Reflecting on a year gone by

It's the eve of a new year and time to say goodbye to 2013 and hello to 2014. It has certainly been an interesting year with half of our time spent living in Cheongju, South Korea. We've been back in the states for 5 months, going on 6 about mid-January and the time has flown since then. Sometimes we find ourselves talking about Korea, how we miss the kiddos we worked with (some of them, anyway!) and just little things about life in South Korea in general. At the same time, there are things that I really enjoy about being back home again too.

Because of our previous adventures, I had the idea that instead of getting Chinese food for New Years, like my grandparents always did, we would get Korean instead. A good way to remember our time teaching English overseas and treat ourselves to delicious food and kimchi! Fortunately for us, we have two fantastic Korean restaurants just down the street, so for us it's a dinner of 돈까스  and 잡채. 

In our time back we've been job hunting (still ongoing), gotten two jobs each, volunteered at the Children's Museum (as seen above), met some neat people, gotten cozy in our own place for the first time, spent time with friends, and had other interesting experiences. I hope that next year will bring new and interesting things and experiences just like those before it. This one will be spent with time in South Korea in mind as it was a wonderful new adventure that will live on in our memories. 

Coming Home-- What's Different

I took some time previously to talk about the whole ordeal that lead us to come home early, but now it's time to talk about being home in general. The above picture is the last picture I took in Korea with my phone. We had about 6 hours of sitting around at the Incheon International Airport, so I did some wandering and also took a picture of this very large display.

It's fair to say that our circumstances were a bit different than some, because of the time frame during which we left. We were anticipating leaving and coming home September 3rd, but being told on a Wednesday that she wanted us gone during the upcoming weekend made for a bit of a challenge. That gave us less time to mentally prepare and also to get all packed up, but we did it anyway. What a whirlwind, and a long day of travelling.

Now, traveling more than 6,000 miles is definitely easy by today's standards, but we still wracked up more than 25 hours of travel time. We took a taxi from the school/apartment to the bus terminal, boarded a bus for a 2 hour ride up to the airport, waited around the airport for about 6 hours, took a plane from Incheon to Toronto for 13 hours, got through customs and immigration in Toronto for the US and had a layover of about 2 and a half hours, then flew from Toronto to Philadelphia in about an hour and a half or so followed by an hour and a half drive home. Needless to say, it was a very, very long day. That much travel, across 11 time zones, can really do a number on a person and it's taken time to adjust.

It's definitely good to be home and see all of our favorite places again (see above, a wonderful part of the local area). But not only have we been adjusting to being 13 hours behind again (from South Korea back to Eastern Standard timezone) and fixing our sleep schedule, but we've been readjusting culturally too. This is my take on the whole thing and Zach will provide his own interpretation when he gets the opportunity as well. These are just some of the personal observations that I've made in what's been about a month since we've been home.

-- Getting used to seeing English everywhere again is a big change. Going from seeing some English, but mostly signs in Korean is very different. Suddenly I can walk into a store and read the signs, and look at all the advertisements and understand them.

-- Understanding everyone again. It's different, it really is. Something I'd say I kind of took for granted before. To go from understanding a word here and there to suddenly being able to recognize and comprehend speech from whoever is a very different concept. The lull of speech in Korea was something you could kind of zone out to (except when you picked out words here and there), rather than something you actively listen and respond to here.

-- Driving again after not doing so for so long. This one took a little time to remember, and get used to my cars own little tendencies. I have to say that this is a skill that may get rusty, but it did come back soon enough and now it's like I never even left.

-- Going to stores and being able to understand what you're getting. This is one of my favorite differences. I'm able to walk into a store and know what I'm getting, be able to read the ingredients and the nutrition label and that's just cool.

-- So many food options. I really enjoy Korean food, in fact we got bulgogi at a local Korean restaurant for lunch yesterday, but it's nice to be able to eat a variety of different foods. In Korea I feel like the flavors were kind of limited and after a while it seemed like many things tasted very similar. Back at home it's nice to have the option of going for Mexican or Italian, American or Indian, it's just pleasant to have so many things to try again.

