Not All Sunshine, Rainbows, and Kimchi

My new class at the start of a new school year in March 2013.

I've wanted to create this post for a while, but I've been struggling with how to write it. In fact, I had a previously written post that sat around as a draft for a while, but I pushed it aside and eventually just deleted it. Why? Because I think it's kind of challenging to touch on the not so great parts of living and working here in South Korea, without giving the impression that it's a horrible idea and you're doomed if you think you should try it. Rather, I would like to impress upon anyone interested that while going to South Korea is sure to be an adventure, there are also many aspects (particularly employment aspects) that can really influence your experience. It might sound kind of silly to mention it since it's why you're here, but teaching is going to influence the rest of your everyday life too.

In addition, while it may be challenging to accurately portray and address the reality, I feel as though it's unfair to have a blog that is pretty much just highlighting the positive parts of the experiences we've had here without touching on the less-than-great ones. It's something I'm not a huge fan of emphasizing, but it would be a disservice for any other internet browsing sleuths wanting more information about teaching in South Korea. I know that I prefer to have the whole picture, or at least most of it so that I can mentally prepare and maybe even plan ahead for potential situations that might pop up.

So, without any further delay, I will just take some time to talk about some of the challenges, inconveniences, and pains-in-the-a** that I know can and may happen to anyone. We're more than willing to help answer questions if anyone would have them as well (related to our personal experiences), so feel free to drop a line.

--- The contract. It's good to find a good one, but don't rely on your director/employer following it like you expect. This is something I'm sure comes up rather frequently. It's important when you start this whole thing (especially in terms of hagwons) to carefully read over your contract before signing it, but don't expect it to be followed to a T by any means. Off the top of my head I can think of at least 5 or 6 contract violations to varying degrees by our boss, but it's probably more than that if we would sit down and get right to it. We're talking about violations ranging from payday changes, health insurance, pension, overtime pay, hours worked, and others. It's infuriating to know that this is standard, but I can personally think of several people that have really gotten the short end of the stick because their director has not followed the contract or was dishonest in some way. Violations can be followed up with the Labor Board, but I feel like this is something where you need to evaluate your options and do some research before moving forward.

--- Working hours. Expect these to change at a whim, be violated, and make no sense. This in part goes along with the contract violations. It's an employers market over here in South Korea and you can expect directors to try and squeeze every last cent out of you and by that I mean your time. Every month of our time here thus far has seen me getting jilted for overpay time, and it varies for Zach from month to month because our director has been sending him to other hagwons to work part time too because it's extra money to line her pockets. The standard is 120 teaching hours per month, but I can't think of a time when I've seen that except for briefly during the school break period in winter and I'm honestly surprised she didn't dock my pay. Long hours without breaks are not a surprising thing.

-- Teaching materials and expectations. I like to think of teaching here in South Korea as a dual responsibility, from my perspective anyway. On one hand you're here to look pretty and foreign, to be that piece of prestige for your school that indicates that they're reaching out to make the school one of the best and take care of the children during their time at the school. On the other hand you're here to teach English. I sometimes think that the latter is secondary to the former. What does this have to do with teaching materials and expectations? Well, there is the expectation that you're supposed to look good and be kind and make the kids and thus their parents happy. This is one thing that can be made difficult by your teaching materials or lack of said teaching materials. Our school is bigger on workbooks to get through the day, while some schools have more emphasis on more technologically advanced things. Each child in our school averages 4 workbooks or so at any given time. So it's a matter of figuring out what workbook goes into which time slot during which day of the week. Easy enough, but that's the most support we've really been given as far as teaching. "Here, use this book according to this schedule. Bye!" is the typical way it goes. Our director (whose poor English is no big surprise at this point) will also pick story books that are inappropriate for the class age/level and I just shake my head and pick something more appropriate. Things are different in public schools and other hagwons, of course, but I know that lack of support is definitely not uncommon here either.

