Unrelated image of me on a Korean mountain
So yesterday I wrote about how my life of misery in England triggered something inside me to finally leap out of my comfort zone. I set off to South Korea alone, 21 years old with no experience or skills under my belt.
You see, in South Korea - and indeed many Asian countries - one can get a job as a teacher without being a teacher or knowing how to teach. At the time I wasn't aware of the stigma behind this and just thought about how I can get myself out of poverty so I was happy enough in that regard.
But my first week in Korea was a hell of a roller coaster for my brain.
Arrival
Incheon airport is beautiful and comforting and I felt more or less ok knowing I was going to meet somebody holding a sign, which I always wanted to do for some reason. But rather than take me home, they took me to the school. It was about 8pm so this really surprised me.
Turns out it's not a school so much as a private academy where kids come for extra study after school from 7 to 16 years of age. It was very clean and everybody was busy, and the boss who picked me up introduced me to their other foreign teacher: Logan from Alabama.
He didn't have the hilarious accent, though he was more than friendly in the two minutes he had free to speak with me. Soon after I was taken back to my little apartment on the 4th floor of a building hidden within a fish market called (and it took me forever to remember this) Bakdal Shijang. I'm really excited because after recalling the name, I could find it on Google maps who actually took the time to do street view in the market:
If you look beyond that yellow circular sign about 10 metres, turn right and there's a little hidden building you can go up to my apartment. Awesome.
Behind the photographer you can go to the end of the street, across the road and there's the Anyang river that connects to the Han river. That's a whole post in itself of stories.
Home
So yeah I was hidden away in this scary foreign market in a room with no internet and I got the wrong plug adaptor for my computer. All I had was a little TV full of mostly Korean stuff but there was one channel showing some shitty detective show or something NCIS which I watched almost exclusively.
For three days (time period before starting work) I was too terrified to leave by myself. I just sat in my room getting increasingly hungrier; still no internet, no phone, no heating, nothing. I had a thin pink sheet on my bed I'd wrap myself up in and shiver myself to sleep. I think there was heating but I couldn't figure it out.
On the third day I started looking out my window to see what I would face if I went out there and noticed a store with French words on it: 'Tous Les Jours' - Ahhh a bakery-type shop! I mapped it out the best I could in my head to get straight there, get some kind of bread and come back like some kind of skittish vole, and it turns out it was quite nice.
Friends
Samir
From here I would start work and I actually had a second foreign colleague, Samir - a very unusual, friendly polyglot who seemed to have some kind of confusion with his identity but he was a point of comfort for some time. He hated the job and the job hated him. The fact that he spoke fluent Korean (alongside at least 18 or so other languages I confirmed over the year) was seemingly of concern to the Korean staff.
Logan
Typical Yank
Logan was in his 30's somewhere, and he was my rock. He was wise, friendly, relatable, welcoming. He would simply come knocking on my door (He lived 2 floors below) and ask me if I wanted to join him gluing wood models in his room, things like that. He'd teach me all kindsa stuff and tell me stories and kickstart my social life through other friends of his.
Harriet
A friend of Logan's, the two of them first invited me to lunch on the first weekend; a Korean spicy but tasty meal that was the first non-bread thing I'd had all week. The spice was intense for a British tongue and within 20 minutes I casually rushed back to my apartment before the meal was open to... expel the contents. Worth it.
@hugmug
This is how I came across @hugmug, an infrequent but creative steemian who has served as one of my closest and trusted friends, but it didn't start that way.
My first encounter with @hugmug was in some dingy bar with Harriet and some other vague characters I can't really remember. Two Korean girls sat opposite me and were trying to flirt with me by asking inane questions like 'where u flom' and compliments like 'wow your kolean so good' when I say 'hello' (annyeong).
To the side of them was this strange, slightly dangerous looking drunk.
Towards the end of the night this huge, beefed up military bloke from the US marched up to us asking if we had seen his coat since he left it here. He was being quite accusatory. The drunk - a comparatively tiny but tall figure - stood up and looking him in the face and said something along the lines of 'You should show more respect if you want your coat'.
The guy was fuming and a fight was seemingly bubbling, but we all rushed our departure to avoid such a thing. The drunk had already beaten us to the elevator at the end of the hall, and upon seeing us, he yelled something, threw a bottle of coke at us and gave us the finger before the doors closed.
That drunk was @hugmug.
It turned out that he wasn't just a caricature drunk, but a musical, lyrical and intelligent guy who just happened to be drunk. I would keep coming across him by chance until we ended up kind of friends, and I fail to remember how, but proper friends even to this day.
Actual Home
By now I had felt much more established, safe, stable. I had finally built a life from the ground up, and it felt like home. The work was tough; 10 hours a day, a single 30 minute break, 6 days off a year.... I didn't care. I never wanted to leave!
Test Day
But alas, I did, and it didn't end well.
excellent post! great journey! you are very interesting and easy to write! thanks for that !
Hold on! You can't just end a story with a cliff hanger like that! Why didn't it end well? I've often dreamed of doing what you're currently doing. At the moment, I'm working on getting a degree, though I've been told you don't need one to teach over there. However, I'd rather take the proper steps because I've heard you can get a bad wrap by doing it the other way.