-- Not being stared at and being able to communicate well. Back in Korea as a foreigner it wasn't unusual to get stares or kid randomly saying hi to show of their English to a foreigner. Here you just kind of blend in, which in its own way is really something of a revelation for me. This leads into discussion of privilege as a part of the majority and I think I'd rather tackle that at a different time when I'm not addressing a long list of adjustments being home from Korea. It's also nice to be able to tell people what you want or need, to make an order without gesturing to a menu board or pointing to a picture/item in a menu.

-- Not handing things to people with two hands. In Korea it's considered polite to hand things to people with two hands whether you're giving a gift or handing money to a cashier. Here, no such ceremonial tendencies, you just hand over whatever it may be with a single hand and you're good to go.

-- Bowing constantly. In Korea it's normal to bow to people, or at least nod in greeting. It seems like something I did everywhere, really. Now that I no longer do that it seems a little strange and I do a lot of smiling and sometimes nodding instead.

-- One normality to another. I think I like this one the most, because it's so true. We went from the foreign and unusual at first to South Korean normality, for us anyway. Coming home is also much the same. We went from Korea and came back home again to things being somewhat strange, but we're settling back into a different sort of normality. Not the same as before we left and certainly not the same normality in South Korea, but a new and familiar normality nonetheless.

Big Changes

Big changes is a challenging title for this post, because I'm not sure it completely encompasses the recent situation. The short story here is that our contract was mutually agreed upon to end early and that we have returned home to the states. The longer version is a bit more complicated and extensive, however.

Moving to and living/working in Korea can be a bit of a gamble and you can't always be sure that you're going to get a good deal. In our case, things were okay on some fronts, but not others. I think things ended up working out in our favor, but things were rather stressful and hectic there for a time. Due to this reason there were updates that weren't made, which I may retroactively add at a later time.

As far as our hagwon was concerned, our director was kind of shady from the start. Friendly most times, but she was not without her ulterior motives. Passive aggressiveness was not uncommon, especially when she wasn't pleased with something related to us. Despite having a conversation initially about health insurance where we said yes, we wanted it, she did not actually get us health insurance (in the contract); she was not paying into pension, which is illegal (also in the contract); we lived above the school and she was taking extra money from us by way of utilities; she owed me more than 2 million won in overtime pay and then later said I was a liar and that the overtime pay rate was lower than I had calculated (in the contract at 20,000 won per hour). In short, there was a lot going on.

All of the above culminated into a confrontational situation after I confronted her about her trying to skimp out on the flight costs that had been reserved. She didn't like the numbers, so I presented her with more and included the words "illegal", "labor board" and "lawyer". She didn't like it much at first, but then she must have realized that she was in way over her head and we had a very touching conversation. By touching I mean that she said that the trust is broken and she's sorry about the health insurance and the pension (which she also "mistakenly" thought we said "no" to when we apparently said no to the health insurance) and that it's better to just end things. She wanted us out by the weekend, so we rushed to book flights home in 2 days time and we managed to swing that somehow. She actually paid for things she wasn't obligated to pay for (part of the severance and the flight), but I think I made a point and she realized that she can pay us what we're owed and try to make things right, or we can cause a whole lot of trouble for her.

So what happened? We completed ten and a half months at the school and got sent home early. After more than 25 hours of travel by car, bus, and plane we made it back to the states. It would have been nice to complete the contract, but I think we came out on top overall. Needless to say, having a terrible hagwon owner can really make a person's life hell. So please use caution. I'll try to post later about some steps you can take and other info that I've learned.

In closing, we have arrived back home and some things have been kind of different to readjust to. Zach and I will be both posting updates about our experiences upon returning, which has been its own unique experience as well.

Chungcheongbuk-do Science Forest Museum and Hagwon Ramblings

I've been kind of lax with updating lately, dealing with some current fun here at our school. So I figured I should probably update with a field trip we took in April to a nature preserve/museum/hiking hub here in Chungcheongbuk-do. It was a fun day, though we ran into a little bit of rain during our lunch/snack. More on that one later. It was a neat trip though, I just wished that we had gotten to see more and that the things in the museum were understandable to us.

