The end of my first year

There are many tales which I have left out of my first year, but I want to get up to some of the scandalous deceit and backstabbing in my other years. So, I'll conclude the first year with this post.

Towards the end of my first year, I decided to stay in Korea, but I wanted to find a new job. I had been browsing the job postings on eslcafe as well as worknplay for many months and saw many jobs which were offering much better positions than mine.

I started contacting recruiters a couple of months before the end of my contract. I had one school interview me. The neighborhood seemed nice, and I liked the boss seemed decent, but the contract they sent me was garbage. I found a school in Bucheon which promised high level students, no kindergarten and a decent salary. I interviewed with them, and they were pretty cool. The supervisor was a gyopo/korean american(one of these days I'll figure out what the difference actually is) and he explained the conditions to me. It was Monday-Saturday, but saturday was only four hours max, and most of the time there were either no saturday classes or only a few. I verified this with some of the teachers there, and I signed up. I had to start a little late because I wanted to go home after my first year in Korea for a couple of weeks, but they agreed.

Anyways, my first year ended, and there was a graduation ceremony for the kindergarteners. I had my ticket form home provided by my boss, and after a light night of celebrating the end of the school year with some coworkers and friends, I went home. I set my alarm for 4:00am, because I had an 9:00am flight. The airport is about an hour and a half away, but I had packed everything and just needed to wake up, shower and get dressed.

I woke up the next morning at about eleven. It was Sunday, and I had my alarm on M-F instead of every day. I woke up because my former boss was opening my door and letting in the new teacher. I half consciously yelled out jamchimanyo(just a moment) and greeted my boss and replacement teacher in my boxer shorts. I realized I had over slept, freaked out for a bit and threw on some clothes.

My boss was a little worried too, so he called the airline and booked the next available flight for me to get out of the country.

I took a 50 second long shower, threw on some clothes and jumped in my boss's car. He took me to the airport. I had to pay $1500 for the flight. While on the flight, I realized that had I waited a day or two, I could have booked a flight for less than half as much, but I decided to let it be and get my refund for the original ticket when I returned.

"Speech Contest"

Near the end of my first year at wonderland, perhaps in December, perhaps in January, there was a speech contest for the older kindergarten students. When I first heard about this, I assumed it would be an actual contest.

This was not an authentic speech contest, however. It was just a speech performance with no winners. All of the older kindergarten students would have to prepare a short speech and perform it along with their classmates. Each class had a theme, and some classes had plays instead of consecutive speeches.

The class I had to prepare was Zebra class. This was the class of first year 6-7 year olds or Korean 7-8 year olds. The theme for their speeches was favorite things. The performance was to begin with a choreographed rendition of "My favorite things" from "The sound of muscic." After the song, each of the students had to go up and describe their favorite thing while the parents guessed what it was. Of course, the Korean teacher wrote the descriptions and assigned favorite things for each of the students, and they just had to memorize and recite the little speeches.

There were many normal things like snow and dogs and baseball and dancing. One student, however was assigned pooping. "My favorite thing smells very bad, but it feels very good. I have to do it in the bathroom. Usually, I do it every day. I have to wash my hands when I'm done. Can you guess what my favorite thing is?"

A side tale from christmas.

The friend of mine who attended the christmas party was visiting from Busan. He was the friend with whom I stayed during chuseok. He brought his girlfriend with him for the trip.

He enjoyed the party and the buildup/letdown involved in the cucumber incident. At some point, his lady friend was tired, so they decided to leave. I knew of one hotel that was nearby, so I told them where it was.

They went in and asked if they had any rooms. They did. They were given their complimentary toiletries and a key, and they went up to their room. His lady friend wanted to brush her teeth before retiring, so she grabbed the supplied toothbrush and toothpaste and went to the bathroom. When she began opening the toothbrush package, she noticed that a dead roach was inside the toothbrush package and screamed.

Needless to say, they vacated that hotel and found other lodgings.

The Christmas Party.

Gary, the scottsman, returned to Korea shortly after he left. He found a new job and an apartment. I was informed that he was holding a Christmas party. The party had an odd twist, however. There was to be an adult themed white elephant.

Before I continue this tale, I should mention Gary had a girlfriend. I may have mentioned this earlier, but stay with me. His girlfriend was an idiot. She was the type who comes to Korea with leftist views from America and then freaks the fuck out when she visits a country with a different culture and language. She expected all Koreans to speak English fluently and abide by the same social standards she was accustomed to. There are many examples of this, but I'll provide you with a single one.

