Ready. Disclaim. Fire
One of my main concerns around the commencement of this blog would be that if I did anything more than one blog post a month I could potentially compromise the content and end up posting any ol' drivel. However given that the blog is conventionally written in 'prose', there will be some odd offshoots, trinkets and other such things that wouldn't necessarily fit into the blog but I'd still like to document regardless. The Ode de Toilet being a prime example. As a result, the dodecagannual (I am taking full credit for that word, fuck you oppressive red squiggly line) blog will continue, along with a series of side stuffs: lists, 'Racist of the Week's, etc. etc.I remember before I came here, one of the greatest source of information was the blogs of people already here. Obviously every director is different and every area of Korea will have a different set of circumstances, different cultural perceptions and so on. All I can really do is try to give an accurate description of what is really just an 'average' ESL job in SoKo (yes, yes I just did). If there's one thing I love, it's a good informative list, so going by that, here's my Top 10 on things I wish I'd known before coming to Yulha.
Jordan's Wondrous Fantastically Informative Top 10 Things He Wished He Knew Before Coming To SoKo (just did it again, deal with it)
10 Korean is important
English is one of the most common languages in the world. The language of business and of science is often English. English is everywhere? WRONG! In the bigger cities like Busan and Seoul, you'd more than likely be able to find someone to help you find where you want to go; or be able to order a meal without pointing like a simpleton on day-release. Out in the towns of the outskirts of the satellite towns of the suburbs of aforementioned big cities, life is a little different. So far in Yulha I've found a woman in a post office who speaks passable English and I think that's about it. Now, don't get me wrong, I love charades as much as the next jovial chappy, however there's a stark difference between playing it half cut with your family on Boxing Day and using it to describe 'passport sized headshots for Alien Registration Card needed urgently, please help'.
Helpful advice: Learn Korean, or at least the alphabet so you can read place names.
9: It's not English, it's American
"Teacher! Teacher! Say 'wohdrrr'" that is the sound of my middleschool pupils in a rather confused state. 'Wohdrrr', of course, is 'water' and to pronounce it in the British way truly baffles them. All kids here are taught the American way of spelling and pronouncing English. It's all trashcans, soccer and leaving the 's' off maths. I found it quite distressing at first and a small part of my soul erodes into nothingness every time I ask a child for an 'eraser'.
Helpful advice: Desensitise (spelled with an 's', yes.) yourself from all emotion.
8: That I'd be living in Yulha
Okay, to give some context to this one, here's a rough guide to exactly what Yulha is.
Yulha is small, it's near
Jangyu, which is a bit bigger, that is near
Gimhae, which is a bit bigger than that, and Gimhae is near
Busan, the city!
A common trend amongst directors in Yulha is to understate Yulha in the job description. And by 'understate Yulha' I mean 'lie about location'. Myself and the Turtle both applied for a job in Gimhae. Gimhae's subway link to the Busan main subway network makes getting to the golden beaches, sparkling ocean and bustling, cosmopolitan streets, laden with cafes, galleries and European clothing brands a breeze. After passing the interviews we were told Jangyu. Only when talking to the people preceding us did we find out where we'd actually be living, a few days before we flew out of the UK.
Helpful advice: Presume you'll be in the arse end of nowhere. It's actually quite nice here anyways.
7: How to use chopsticks
Handcramps and splashed noodle juice all down my new trousers.
Helpful advice: Practice to the soundtrack of Rocky. Start by trying to lift Quavers and move up progressively to things with less friction, like Lego bricks.
6: Korean people will have better hair than you, you suck.
Some things in life I'll never understand: Brian Cox, Alan Pardew's 4-5-0-0-0-0-1 formation in the 2012/13 season, the geometry of Nicki Minaj, and how on earth a Korean's appearance can be so perfect. It's rainy season, it's humid as hell and yet some how every Korean has maintained a perfect image of hair Godliness. Their hair doesn't budge from it's perfectly sculpted mold and they don't even sweat! I had one student last week comment on my shiny forehead. It doubly upset me as that day I was attempting to sport a fringe.
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| What they look like |
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| When I try to look presentable |
Helpful advice: Invest in a paper bag, you look awful.