The reason I say that we're dealing with some things lately is because as always, our director has something up her sleeve that we don't really agree with and/or like. By that I mean that she informed us that she wants us to teach a Saturday class for an hour for 4 weeks. At least, that was the first time she brought it up. The following time when we went to tell her that no, we were not going to be doing this, we were informed that this would actually be a 6 week venture with an hour class from 10 to 11am and that we would be getting paid 20,000 won for it. Additionally, she's also bad at being a boss, I'll just put it that way. Instead of asking me initially, she just kind of presented it expecting me to probably say "Okaaaay!" because I should somehow feel obligated because she's my boss and elder. Then when we spoke to her that second time, she tried to bring out the emotional tactics, that we needed to help her before we go back to America.

Well, let me be the first to say that this is not happening. Sure contracts will say that you may have to attend the occasional weekend event without being paid for it and that's okay. This, however, is not okay. Yes, per our contract, the 20,000 won per hour of overtime is correct, but with her history there is no way it's happening. Some hagwon directors can and will try to squeeze every last thing they can out of you and this is just another case of it. Zach is also working at another school and is getting paid overtime for it. In my case though, I haven't seen a cent of overtime since we arrived and let me just say that I have been denied a lot of overtime.

Anyway, without further delay or excessive discussion, here are some pictures from the (now long ago) field trip!

Psssh, we don't need no stinkin' car safety. No seat belts in use here. 

We have arrived! It was a little chilly, but a fun day.

Inside the welcome center there was a neat display of the whole area including the mountain range that stretched around that people can and do hike on.

Here's one of the entrances to the area we headed toward with the "tree museum".

The museum itself seemed interesting, a lot of natural history type things. Our director would sometimes stop and have the children read the displays in Korean which was kind of neat. There was that one time where she had me say photosynthesis for her and the kids to attempt to pronounce. 

Things I can read! This was actually really neat because it showed the mountain ranges of Korea.

This was neat, I think it even had some fancy speakers with spoken information along with it. I'm liking the won symbol on top of the building.

An area with flora and fauna, neat!

These folks were kind of creepy though. Especially the eyes.

There were petrified tree cross sections galore in one area. They were really fascinating.

I thought this was kind of cute on account of the heart shape.

Large petrified tree trunks!

Snack time, a time we will be very familiar with in the upcoming months.

There were a handful of nuns that gathered to take pictures around these characters and I went over to take a picture of the group so they could all be in the picture. My kind deed of the day. :)  I think these characters are maybe a regional thing? Cheongju has their own logo mascot things and I think these characters are for Chungcheongbuk-do? Don't quote me on that though.

The field trip was fun though, we got sprinkled on a little during snack time and us 4 adults had to hold a tarp over the kids head for a while until it passed. Then we headed back to the school, had lunch and continued with the rest of the day. Since there have been several field trips since then I'll have to play catch up and give a quick recap of our roaming adventures!

Interesting things I learned from teaching college aged kids

I am using this post in part to add much needed content to the blog after it slowing to a trickle.  The warm summer months  has that sort of effect on things, it is too nice out in Korea for me to want to spend time blogging but anything for our ESL Honeymoon Adventure!
 I also want to use this post as a reminder of some of the weird and interesting things I learned both about Korea and about the youth of Korea during our year long stay.

Driving

• There are actually two or more types of drivers licenses in Korea, a dry weather license which you get first, then a wet weather/snow driver's license afterward.  Not many people bother getting the second one and drive in wet weather anyway, but it gives them a lot more issues if they get into an accident when its raining.
• Also according to my adult students literally no one pays attention to the rules of the road, it is pretty much just accepted that people aren't going the speed limits and running red lights and stuff.
• Related to this the in vehicle fatal accident rate is almost double that of the USA.

Homosexuality

• Gay people do not exist in Korea according to adult (middle aged), but is pretty accepted and okay among the youth of Korea.
• Due to the older generation not being accepting of homosexuality most gay people have to keep their sexuality discreet.  
• The government is very big into censorship on the internet and any website they deem even vaguely against the interest of Korea gets blocked.  This includes any website thought to be even gay friendly.

The Internet/games

• Most Koreans don't really use the internet to browse or anything other than social networking.  Most of their internet usage is on either games, or social media sites like facebook.
• Despite being the world capital of Starcraft almost all of the Koreans I have met have never played the game and don't like online games.
• The games Koreans DO like are phone games especially ones which scores are shared between social media like Anipong.
• The mobile version of Minecraft is also massively popular, though I've mostly seen it with high school aged kids not so much college aged students.