-- Winter can be somewhat unpleasant. As far as living here goes, we eased into fall pretty well, but winter was absolutely terrible for us.  Due to our location and being a bit farther out from the city, we found ourselves trapped inside a lot due to the bitter cold record temperatures with little to do. I know a lot of people tend to drink in the winter since there isn't a lot else to do here, but if you have some sort of crafting hobby, enjoy video/computer games, reading, and other things, by all means make sure you have them for winter.  School schedules also get crazy during wintertime so be prepared!  Many schools have a Christmas program which may put big demands on you for a month or two, same with graduation programs at the end of February. Christmas had us working on songs and practicing reading books while February had us struggling to help our kids understand and perform plays and songs for the graduation ceremony. The short days and long nights made things very depressing on top of the stress and demands of making these performances acceptable and getting through the icky cold and flu season (which kids bring to school with them, don't be surprised if you have ill kids in your class or kids getting sick, not fun!) while also being away from home. There is a light at the end of the tunnel with this one though and things seem to improve after the hectic winter season with the holidays and graduation, plus you get some extra time off for the New Year and the Lunar New Year which slightly sweetens the deal (now if only it would be warmer out so you can enjoy it).

-- Communication challenges. This one is probably a given, but expect the unexpected when it comes to channels of communication. Be prepared that some things that you thought you understood when they were explained may not be exactly that, or they may possibly be the complete opposite. This, of course, depends on your ability to tease out the answer you're looking for and the English skills of the person/director that you're talking to. I recently had a conversation with our director regarding a change of class placement for one of our elementary kids, Carley, and it did not go as I had planned at all. My understanding of the conversation was that Carley, who was in my class, was going to be changing to Zach's class instead, but then I confirmed with her not once, but three times, that she would be staying in my class with her former kindy classmates. Okay, that works. The next thing I know the Korean teacher here at the school tells me that no, Carley will in fact be going to Zach's class. I mention to her the communication issue and she just kind of chuckles because she understands how poor our director's English is. Another example is today I was told by the director to bring down the supplies for two of my kindy kids, Daniel and Jun (brothers), when all she meant was that she had supplies for them that she wanted me to take upstairs. Confusing, no? The moral of the story is if you have questions, go and ask them. They might not be a fan of you asking  (it's kind of looked down upon here to question your elders/authority figures), but trust me when I say that you knowing what's going on will probably make you feel better about life, the universe, and everything.

-- Being in the spotlight. Taking a break from the primarily work based critique, this commentary is more general and also has a touch of the positive too. South Korea is fairly homogeneous and while the bigger cities see more foreigners in and out, you're still pretty interesting. It's not uncommon to walk down the street and have people staring, moreso the older population. The children generally have more mixed reactions, but they are the most likely to grin and say "hello" and you can watch their glee at using their English and having a foreigner respond back positively. It's very cute. I think our current record for children greeting us in one day has probably been 3, a number I suspect will go up once the weather becomes nicer. The old ajummas and ajosshis are a bit different in that aspect. I'm fairly tall for a woman, so I think that attracts a few gazes, but one of the more interesting experiences I've had with this has been the old woman that literally stopped walking to stare as we walked past her, even watching and turning as we kept walking away. Some of the men have stared at me too, it's kind of unnerving. In that sense I will say that I kind of look forward to going home so that I can just be one of the group again without people staring fairly frequently. I will say that it's given me some perspective regarding being someone sort of on the outside looking in, something I don't want to go into here, but I hope it's something I can take with me always to give me greater compassion and understanding of those around me.

There are several other things, but these seem to be the main "negatives"-- if you will as far as working and living here. Even then some of these can be taken with a grain of salt, but that depends on the way things are. I will admit to being dissatisfied with the management of the school we're at, the complete chaos at times, and wonder just how she even keeps things "together". I can't really talk about things like co-teachers since our only Korean teacher, who was formerly here all day, is only here part time and she's less of a co-teacher and just teaches her own English classes. For her part though, she's been fantastic and very helpful. Her English is definitely better than the boss lady and we sometimes find her essentially translating for us what she wants/expects.

These things are also admittedly the worst right around the time that they are brought up because we're just so overwhelmed by the expectations and lack of rationale behind the decisions. We've been frustrated, angry, upset, depressed, and other emotions as we tried to figure out the best way to deal with things that have just been sprung on us randomly. The best way we found is to deal with it one day at a time and have a goal, whether it's buying something fun or nice, going out for a nice meal or a drink, looking forward to the next week or month and better weather, or talking to people from home.

