Seriously Korea?! Volume 1

Welcome to the blog series Seriously Korea?! Here you will be treated to stories and anecdotes of things that just seem a little weird here in South Korea (I can’t speak for the North, but I think their list would be a little longer).

Wrapping

For a country that is booming and is very concerned about the global perspective, they have to fix this wrapping thing! The US had this problem for a long time, but we are slowly improving. However, I do not think we were as bad as having the marshmallows individually wrapped inside a bag of marshmallows! For our office Secret Santa, part of a gift was a pair individually pre-washed and wrapped apples! The apples were delicious, but I really don’t think it needed the plastic wrap to make it that good! Snack foods all seem to be sold in individual portions, not in large bags or boxes that can be resealed. If they are in a large box, the contents are then wrapped into individual portions. SO MUCH EXTRA TRASH!! This is the sole reason why Avery Robinson would hate Korea.

Clothing

I have seen number of shirts and hats that are very funny. What is interesting is that most shirts have English printing on them. There are baseball hats all over the place and college sweatshirts all around. I saw an old Korean man wearing a sweatshirt from that team we don’t like to mention at a restaurant. I felt the sudden urge to yell at him or punch him in the face, but my friend calmed me down and told me he probably has no idea what it means. Granted, then I should educate him, but that could have ended up being a total loss as well.

Baseball hats are everywhere here. Most of them are for MLB teams. I do rarely see hats from some other league (presumably K-League Baseball). The most popular hats are obviously New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, but in a close third is actually the Detroit Tigers! I have been walking around town and seen 4 Old English Ds on people’s hats! Not just the traditional combination of navy blue, orange, and white, but cool ones like a black hat with a gold D. Probably the craziest thing that happened in one of my classes is I walk in and see a kid wearing a Tiger’s hat (blue D on blue hat). Thankfully he did know where it was from…

The best clothing related thing I have seen was a shirt one of my students was wearing. On it, there was a picture of the Eiffel Tower. It would make a lot of sense for the shirt to say ‘Paris’ or ‘France’ or something else geographically appropriate, however, the shirt read ‘London’! I was told that someone who used to work at HR bought a shirt that in Korean read ‘Do you know what your shirt says?’ for this exact reason. I need to find this shirt.

The Lock on my Door

I know this seems silly to complain about, but the lock on my door turns the opposite way I am used to in the states (here it is left to lock, right to unlock). It also is not a traditional key, it is hexagonal with dimples along it instead of flat with teeth. It can go into the keyhole easily, but I ALWAYS turn it the wrong way, swear, then turn it the correct way to lock or unlock it. Sometimes I even think about it consciously when I am trying to use the key, but then it generally doesn’t cooperate and will get stuck or won’t turn. Stupid lock…

I will keep a list active and post more Seriously Korea?! posts as I find more odd things about Korea. One will be coming with being a pedestrian in traffic and traffic rules, but I am having a very hard time writing it.

Welcome to HR (Honors Review)

So much has happened since I have arrived! I have been having so much fun and staying so busy that I haven’t really had time to sit down and write. There are also so many things to say. I’m hoping to write a lot today and have posts ready for later in the week.

Logically I should start by talking about work, considering that is why I am in Korea in the first place. I work at Honors English Review. It is a Hagwan (학완), or a after school academy. The students are there because the parents want them to have extra education. There is a great article in Time Magazine (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2094427,00.html) which talks more about the culture of education in Korea which may help you understand why a kid would go to school after school.

The school has 7 other foreign teachers and 6 native teachers. The kids range from 2^nd grade to 9^th grade, I teach 4^th through 8^th grade classes. I told a number of you that I teach from 2-10PM, but that is not entirely true as it turns out. My hours are 2-10, but each day I will teach 4-6 classes, each a 40 minute block. Every class (based on grade level and skill) will be at the school for 3 or 4 blocks. Each block will be a different teacher, teaching a different subject. Korean teachers handle mainly grammar and parent phone calls while foreign teachers teach reading, writing, speaking, science, and novels.

It has been a struggle getting used to the system. There are a lot of small things which are confusing like the way the syllabus is set up, when I need to assign certain work, and grading expectations. It is also hard to connect to a class that does not understand what I am saying. These kids are all extremely intelligent, but they are uncomfortable using what they know. If they understood how envious I am of them for knowing a second language (Korean isn’t easy to pick up on the fly), I know they would be much more willing to share. There is also a large cultural barrier which makes it difficult. Also, they are intimidated by a 6 foot 2 white male, it is just not something you see every day.

There are a ton of positives though. I absolutely love my coworkers! They are all so much fun! We joke, hang out, plan, eat, travel, drink, and help each other at work and outside of work. It is such a close knit group since we are what we have from back home. We rely a lot on each other, and especially the Korean teachers, to help navigate through the rest of the world. I also love the fact that I am constantly reading. I have read abridged versions of a few classics, books on history, science, and children’s stories. I have learned a lot from doing it all. Also when I have a class that ‘gets it’ or can have real conversations, I feel so good and successful. It is also nice that I live a 3 minute walk from work, it is an easy commute.

Just one quick story to add about one of my classes, for many reading classes in the younger grades, there is a writing journal to go with it. The teacher picks the topic to write on. I just gave a writing assignment on helping others. Most of the outlines were about helping mom, dad or siblings. However there was one little girl’s essay that really caught me. She wrote about how she helps her friend/classmate who has Autism. It was very sweet and touching and made me think of everyone at camp and the schools.