Dating

• It isn't really considered cheating if you date other people until you actually are married, then it is wrong.
• Sex before marriage isn't thought of as wrong and there is no real concept of "saving yourself" for marriage.
• The average price of a meal you should be spending on the first date is around 50-60 dollars for the woman's meal according to the female students in my class.  This was confirmed that it should be about the right price according the the male students.
• Men are supposed to dress in full suits (not tuxedo but a suit) during a first date here.  Women are supposed to dress in a business casual type dress.

Those are a few things I've learned from my time teaching college kids.  Sadly I finished up my time teaching college aged kids.  Mind you half the things they told me could be fake but I chose to believe them because if you don't believe you'll kill Tinkerbell.

Classroom Korean-- or words that may be useful for foreign teachers

While the above image may not be an everyday occurrence (this was my class back during Chuseok), you can rest assured that you will hear an ample amount of Korean when you are teaching any age group. The younger they are, the more you are likely to hear, that's why I'm touching on this blog topic right now.

Yes, classrooms are supposed to be all English, with no Korean allowed! However, I have found that is rarely the case. Of course, there are people that can and do pull off classrooms where no Korean is spoken, at least extremely minimally, but that has not been my experience. Now that we've established that point, I'm going to make one of my own. That is simply that there are words and phrases you should plan to become acquainted with if you're teaching English to small Korean children, or even larger Korean children because it will be extremely helpful for a variety of reasons.

I'm going to assemble a small list of words we've encountered in our travels with the Korean word(s), the phonetic pronunciation for English speakers, and the meaning of said words. This list may be an ever expanding one, but hopefully it'll give any kindergarten/elementary teachers a little more to work with than just the blank look I know I was wearing for a while when these words came up.

Amanda Teacher's List of Somewhat-Useful Words to Know

hello                  안녕하세요 or 안녕       ahn-yong ha-say-oh (formal) or ahn-yong (informal)

yes                    예 or 네                            ye or neh (neh sometimes sounds like ‘deh’)

no                      아니                                 ah-nee (also ah-nee-oh)

I don’t like it       싫어                               she-ro (also pronounced she-do)            

trash                  쓰레기                              sure-egg-ee

pee                    쉬 (short for 쉬하다)         she

poop                   not sure??                       oonga or ddong (just a hard d, very common usage)

blood                  피                                     pee

teacher              선생님                              seun-saeng-neem (nim is a gender neutral honorific)

baby                   아기                                  ah-gee (with my kids it sounds like egg-ee though)



cute  귀여워                                           gwi-ow-ah (I hear it as (ah) kee-oww-ah a lot)      

stupid                 바보                                 bah-bo (not something you want your kids saying!)

alright/okay        not sure??                      chee cha

train sounds       not sure??                      chee chee po po              

As I mentioned above, this is just a starter set which I may add to. I did some research and scrounging using what knowledge I have of Korean, but some of them I was unable to actually find that reflected what I've heard. Please feel free to let me know if there's anything that needs fixing. I will of course add to this as needed. But these are words that have been immensely helpful once I learned what they meant.

I hope everyone back at home in the States is having a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. We've had a casual weekend of cleaning, shopping, roaming, and eating. Tomorrow we're back to the start of the work week and the start of June on the weekend. We're getting excited because June will be our 9 month mark of our contract and three months until we head home. It's been fun, but it's almost time for this journey to end.

If I packed back then, what I knew now...

I have to apologize for not updating lately. It's been difficult to get into the mood to write and of course there's that whole life piece that's going on too. Okay, and I will admit to doing some gaming off and on too.  I have been active in other online circles though and one of them has been engaging in some talk and discussion with other soon-to-be expats. That's where this post comes in because I pulled it from a response I made about what things you should remember to bring with you.

As far as images go the one above is one of my favorite places to shop in Cheongju called Anipop. I figured since I'm talking about packing and whatnot, an image of things that will be sent home from here is slightly relevant at least. Anipop has lots of cute things, many geared toward children, but I love that there are things here and there that are from Studio Ghibli (think My Neighbor Totoro or Howl's Moving Castle for those unfamiliar with Ghibli) and a variety of Japanese imports, but many distinctly Korean things too. Many of them are finding their way home in my suitcase or being sent by Korean Post!