All that aside, being here is an experience and I'm glad that it's one we decided to undertake, but our expectation of things not going as we planned has been pushed above and beyond at times. So if you're considering teaching English abroad, at least in South Korea, it's best to expect that things will more than likely not be exactly as you planned. Some things may be nicer than planned, but expect the crazy and not so amusing along the way too.

A Trip to South Korea's Largest Theme Park! (Lots of Pictures)

We finally went on the big graduation trip with the school and we went to Korea's Largest theme park, Everland. The park is located in Yongin which is just outside of Seoul. The trip itself took about an hour and a half, but there's a rest stop that we went to along the way that I think was about halfway through. Unfortunately for us there were 28 children coming along on the trip ranging from 5 years old up to about 10 or 11, but we found out the good news that two parents were coming along with us for the trip. Chef teacher came too, and thank goodness!

We went downstairs (since we live above our school) around 9:30am or so to wait around and keep an eye on the kiddos while we waited for the bus to come around 10:30am. Chef teacher had placed some sort of rice cakes covered in an almost finely ground corn powder in each of the classrooms and other rooms in the school where they sat briefly in small dishes. I was quite confused. Then, she went back around and collected them all and we were able to eat them. I'm not really sure what they were for, I need to do some research. It was very interesting though.

This is the small lift used to send food and dishes up and downstairs for lunch and snack. Chef teacher had placed one of the small dishes there too.

Finally the bus arrived, Zach and I were assigned to take a box of water out to the bus. Not the most appetizing bottled water ever as it's called "Pocari Sweat", but we did it nonetheless. (After the fact we discovered that it's actually a sports drink type thing, but still.) Once everyone was settled on the bus we did a few stops around Cheongju to pick up some kids from different elementary schools and finally we left for Everland.

Yet another party bus. Well, without the party part that is. Just children wanting snacks opened. About an hour and a half later or so, and a mid-way rest stop and we finally made it to Everland. 

We took a bus/shuttle to Everland itself once the bus parked and we spilled outside into the parking lot. It wasn't until this time that I realized that we were somehow supposed to be in charge of the classes (his and mine, so she said), despite not knowing the park or being competent enough with Korean. Thank goodness for Chef teacher in purple and Julia's mom in the blue jacket. 

I have to admit, despite being chilly out and the snow on the way, the park really is pretty. They have the Snow Festival going on at this time, so everything is winter themed.

One of the first views we saw right outside of the place that we ate our late lunch.

Everyone finally assembled for lunch. I ran away to use the restroom at this point with Luke so I wasn't sure what happened. Like most Korean places they had a self serve water dispenser with cups and there was a small self serve place with kimchi and a type of radish they like to have with meals.

I was informed after getting back that the food options were pork cutlet and fish with rice and a cabbage salad (above) or a similar meal just with the meat, rice, and curry. I got the above option which was admittedly quite delicious. We were in the minority of adults with meals because I noticed that most of the others just helped the kids cut up their meals and then helped various kids by eating some themselves.

After lunch we finally started our Everland excursion. At first we had a big group of 28 with 6 adults, but after lunch the older kids parted ways with us and our Korean teacher went off with the older elementary boys. We then "started" out as a small group of 19, but later dropped down to 13 as some of the kids split off with their parents. We were all together for this part.

The tigers were quite pretty and their habitat was pretty nice (of the not so great ones we also saw).

I can't blame them, seeing boring humans passing regularly doesn't sound exciting enough to wake for.

The bears were trained and did some tricks though. Kind of depressing, really. 

I like this picture because you can see me in the reflection.

There was a petting zoo that was not quite a petting zoo. More of a close up observation spot. They had spoons with extensions here so that you could make a w2000 donation and feed guinea pigs. 

I wish we had seen more of the park, but I did get some interesting pictures. Since we had little ones that couldn't really do rides, we headed toward the animal/zoo type section which was kind of neat. Some of the enclosures were better than others though. 

The fennec foxes were adorable, also sleepy.

This looks familiar...

Like this beaver, we too are far from home. :(

These turtles were pretty cool, and cute.