That didn't stop a few of my friends from going to China and teaching over the course of 5 years. Numerous times they practically begged me to come over, but I just felt as if my life wasn't organized. I'm beginning to realize how necessary it is to believe in yourself to take that leap of faith. I love hearing stories such as yours, because it pushes me ever so closer to that moment I may just "do it." I hope all is well with you now man. Looking forward to see the conclusion.
By the way @hugmug sounds like a pretty cool dude. As for Logan, I'm American as well and can attest that people from BAMA are good peeps.
I'd definitely say if you haven't got yourself fully tied down with families and dogs and stuff, there's no reason not to, but at the same time I would certainly not advise China for numerous reasons, though your friends are there I guess.
I live here too of course but only because I established my life before knowing what i know now... so I discourage anybody visiting or moving here!
As for the cliff hanger... heh. I'm not sure that I'll continue it either =P
Oh I’m aware of the reasons not to move there, lol. I only have one friend remaining in China now. He opened up an aquarium business with another expat. Seems to be doing well, but I only know what he lets on. Kind of like you. :p
Just curious, what tier city is Anyang? I personally thought Chengdu looked intriguing. I’ll eventually visit China, but I’m staying clear of large cities. I actually just want to take a trip specifically to take photos. My life here in the states is keeping me busy at the moment though so I’m not moving anytime soon.
The anyang I lived in is in Korea, not China. There is an Anyang in China though, but it's more prefecture level than tiered.
I really need to see a bit more of China too, I've gotten myself stuck in Shanghai lol, but lots of travel due this year!
Ah, I see now. I guess I should have picked up on that when noticing coastline to the west, lol. Well, good luck on your travels man! May the steemforce be with you.
Execelent your writing at your memories...
Your post is very excelent...
I like you journey...
Success is always for you @mobbs...
A long journey to discover @gugmug :)
I have a lot of friends who had a very positive experience when they joined the Japanese English Teacher program (JET). If you are ready for another change you can give that a go :)
I'm done with the whole ESL thing. It was fun but not rewarding enough for my curious head. After I got enough experience and training etc I moved on to Literature, History, Music, things I share passion with.
Also, I heard nothing but overworking people to death in JET, with far less savings than you'd get in Korea or China. Then again you get to live in Japan. Gonna visit later this year - who knows!
Overworking people to death depends a bit on where in Japan you get stationed. Unfortunately, you cannot pick where you want to go. So it depends on how lucky you are. (note that JET is a government program so you won't get ripped off :P)
The money is less but they arrange super cheap housing. In addition, air tickets, travel fees etc are all included :)
Have fun in Japan :o)
the key to working these jobs is to not give a fuck about the job itself. If you are polite and empathetic towards all the individuals, it seems to be a better method than actually caring. But yeah, if you are done with it, be done with it!
Yeah well, I do love teaching so I guess it wouldn't really matter if its ESL or Philosophy, I'd find a way to love it. So perhaps that's my issue. I should have stopped loving!
I've always kept myself busy with non-teaching jobs like composition, mixing, writing and so forth and I guess my interests are too diverse to keep teaching kids where verbs go in a sentence... I envy your mindset =P
nononono Love the work! Don't be attached to the job!
Know that there are others, and with this work, it's easy to know!
Now I know the country to apply for that teaching job since knowing how to teach isn't part of the job description. We have a saying here that the traveller is wiser than the gray-haired old man that never left his hut! The experienced you've garnered so far is worth their weight in gold (or bitcoin if you can weigh it). Interesting memoirs. Do share more.
Damn man, you make yourself sound so fragile and scared. Was Korea really that scary? Scarier than "me now"?
Oh those English teachers, one on one, they can be great...get them in a pack and all they do is complain...
Haha well c'mon i was young, fresh out of Uni. It was mortifying! Nowdays a plane ride is barely more than a bus ride to me, but you gotta start somewhere!
And yeah those packs of whiners annoyed me so much. I think I was the only person in Korea I knew that didn't just talk about issues with my job all day. I prefer random banter, anything! My work is done, I don't wanna talk about it now!
I hung out with locals even when I had no idea what was going on...until I knew what was going on. Better than complaining all day and it helped me accomplish what I came to accomplish, to destroy myself and rebuild as I saw fit! :-D
You're a better man than I! (thanks for catching up with comments lol)
This ia a wonderful piece. Wish I could travel around though.
I totally can see why you felt the way you did when you first arrived. In my tiny, short visit to China, the 2 days I did not have you as my guide I spent the first 2 hours of the day staring out, listening to incomprehensible babble and convincing myself I would stay in all day until you finished work. In fact, the fact that I knew you had 'been there, done that' on such a big scale was partly the reason why I 'got a grip' and went out. Oddly though I too stuck to bread... and TUC biscuits which I recognised and then went hungry until you saved me and took me to evening dinner. The 2 day I had more courage to step out. You/your previous stories gave me the courage to actually go to a restaurant the 2nd day alone. It was one we had visited together. I knew the layout. I knew you/we had eaten there and the food didn't kill me... so I went for it. So I can truly appreciate how you must have been feeling, so young, so alone. Had I not had you as a bolster I don't think I would have done that. A memory I treasure.
I'm glad its become a lasting memory and thats the thing, through all the crap we go through, all the struggles and stress and poverty and loss, it seems the brain naturally refers back to those good times for the rest of your life. It really is more valuable than anything else you can do with yourself