SEOUL - OCTOBER 15, 2000
Just completed the first week of Korean Language classes. Pronounciation and familiarization of the Korean alphabet was the main focus. On Friday, we began some of first sentences. This particular program is conversation intensive, which often proves to be the most difficult part. I find it hard myself, but after four hours of conversation practicing, and drilling, things do stick. I've been watching more Korean TV this week, and while I definetely am far from understanding, I am suddenly recognizing a few words more than I did a week ago.
Job-wise I have become pretty lazy. The Korean language seems to obsess me more at the moment. The $800/month job fell through. I did have another offer at a different place, but its about an hour away from me. I'm not desparate for work yet, and I haven't really looked very hard yet, so I turned it down. I might just look around my own neighborhood this week. Technically, teaching without a work visa can get you into some trouble. So, as this website is posted on the Internet, I'll probably keep any more information regarding the subject to a minimum. Officially, I'm studying Korean. I might even consider going to some schools and looking for a part-time teaching contract with a work visa combined.
Also, this week, one of my friend's viewed the website and read some of Rolf Pott's writing. He found an excellent article written about this teaching abroad phenomem. Take a look at this link, entitled The Party's Over. The artcile was written in 1998 after the Asian stock markets crashed, and he, the writer, comes back to visit Pusan, and comments on the changes taken before and after the economic crisis. Its a fairly interesting article that made me reflect on my own past with this place. I was here in mid-1990s when thousands of private English schools were popping up throughout the country. They were offering all kinds of incentives, free airfare, free apartments, incredible salaries, no experience needed, just be a native English speaker. I was one of many people attracted to this zany situation. In the article it mentions the strangeness of the phenomenem. Never before had so many foreigners been imported into a place without absoluately any knowledge of the native language or culture. There were many misunderstands, many cowboy English operations (cowboy language schools are the ones that seem to pop out of nowhere, and take in foreign teachers but never pay them their money). The pay structure works here that you are paid monthly, at the end of the month. So it wasn't uncommon for schools to take in foreigners, promise them payments, and never deliver. They'd teach for a month, maybe two months with promises, and never get paid. Actually, this became such a problem in Korea that still the bitterness is posted on Dave's ESL Cafe Korean Job Disscussion Board. The U.S. goverment was so bold to publish warnings to American citizens of the risk involved in particular with the teaching jobs in South Korea.
Outside of the possible risks, many people did stay. When I was in Pusan, we were literally like aliens. South Korea had been the hermit kingdom for years. It was completely off any well-known Asian destination like Japan, China, Thailand, India, or Indonesia. It hadn't seen the foreigners, they were just of the American movies. Suddenly, due to a booming economy, a craving for higher education, a demand for English, and a fascination with the West. Young North Americans, often fresh from Universities were coming to South Korea in droves. Anyone willing to jump on the 'free' airplane ride was setup with a high-paying, no-experience-necessary "English Teaching" job. Most all of us, were learning to teach for the first time in the classroom. In reality, it was more like a cultural exchange. For 30 hours a week I taught Korean adult students English, but mostly it was discussion about what really goes on 'over there, in America' and what really goes 'over here, in Korea'. Of course, all of it took place in broken English, and it was my job to try to correct there mistakes.
Living in Pusan proved to be a challenge. We were minor celebreties. I met a girl once who said she remembered seeing me once on the subway four months ago and described the other three foreigners I was with in detail. In many ways, we were aliens from another country teaching our language and culture from another planet. We were demi-gods. It was quite common to receive long, piercingly curious stares. When I looked them in they eyes because of their stares, instead of embarrassingly looking away, they stare harder because my eyes were blue. In Pusan, I'd witnessed many grasps of air coming from an older woman having seen a foreginer for the first time face-to-face. Once in a large department store, a felt several pokes in the legs to turn to see a young boy with fascinating curiousity if I were a real human being or some kind of ghost image. It was nearly impossible for me to get on a bus without a half dozen faces turning or practically standing on their seats to get a good look at me. Pointing was common. Anyone who had a camera, took me as fair game. All in all, it was an interesting time to be in such a place.
Also, many of the foreigners drove themselves mad with the role we played in the society. In the expat social community of Pusan, I was surprised when I'd met someone who said they'd been here 'six months or more'. Wow, they were the experts! I'd met few people, if any, who'd actually competed their one-year contracts. Many of them, driven mad with the awkwardness of the situation, and the excitement their prescenses stirred made quick returns home or went on extended Southeast Asian backpacker trips (awat from the zaniness of this place) with whatever wads of money they'd accumulated from their brief teaching jobs. It was an interesting time.