I was sharing a cab with gary and his "lady" friend one afternoon. It was a long cab ride, so Gary requested the radio. the cabbie turned on the radio, but it was a news channel. Gary's girlfriend wanted music. She got the driver's attention and started shouting "music! music!" He didn't understand, so she spent 10 minutes shouting "musica!!, musica!!" When she gave up, she said "Fucking idiot."

Anyways, there was a party. I went to the party and invited a good friend of mine. It was pretty fun. Gary had made a turkey along with many other great side dishes. Then the erotic gift exchange began. I was trying to conserve my funds before this event and as a result, instead of buying any fancy vibrators or odd sex toys, I brought over an open bag of cucumbers with one remaining. I had eaten one with a sandwich, but there was one left in the package, so I wrapped it and brought it to the party.

Many erotic gifts were exchanged. Then Gary's lady friend chose my gift. Everyone was speculating about the contents of the package. One guest was sure it was a G-spot vibrator. She opened it and was unpleasantly surprised.

The rest of the evening she scowled at me until the end of the party. She tried to guilt trip me about how much she spent on her white elephant gift. I said, "sorry, I just bought a round trip ticket to Thailand, so I can't waist a ton of money on a gift for a random stranger." She threw the cucumber at me and skulked off.

The next day, I had another delicious sandwich with fresh cucumber slices.

Chuseok

For Chuseok, or Korean Thanksgiving, The Canadian teacher, Bob and I went to Busan to visit a friend of mine from College. My good friend from back home was also there. We had purchased train tickets online ahead of time for the trip to Busan, but we hadn't purchased any for the return trip. At the train station, We decided it would be a good idea to get tickets then so that we wouldn't be stuck several hundred miles away from Seoul at the end of the vacation. There were very few tickets left, but we managed to get standing tickets.

We arrived in Busan and met my friends. I mentioned to my friend from home that he might want to get a ticket asap because there were very few left when we bought our return tickets. He went to the train station, but he was only able to get one for the next day at 6am. Nonetheless, we went out and had a great time. I was staying at my Busan friend's house, and my coworkers were sharing a love motel.

We went to a couple of clubs, and Bob had too much again. To illustrate a point he was trying to convey, he dropped his glass on the floor and it shattered. He was trying to drop it on the table, but the table was a good meter or so away. We cut him off, but we were a bit too late. As we were leaving the club, he had to vomit. He started at the entrance, and I attempted to drag him to the bathroom. He broke off, ran into the kitchen and threw up for about twenty minutes in the kitchen garbage can.

Finally, we got him back to his hotel and my friend and I tried to get a cab to take us back to his place. I don't know why, but all of the cabbies that night were jerks. None of them would take us to his place, and finally a couple of college guys helped us and jumped into the cab. They wanted to join us and practice English. We were a little uncomfortable, but we decided to let them come over anyways. They ran into a convenience store to pick up some soju and snacks. They came over and started chatting away. After a little while, I fell asleep.

When I woke up the next morning, my friend was sitting up in his bed with an odd look on his face. I turned and saw our new Korean friends. They were asleep on the floor spooning each other.

The new teacher

After Gary left, a new teacher came to replace him. Because he's still in Korea and has a pretty uncommon name, I'll refer to him as Bob, which isn't his name. Bob was a very unusual individual. He was always filled with energy and enthusiasm for everything. He seemed like a Christian fundamentalist in his zeal, but he wasn't religious.

On Bob's first weekend in Korea, my coworkers and I took him out to Sinchon. Bob was a very strange individual after a few drinks. It didn't take much to get him plastered, and he was a little too lively to begin with. When we were searching for a bar, he thought it would be a good idea to pick a cigarette butt off of the ground, use it as a divining rod and throw himself into a pile of garbage.

After a few places, we wanted to find a more lively bar. We decided to split up and look for a bar and return to the corner we were at in ten minutes. Each of us would go a different direction, pop into a few bars to check them out and return with our findings. The plan worked out pretty well except for the fact that Bob never returned. So, we all split up for twenty minutes in an attempt to find him. We never found him.

This was quite worrying because he had no cell phone, spoke no Korean, had no id to show a cab driver where he lived and probably didn't know how to get home. We searched for a bit more, but we finally gave up and enjoyed the rest of our evening.

The next day, I called his home phone, and thankfully he was there. He remembered the subway station near his house and had a taxi driver take him there. Apparently, he forgot where we were supposed to meet and had no watch to keep track of the time. He met some other foreigners and hung out with them for the rest of the night.