Rambling about my consumer habits aside, this is my updated list of things I would recommend bringing to Korea now that I've actually been living here for 9 months and have a better idea of what you really do need. In retrospect I feel like we did well enough with packing to get here, but there are some improvements that could have been made. You can't very well have knowledge from a future you haven't lived yet though, so we did what we could. Thank goodness for family that was able to send us things we found extremely useful and comforting as it helped us both a great deal.

All that said, the following is pulled from the response I made previously about the subject. I may do some editing as well if I find that there are things I've forgotten.

I thought that I was pretty well prepared when we first came here, and I was. There are some things I wish I had brought along though, in addition to what I already have. I also have to add that I’m a rather tall woman (for being in Korea) with long limbs and fairly large feet (5'9" and shoe size 9 1/2 or 10 US) and that has made things tricky too. 

As far as things I have that I'm glad that I brought is deodorant. I’m not sure I've even seen much deodorant, if at all. Next time I got to Homeplus I'll look and see if they even have it. 

Oops, I almost forgot this one! It's a good idea to bring any painkillers (Tylenol/Advil, etc.) that you might need because it just makes life easier. I would also HIGHLY recommend bringing any cold/flu medications from home that you prefer as going to the pharmacy can be tricky. I was so ill with constant colds and actually ran of out Tylenol/Dayquil/Nyquil in a few months. Things are foreign here— by that I mean the viruses and bacteria and I would anticipate that you're going to end up with colds or whatnot. Kids come to school sick and that means you'll probably catch stuff too. 

I’m glad that I brought toothpaste from home because I’m just not a big fan of the kinds I've tried here, though that’s really a personal preference. You can get things like Listerine pretty easily though. 

A towel is a good thing to have because you may not be able to find and/or make it to a store as soon as you might like. I would also recommend shampoo/soap/conditioner/personal hygiene items. We even brought a roll of toilet paper each, since we just weren't sure, even though we didn't end up actually needing them. 

Converters/adapters for any electronics you may have are a must. It's much easier to bring one or two with you rather than needing to find the nearest Hi-Mart or something to find something that will work and let you use your computer/phone/tablet/e-reader/etc.

Bring a pillow from home. Another thing you don't want to go without because it’s your pillow and you will more than likely find that you need it (and it's nice in the airport too).

I would also recommend bringing a set of sheets for your bed because that is another thing you will probably want right away and not have to wait until you can go shopping.

Hobby-type things to do in the winter are wonderful. It was bitterly cold here over the winter and I honestly just didn't want to go out a lot. It may be different for you, but it’s always good to have reading material/craft/art type things for when it's too cold and you just don’t want to be out in it. 

My other big one is comfort food. I didn't realize how much I would want to have some foods from home until after a while. I would suggest some non-perishable things, things that you like so that you can have a little tasty bit of home with you. There are many Korean foods and snacks that I appreciate, but it's nice to have mac and cheese sometimes or some Reese's cups (your mileage and/or preference may vary) from back home.

Finally, I'm going to stop at clothing. As I said above, clothing is hard for me. Koreans are pretty small and thus finding clothes and shoes has been difficult for me. I know it’s easier to find clothing in Itaewon if you’re in Seoul, but if you're not… well, you had better be prepared. Winter was rough and my family actually sent me some clothing and sweaters because I did not have the capacity for them when I brought my things over. They say you should pack 2 weeks worth of clothing for each season, which is fine, but be sure to bring enough warm weather things (also so you can layer your clothing) to prepare you for below freezing temperatures. Thermal underwear is a nice supplement too. Some schools are also kind of stingy with their heating and will not turn on the heat for a long time or will keep it low. Don’t worry about hats/gloves/scarves as you can find lots of lovely ones here if you like.

The rest of the things are pretty standard that I would recommend, camera/sd cards/little trinkets for the kiddos (they are fascinated by foreign things)/pictures from home/money (I would suggest bringing a decent amount of won along because it may be a month until you get paid)/small things that make you happy are nice too because it's nice to have a reminder of the familiar when things are decidedly not.

Otherwise (unless I think of something else), most things you can purchase here fairly easily.