Heed the signs, and follow the monkey's advice. I'm not sure how well using a railing as a balance beam would go anyway. Good advice, monkey.

I wish we had gotten a picture of us at this bench, but there was no one I trusted with my camera.

In which our director decided that harassing a seal was a good idea. The kids climbed on the fence (we had given up at this point, the director didn't care and we were tired of telling them to do something they didn't do) and all proceeded to yell at the poor seal. One loud voice and lots of little ones yelling "annyeooong" did not make for a happy seal. 

The seal was so irritated that it tossed the blue chuck of pool lining out of the tank at our group. Poor seal.

In another shining example of responsibility, she decided that hoisting the kids up so they could see better was a good idea. I'm not so sure about that...

Then we went to this seal/animal show which was admittedly pretty cute, if cheesy. 

How can anyone resist an otter on a small sailboat?

Things were good up until this part. I was pretty much flipping out. By this point our party had broken down into a group of 12, 3 adults and 9 kids. This little ski lift type thing was a transport to a different level of the park, which was all fine and good. Then we got split up to 1 adult and 3 kids per lift, a large lift, but with a bar that can be easily moved upward. I almost had a panic attack. And why were they letting us do this? I may be a bit of a spoilsport here, but this seemed like a major liability. Yikes!

By this point I had started to breathe normally again since I was able to actually take a few photos, but wow. Fortunately I had girls that actually listened, unlike Zach who got stuck with squirmy Evelyn who tried to bail from under the bar. I was glad when that was over with.

The next time we took these back and forth a few times (since the kids were so little) and they were MUCH nicer than the ones we rode initially. I am a fan of enclosed spaces with closing doors and sitting spaces when travelling with little people. It's also important to note that our director, in all her wisdom, was at this point was pretty much scampering about without counting children, ignoring us and getting ahead, and with us having no real idea of where we were supposed to be going. It made this field trip slightly less fun.

I wish we had had more time to just amble and I could have gotten more pictures, but I'm lucky I got the ones that I did. This tree was pretty and had hand prints in the tree that responded with sounds and music when a little hand filled it.

Since Pororo is so popular here we attempted to go to this, but due to our director and the late time of day we were unable to go. Pororo is everywhere and we even watched it on the bus on the way back. 

Speaking of on the way back, we finally boarded the bus once the park closed (we made it out pretty close to 6pm when it closed) and then headed back. Fortunately, Chef teacher had made kimbap for the ride home and everyone who wanted some got some along with various other snacks. 

We hauled the boxes of water out of the bus, walked up the small road, took off our shoes at the door, deposited the boxes, looked around tiredly, and finally went upstairs and relaxed. Maybe not the most ideal field trip ever and riddled with more anxiety than I anticipated, but I suppose it's a day in the life of a teacher here really. Expecting the unexpected can be a challenging and taxing skill, admittedly.

A Day in the Life of Zach Teacher and Amanda Teacher (2/2/13 edition)

Happy Saturday! I've decided that today will be a recap day because I sometimes like to attempt to make sure this blog is updated in a timely fashion. Pretend with me that this is, in fact, the case. Since this is the case, I'll walk you through our day, so that you too can experience life as an expat in South Korea.

Now, this weekend is a bit unusual in the fact that we've recently had issues with large wasps in our room. They haven't been spotted elsewhere, but lately they've been showing up in our room. It's the beginning of February and needless to say, this is a bit unusual for this time of year. Did I also mention that wasps are rather aggressive and not my choice of roommates? As of yesterday, February 1st, we have had 6 wasps, large wasps, come to visit. Pretty weird.

We couldn't figure out where they were coming from, but then I noticed yesterday that the corner of the light had dropped down from the ceiling and it seemed probable that this was where they were coming from. So top priority today was to stop at Homeplus to pick up some duct tape to take care of that little problem. Zach will tell you more about our crazy wasp adventures in another post coming up.

So upon waking up (after a somewhat restless night, even though wasps are diurnal), spending a little time waking up and relaxing, and getting dressed we headed to Homeplus for the necessary materials for our anti-wasp mission. I did snap some decent shots of these azure winged magpies this morning though, before we headed out.

It's been hovering around freezing temperatures depending on the time of day, so I found some very pretty natural artwork this morning on the way toward town. Frost and frozen water are very interesting.