5: Race of Spades
Given that you are a disgusting oaf with a mop made of wire and dispair, it is clear you are only here to indoctrinate the youth and steal the beautiful women. This point is more just about a lot of the older generations here having an almost immediate dislike of us vanillas (I see myself more as a Caramac/beige, but that's by the by to them). I think given the fact that thirty years ago their writing system was vertically, moving right to left, and has since been altered to suit foreign investment (The US = some Americans are white = I'm white = I DESTROY CULTURE). I had no idea of that aspect of the Korean mindset, that was more just ignorance on my behalf though.
Helpful advice: Don't be white.
4: Proper Tea Ladder
After a long, stressful day what's that one thing that provides the ultimate release? Opening the doorway to unspeakable divinity? Nope, not heroin, tea! Tetley, PG, Yorkshire tea. Or as I find myself repeatedly needing to specify: "English breakfast tea". The ridiculousness of this is that it's perceived only to be drunk at breakfast. Fools! It also bears the chronic, unforgivable, Anglocentric blindness to the Celtic contingent of the British Isles, where tea is consumed by equal impressiveness in quantity. Unfortunately, EBT has not quite caught on as one may have envisaged. Korea likes tea, there's no doubt about this. There's an entire isle dedicated to it in most supermarkets. I am devastated to announce, however, that this is not what we would assume to be 'real tea'. These innovative Asians will literally have a bash at making tea out of anything: Apricot tea, berry tea, corn tea, other kind of berry tea, endless rows of herbal teas, green teas, blues teas, teateas (lol) but no 'proper' tea. Homeplus, a supermarket chain in SoKo (oh, just did it again) which is owned by Tesco does stock good, honest tea. But so far, that is the only place we've found that distributes the liquid Jesusness that is "English breakfast tea".
Helpful advice: Bring tea. It doesn't even matter if you go over your weight allowance on the flights over here, the fines are worth it. You can earn more money, you can't earn more tea.
3: What Korean actually sounds like
We've all seen those English speaking films that often have scenes based in China or Japan to add an air of exoticity (new word, fuck you red squiggles). You often see the Asian characters talking in their native dialect to one another before shooting the side kick of the good guy, usually the side kick who gets shot in the chest makes a full recovery from the mere flesh wound, punctured lung and ruptured heart just in time to save the day. The point of all this is to emphasise (oh, another 's'. What of it?) the fact you seldom get to see or hear Koreans speaking their own language. It's far more guttural than other East Asian languages. This is presumably due to it being considered by many etymologists to be part (please keep reading) of the Altaic language family, which is a family stemming from Central Asia: the land of the stan's. As a result of this more earthy, back-of-the-throat dialect, people can often sound like they're dying mid-sentence. Vowels can sometimes last for hours and can evolve from a simple "Annyeonghaseyo" to "Annyeonghaseyoooooooeeeerghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh". Don't worry, they aren't distressed, they're saying hello.
Helpful advice: Just because someone sounds like they've fallen awkwardly on a meat cleaver, doesn't mean they have.
2: Churches, churches everywhere
I read somewhere, probably on Wikipedia that religion played a little part in life in Korea. This seed was planted in my head and it soon developed into a "Korea doesn't need religion, it's got common sense!". I was wrong. I'm not sure on the statistics, but there are churches here, there and everywhere. They're unlike the ones we see back home, in that they aren't hundreds of years old. They look more like buildings designed by the council when it's got too much money: a lot of unnecessary glass and curves. We actually live next door to a church. The big difference, for me, is that in the UK, Christianity is seen as a given: you can just say you're religious, whilst sinning to high heaven without it making too much of a difference. Here it seems it's a lot more about proving a point; showing you are Christian, not just having people presume it. As a result it's kind of a big deal here.
Helpful advice: Don't. Say. Jehovah.
1: How to teach Korean children
This isn't to say we came here with no teaching experience. But it's such a vast shift from what we had both experienced it was hard to grasp at first. There's not really too much I can say on this in case it ends up as part of a smear campaign against them poxy under-qualified whites by one of the national broadcasters.
Helpful advice: Speak slower and louder to people who don't speak English. This should be sufficient practice for you. For more thorough practice, steal Asian children from parks or supermarkets and talk to them to hone your skills. (If they're going to quote me I may as well make it a good quote)