Open class number 1

It was fall. The summer intensives had finished, and I had a relatively light schedule and an actual break during the day. At the end of September, however, there was a dreaded event. Open class. This was a day where we came in on Saturday to teach a special class that parents sat in for.

At first, I figured this would be fine. I would teach a regular class, and the parents could watch. I wasn't an amazing teacher, but I had gotten the hang of it and knew how to get students to understand the material and remember it. I was told to pick a topic to teach and to make a lesson plan which I would submit to the president/director/boss/wanjangnim.(One day, I'll choose a title and stick with it.)

I had started planning a lesson on the daily life of American kids. It was a lesson which was somewhat related to the chapter I was covering with the class I had to do an open class with, and I decided to talk about what American kids do for fun as well as what I did when I was a kid. I included open ended topics for the kids to discuss, a grammar lesson about gerunds, and game vocabulary. I was then told that I needed to do a science class.

So, I went back to the drawing board and devised a science lesson about how soap works.(While this doesn't sound particularly interesting, volcanoes had already been done, and I included lots of colors and pictures to liven up the lesson) I had a demonstration which involved the kids and myself, and it was a pretty fun class. Everyone approved, and so I prepared materials and got ready for the big day. Then, I was told that I needed to practice the class with the kids. I had to teach the lesson every day the week before the open class. The kids had to memorize their responses to my questions. In the end, instead of teaching a lesson, I directed a performance for the parents.

On the day of the open class, although all of the kids answered all of my questions perfectly and in unison, the parents seemed very happy. After my class, the parents then had to meet with the supervisor and discuss their views of the class and opinions about the school.

The next day I was told that I was doing a terrible job. All of the parents didn't like me and liked the previous teacher more. I was a little surprised and asked "So, what specifically are the parents upset about? What would they like me to do differently?" I was then told "Everything. Your teaching is terrible. They want you to be a better teacher." I wasn't sure what to do with this information. I later found out from my co-teacher for this class that one parent had a complaint that I didn't focus on her student enough but the other parents were quite happy. Apparently, the teacher before me favored this particular student and would always let him sit on her lap during class and give him hugs and candy.

A year later, I also learned about Korean management style. While in the west, it is common to give positive reinforcement when employees do well, Korean employers often tell you that you're doing terribly in order to keep you on your toes.

A burglary and the loss of Gary.

As mentioned before, Gary, the Scott was one of my coworkers. He was a good man and a pretty good teacher. He and Korea, however didn't agree. He was always pretty straight forward. If he disagreed with something, he spoke his mind. Needless to say, after a while, he started having problems with the hagwon. After six months, he was gone.

I won't go into more detail than that since I'm writing about my experiences and don't feel it is quite appropriate to spend a significant amount of time and space discussing my observations of a friend/coworker's experiences with Korea.

Anyhoo, a couple of weeks after he left, I was robbed.

One day, I went to work. I left my door unlocked, as I usually did my first year in Korea. I did this because I was under the impression that there was almost no crime here. While I was at work, I heard that one of the other teachers, who lived in the same building had her apartment broken into. After hearing this, I ducked out and went back home to check my apartment. When I got there, my laptop, camera, passport and $10 were gone.

I told my boss, and we saw the police. I filled out some forms and told them what was missing, and I was told that they will try to figure out who the thief was. My boss then gets electronic password door locks installed on our doors. After teaching that day, I noticed that there was a security camera on the corner of my street which wasn't to far from my house. I mentioned this to my boss and supervisor the next day as I thought it could be useful in the investigation.

My supervisor takes me down to the police station to answer some more questions and to mention the camera and file an official police report. While the "detective" was interviewing me and my supervisor was translating, I hear her say "Gary ******" several times, so I stopped her and asked her what she was talking about. She told me that she was giving them Gary's name and information because she thought he was the burglar. I told her that I strongly doubted that he was the thief because he's a decent man and he was in Scotland thousands of miles away at the time. She brushed this information off and began giving the detective more of his information, but then he stopped her and asked me why I didn't think he was the thief. I told him why I didn't think he was the thief and he stopped this line of questioning.

A few days later, my boss pulled me aside to tell me that the police reviewed the tapes from the camera near my apartment and saw a man walking out of my apartment building with my possessions and later entering a car. The license plate was visible, and they were tracking the car down.

I waited about a week for more news and asked my boss if there was any more information. He told me that the police couldn't find the thief and that they probably never would. Later that day, I saw a police officer driving an elderly woman home from the grocery store.