Frosty!

After making a brief detour at the local Paris Baguette for breakfast munchies we stopped at Homeplus. We were surprised to find some sort of mystery sale going on when we went up to the second floor. There were red boxes at a small table just near the checkout area and two ladies were taking money and rallying people forward. The cost of a single box was 1000 won and after a little debate we decided why not, and pulled forth our 2000 won.

Victory is mine! And also Zach's.

We had to take the items out of the boxes so we could wander around the store without too many problems, so we stowed them away. I'd say we got a pretty good deal, the items we got are below.

It's also almost the start of the Lunar New Year here, so there are lots of gift boxes and sets of items to be given away as gifts. Here's just a small handful of featured items.

We also ran into something cute up on the second floor. Zach wanted to take it home and I would have liked to as well, but we can't have pets and I don't know how we'd get it home. :(  Instead we just admired the hedgehog's cuteness from the other side of the glass and noticed that Homeplus has an escapee on their hands.

Lizard-zilla is on the loose!

Finally, having secured a few gifts to be sent homeward, admired the adorable critters, and obtained the necessary tape for our project, we headed back homeward. The ceiling/light was a pretty quick project between tightening a loose screw and taping up the gap, but I'll let Zach talk more about that later.

We had a quick lunch and then spent some time doing things here including cleaning, organizing, studying, and playing some games. Finally, I got bored after getting things all cleaned up and we decided to head to Chungdae a bit earlier than originally planned since I figured it'd be nice to have more daylight rather than less. We were lucky enough to hop on the 105 bus before too long and take the ~15 minute ride to the Chungdae area. Chungdae is part of Cheongju that is a little more bar and restaurant laden with a crowd leaning more toward younger people and foreigners since it's the home of most of the foreign bars in the city. I took a few pictures along the way as we roamed around.

These little guys and gals were so cute, I was excited and made a lot of noise and scared them. Sorry!

Check out the upside-down tea kettles, super neat.

We found this neat looking doorway on our walk.

Koreans aren't the most cleanly people. Sadly, you find a lot of trash and waste piled up on the streets.

This thing resides right outside a restaurant on the small streets of Chungdae. It's been around since Christmas, maybe before that, but it freaks me out. When you walk by or get close she bows and speaks.

These painted wings are right outside of this small restaurant, we had to get pictures, of course.

The sign reads: Wink: Pub and Restaurant for Women. Don't ask me!

This sign was on some sort of building, though I couldn't tell you what kind. It's neat to see Keith Haring's work in so many places. Also, I <3 king Kong! Some of my kids would love this.

We found a small arcade which I hope to visit again while we wandered, it's right near the boardgame cafe that we had visited previously. There are a variety of toy game machines right outside of the arcade, most of which are crane games. I figured since it was only 1000 won for 6 tries I would give it a shot. They have cute plushies from different things, but I finally managed to win myself a cute Chopper from One Piece, he's so cute. I'm hoping to visit again and actually check the place out (and win a few more cute prizes too). 

We finally decided that it was time for dinner and stopped at Pizziaolo, which is a small Italian restaurant close to the foreigner bars. We'd been there once before with two Korean students and it was delicious, so we figured we'd stop again. They serve water in a wine bottle with a sprig of rosemary in it and it's quite refreshing. Zach ordered pasta (Carbonara) and I ordered pizza (Margherita) and we sat upstairs on the second floor and watched outside as it got dark. 

Having finished our meals we stopped at a small store next door that is similar to Claire's where I picked up a few things since I'm trying to do a lot of gift shopping lately. I also saw some earrings that I had seen previously and finally got them. Finally, we headed toward the bus stop and hopped on the 105 a few minutes afterward and came home. Here are some of my collected items for the day.

Here's the Chopper plush that I won from the game, a piece of walnut pie from Paris Baguette, and dark chocolate cubes that I found at Lotte Mart. A successful day? I'd say so.

Now we're winding down for the night and hoping that the wasp problem has been solved. The Seollal holiday is upcoming here in South Korea so we'll have some time off, I'm really hoping to be able to get out and take some pictures since I just haven't had the opportunity lately.