Also, when I was first in South Korea several years ago, I left this country to go on my own teaching abroad 'world tour' I guess you'd call it. Mainly I was searching for this same teaching English experience I'd had here, but in the country of my choice. I'd heard that the same thing was starting to happen almost everywhere, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, South America, almost everywhere. All you had to do was get there. After I left Pusan, I ended up in places like Budapest, Istanbul, Santiago, and eventually in almost all of the large cities throughout South America excluding Bogota. Everywhere I went I did see English schools and teaching opportunities, but nothing remotely similar to the expat culture in Northeast Asia. None of these places really offered such a high quality of life combined with a building savings account and an incredible diverse expat community. Living in South Korea offered extensive travels, great nightlife (actually more beer is sold in Shinchon area of Seoul than anywhere else in Asia - a pretty amazing fact considering the incredible nightlife of such major Asian cities like Tokyo, Hong Kong and Bangkok). Its a pretty big statement, but if you'd ever go drinking with a Korean, you'd believe it. Drinking is the favored pasttime in Korea for young and old alike.
Eventually the good things of South Korea, brought me back to this old world I once knew. But now in Seoul, I find myself in a completely different world. There are still the recent newcomers, but many foreigners have been here for years now. Many of the same things exist here as in Pusan, but no one stares, and large social disturbances don't happen when I get on buses or walk down the street. All of the great things about Korea are here. I haven't heard anyone shout "mi-guk sa-ram" ("Its an American!) once. I haven't had any 'hello hello"'s shouted to me either. Now the foreign culture is somewhat familiar in the streets. I am no longer the spectacle I once was. This greatly turns to my advantage. Now I can weave in and out of the fascination of modern Korean society without the unusual reactions. People in Seoul actually speak to me in Korean, and when I don't understand, they speak Korean a little slower for me. In Pusan, it was the other way, if you were a foreigner, it was completely unheard of you to know any Korean. If you said 'I'd like a beer' in Korean, you were rewarded highly with praise for your excellent grasp of the language.
In later journal entries, I wish to discuss more about modern Korean society though. My previous writing might make it sound as if we were dropped off in the middle of some rice paddy or some odd image. South Korea is definetely not like that. Cities like Seoul and Pusan rival, and in some ways, surpass many cities in the West. With the complete density of restaurants and people, I'd say its like Manhattan. Every corner of the city seems bursting with life, street food, pool halls, bowling alleys, Internet rooms, bars, coffee shops, shopping, restaurants, singing rooms (karaoke), video rooms (where you rent a room to watch a film on video), and a thousand other little oddities. Many of the bars are termed 'Western Bars' and have more Americana of the most strangest variety I'd ever seen in the United States.
Also, Korean people are very social. I live right next to a large shopping department store, and at any given time there are maybe 100 young women on cell phones waiting for their shopping companion to meet them while dressed with the latest most fashionable dress teetering on their high heels. They are found staring and peering through the crowds waiting for their shopping friend to arrive. There are thousands of coffee shops densely crowded throughout the streets nearly filled with capacity of young couples or friends conversing away their day. On every corner there are food stands offering extremely cheap and tasty foods, and often SoJu (like vodka) tents scattered everywhere. They are open throughout the night, and nearly every one is filled with snackers who were too tempted not to walk on by. Social activities are extremely cheap and nearly accessible to everyone of the population. The wealth here is staggering, and the social lives of the people extravagant. The only beggars I've seen are crippled, and they sing Karaoke while dragging themselves through the streets. Its an odd sight, but its the only acceptable way to beg. I've probably only enountered about a dozen or two dozen of these crippled beggars in my a little over a year total experience in South Korea. Outside of them, I have never seen a person beg for food or anything. Another oddity of the place is guns and drugs are nearly non-existant. People are extremely highly educated here, and very fashionable. Its a really fascinating place.
Oddly, as well, there is another flipside of the coin. There are two socities living side-by-side. The young are filled with fashion and education and English and constant pursuit of knowledge. Co-existing in this same world is an older generations of Koreans. They lived through a time when Japan occupied the country at the beginning of last century. Many of these same people saw the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States ravish their country during the Korean War (1950-1953), and ultiimately split their country apart. At this time, many things that weren't destroyed during Japan's occupation, was completely demolished by the Cold War between the two world's superpowers which ultimately destroyed whatever else was here. Since that time, Seoul and Pusan (a mere fishing village, grew to a city of 5.5 million people within a 40 year time frame). Nearly the entire country was built from complete ruin and destruction, and ultimately, a half century later, South Korea rised from the ashes to become one of the richest nations in Asia.
Continue to the Next Journal Entry: 10/20/2000
You can email me at:
Wintermoon2@yahoo.com
A great article by Rolf Potts regarding the Teaching English
Boom which exploded in the mid-1990s
The
Party's Over
Website of the Pusan Expat Community:
PusanWeb
Teacher/Traveler/Writing Extraordinaire:
Rolf Potts
Great website for teaching abroad jobs:
Dave's ESL Cafe
My Friend Brad's Website:
Tripping
with Brad