Life in Korea (the South one) pt. 1

If you’ve made it here, I consider that a win. And I am grateful that you haven’t left my ever-evolving website. My introduction begins in the meaty stage of my life: 2013. I moved to Korea to teach English after graduating from Angelo State University a year earlier. I know you're thinking, "Why Korea? Not Japan, but Korea? South, right? Not North?" Right. South Korea. 

I had been self-studying Korean for some time by this point, and thanks to all the Korean exchange students I’d met in the last two years of college, my curiosity about the country grew exponentially. Additionally, the threshold for becoming a teacher in Asia is low. Like, limbo low. All I needed was a bachelor’s degree. It didn’t matter what my major was (mine is Communications with a minor in Spanish). You can also teach English in Asia by taking an online certification course in TESOL or TEFL.

I arrived in South Korea through a now-defunct government-sponsored program that placed English teachers in the countryside, where citizens and students had little to no chance to learn English offline. Great, let’s go! I was just happy to be living in South Korea. Upon my arrival, I had to attend a one-month training seminar with the other teachers. Some weren’t even from the U.S. Before that time, I had no idea that a teacher could be from Canada, U.K., Ireland, South Africa, Australia, or New Zealand. The month-long stay was a great opportunity to get to know the coordinators and the other teachers. Even Sun Hyun-woo came one day to speak with us! Anyone who studies Korean knows him: the CEO of Talk to Me In Korean, a powerhouse of resources for learning anything and everything Korean. I’ve learned 90% of my Korean from him and his staff, and I still study with their content.

After our training ended, we all said our goodbyes and headed to the locations of our schools. Some of us were sent to live in small towns near large cities, while others received the butt bread of the loaf. I say this because I know that many of them hadn’t learned any Korean before coming. Living in a satellite town gave them an advantage and access to other English-speakers. Being in a foreign land in the middle of nowhere with no language skills just sounds like hell to me.

My school, Jindo Seokkyo Elementary School, was located on Jindo Island—not to be confused with Jeju Island. Jindo Island is connected to the mainland by a bridge, while Jeju Island is connected by… the ocean. That bridge made it easier to take the bus out of town for weekend adventures.

School life was... okay. I taught a lot of kindergarten classes, and the older students' classes were mainly after school. Teaching wasn’t difficult; I just had to be funny, open, and not take cultural differences too seriously. Thankfully, by that time, I had learned to control my stuttering. I think learning Korean had forced me to “learn how to talk again.” Besides, no one really knew that I could speak Korean, so I kept a memo of anything said about me. Just in case I needed to report any wild rumors, bad words, or anything else that a student wouldn’t say in front of his or her parents. The main thing was that I had to be sure to always cover my tattoos and wear slippers.

Sadly, I knew from the beginning that I would not be staying in Jindo for more than a year. It was difficult to make friends, there was virtually no nightlife, and my apartment was a 20- 30-minute bus ride away (though it was a nice ride through the mountains and rice paddies). Even worse, traveling by bus out of the province was a pain in the ass.

From the beginning, I told myself I’d stay at least five years in South Korea— enough time to become a Korean language master. Or expert. Or guru. Or any other vainglorious title. The Korean alphabet, called Hangeul, is notorious for its simplicity and phonetic features. Unlike the more omnipresent Asian languages, Japanese and Chinese, Hangeul doesn’t use symbols and radicals. Instead, each set of characters is written in block form (i.e., 안 is the combination of ㅇ, ㅏ, and ㄴ; 맑 is the combination of ㅁ, ㅏ, ㄹ, and ㄱ), and each character is phonetic. Of course, there are exceptions, just like in any other language, but fundamentally, they are phonetic—and fun to learn. Anyone can learn the entire alphabet in just a few hours. Even a bozo like me.

Okay. Back to school life in Jindo. Even though I was the main English teacher, many of the other Korean teachers knew enough English to break bread with me—a great gesture since I was trying to hide my Korean language abilities (I was forbidden to speak Korean to the students anyway). That makes sense, right? The Korean teachers were kind, but to a certain extent. Maybe because they were used to foreign teachers coming and going year after year. They stayed within their social and cultural boundaries: chiming in when a student acted up, not being overly kind or overenthusiastic about having a foreigner in the school, and sitting together during lunch. We didn’t do much talking during lunch, though. That, I admit, was a bit strange at the time. I learned much later that Koreans weren’t fond of small talk. Well, that was in 2013, so maybe things have changed since then. 

One major problem I had was getting paid on time. Since I landed my job through a government-sponsored program I was certain I would be paid on time every month (yes, every month!). But that was not the case, so I made monthly calls to my coordinator to address the problem (I was pretty much getting on his damn nerves) At one point I was so down bad that one of the Korean teachers, whose name I cannot forget but for whom I am very thankful, lent me my entire paycheck until I received mine. And he did this more than once. I think the longest delay was one week. Maybe 11 days, including the weekend. What made matters worse was that we got paid ONCE A MONTH! I know I mentioned that already, but just let it sink in…