% liquor often taken as a shot, or with beer. Businessmen vomiting on the streets is not unheard of, although never glamorous. Homosexuality still elicits giggles from my students, but both men and women hold hands while walking down the streets as an acceptable sign of friendship. I expect that seeing two middle-aged businessmen holding hands while they look for a restaurant or talk business will continue to throw me for a loop for a while yet. But being in the centre of an entertainment district has other perks, like shopping and easy access to all modes of transportation. Sales, for example, are 'Happy Sale', and the buses come almost as frequently as the subway.

It's been great so far, if a lot to take in at once."

So, that's my teaching/cultural experience in a nutshell.