That’s all I have for now on the school. I will for sure be updating you on work a lot. I know I will find some silly English use that will need to be posted, updates on my classes, stories from the teachers work space.

The Flight and First Day

While on the flight, I still do not think I understand how much my life is going to change in the next few days. I feel like I will arrive and everyone I know will be there, but that is unfortunately not the case. However this brings a challenge to meet new people in an unfamiliar place using what little I know about the culture, people and language.

One of the most nerve-wracking things now is what awaits me at my apartment and school (by the way, this part is still written on the flight). I would love to know what exactly awaits me in both. Pillows, sheets, towels, grocery stores, kimchi, hardware store, Bed Bath and Beyond-esque stores, etc. Classrooms, technology, library, books, papers, supplies, etc. I do understand that I need to just be patient and my answers will come soon, but it feels like such a tall task at the end of a job search that felt like a tall tale.

This flight has been extremely lengthy. My legs are so sore, I have barely gotten any sleep in the past 24 hours which leaves me in a less than perfect state to make good first impressions when I arrive at my school. I suspect that the staff is used to it or gone through this with each new teacher so I’m not too concerned. The definite positives about the flight has been that I had a whole row to myself and the food! If I was not able to stretch out for the few times my mind wasn’t racing so fast to lay down for a quick nap, I’d be in much worse shape. I was joking with someone in the airport about how airline food is always bad, and since this is an Asian airline, that maybe the food would be like the junky Chinese food found in airports that always seems to taste great even though you know how bad it actually is for you. I was disappointed in that facet since the food was actually quite good. First meal was BiBimBap (a rice dish with vegetables and beef). With BiBimBap, there is usually a red chili paste which the flight attendant warned me it was hot and to just use half the tube, but as I ate I kept adding more and more because it was SOOO good! I really need to find out what that stuff is called, what is in it, and how to make it. No Korean meal is not complete without Kimchi (vegetables fermented in a spicy sauce), which also was quite good. The second meal was a chicken teriyaki which was also good, would have preferred another round of BiBimBap.

I have used my iPod, iPad, in-flight movie entertainment (Crazy Stupid Love and Rise of the Planet of the Apes), books(Hitch Hiker’s Guide, I love Doug Adams), and magazines to keep me occupied. I’m working on the sudokus and crossword from the United Magazine, and my goal will be to try to finish the crossword without too much cheating before I come home (just to make sure I actually have enough time). I did read a few articles from the Asiana Airlines magazine (one on Kimchi and one on a Korean Chef, seems like food is become a theme of this post), but there were no puzzles in it which was sort of disappointing. I wanted to see what a Korean crossword would look like, not that I could actually do it.

I arrived in Seoul an hour late due to bad head winds, but my chauffer was waiting when I arrived. From there, we drove to my school. Driving rules in Korea are much different than the states. The driver was on his phone constantly calling and looking stuff up. He also was not paying great attention to cars around him when merging and had some difficulties with the directions. He also did not know much English which made it difficult. Luckily I was in and out of sleep during the drive so I did not notice all his driving problems. When I finally arrived at the school, I met my coworkers. We talked a bit and then I went to eat with Sanjay and Katie at a little Korean place. I had a MASSIVE dumpling soup. It was incredible and was a good substitute for a bowl of Matzah Ball Soup after a long day of traveling (food again!).

I took a stroll once I was dropped off at my hotel. I do not move into my apartment until Friday due to availability issues. I just walked up and down a little courtyard area filled with restaurants, coffee shops, and mini-marts. Many of the restaurants had tanks outside of them filled with live fish! My favorite was the one with squid! They were squirming and swimming around. It was cool. I did go into a few mini-marts to see what they had. One of them was called 7-Eleven, however there were no slurpies.

That is pretty much all about my travel day. I’ll try to write again later in the week once I start adjusting.

Getting Started

The process has taken such a LONGGGG time. As many of you know, I have been working on going abroad since June. Now it is finally in reach.

So here is the quick version of the story:

Back in June, I started the whole process. I sent a federal background check to the FBI. It was said it could take up to three months, and lucky me, it took three months.

Once I had the background check, I needed to get an apostille on the document (international certification of document). To get it on the background check I needed to send the document back to D.C. Major thanks to Seth for helping out with this.

After I got all the documents certified, I could really start the job search. I interviewed with several schools and ended up getting a job at Bundang Honors.

When I signed the contract, I then needed to send the papers to be processed in Korea (by the way, this is now late October). Korean immigration took almost three weeks, leaving me not much time to go to the Consulate in Chicago to get the final Visa.

Finally, on Friday December 2, I went to the post office to get my visa. After receiving it, a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. Now all I am waiting for is my flight information and the final step of actually leaving.

There are several people who deserve a big thank you for helping me through the process. First is obviously my family. All of them helped me in some way; from Kim initially inspiring me to go abroad to Mom and Dad for helping me through the doubts and struggles with the job search. Seth Gordon-Lipkin deserves a huge thanks. If he hadn't been able to help me, I may not have been leaving now, it easily could have been two more months. I'd also like to thank all the friends who listened to me complain about the process a few too many times. Again, thanks to all those who helped.

Keep a look out for another post soon. I hope to write once more before leaving and probably soon after I arrive. Hope you enjoyed it!