Day by Daejeon - The orientation and early day of teaching

Introducing

Not a creepy statue. 

Blog readers of the world, welcome; mum, I'll email you back probably by Monday.   This is a long overdue update/entry with regards to my current living situation in the 'Rea.  Myself and the Turtle have returned to the Land of the Morning Calm Chronic Nationwide Hangover for another year.  We've moved
further north, not "The North" but closer to the bright lights of Seoul and life generally conducive to a greater living experience for a couple of Foreign Johnnys like us.

The big difference is that last time we came over as Hagwon teachers.  "Teacher" in itself is a real stretch on what our roles were generally considered to be.  Glorified and informative after school club tutors, maybe.  However this time, we've become actual teachers, working in elementary schools.  Like, proper teachers with elbow pads and shit.

A Confuscion school at the bottom of our
road.

A rather soggy eyed send off from my mother, in particular, in Heathrow departures set the tone for a sombre spell in the cramped, misery inducing hatebox that is long distance travel.  I think it was Paul Theroux who stated that you could only judge a good plane journey by how few negatives happened to you.  And by these standards, our journey went well:  We didn't crash and die.  We didn't get food poisoning and die.  We didn't get shot by Ukrainian separatists and die.  We didn't go missing and die.  We arrived.  Great successes were had.

Upon arriving in Korea, we were met by two ladies in Hanboks (colourful traditional Korean dresses) shouting at foreigners to get to the left.  Being the lawless rebels that we were, we didn't quite catch the drift of their shrieks and so march on ahead.  Turtle was close-lined to the ground and I had my jaw broken in two places.  That didn't actually happen but we were verbally assaulted until we inevitably moved left with the other foreignery.  After that it was almost plain sailing, disregarding a mild faux par with the immigration form, but that's not worth going into.

Orientation

Jordan and his biggest fan.

We were met in Arrivals by a woman holding our agency's logo on a piece of A4 before being shepherded to the EPIK (English Program in Korea - the recruiting body for all state school teachers here) main desk.  We had our names checked and were given a number.  I wanted to be number five so I could nickname myself V (yes, like the movie); unfortunately I was 35, a somewhat more explicit XXXV.  Whilst waiting, disheveled and in desperate need of a shower, we saw fellow EPIKers greeting each other as they arrived, as if there'd been some sort of prior communication.  I tried to join in with an ill-timed wave at someone who was happier to see someone else and thus went back to spectating, rather than partaking, in any greetings.

Once there was enough of us to warrant a bus leaving, we set off for our nine day orientation in Daejeon.  As we were getting comfortable and preparing for another tedious subsection of our journey, our EPIK herder (? for lack of a better word) wanted to take a photo.  An American-twanged "HASHTAG NO FILTER" from the back of the bus immediately made me envious of the audibly impaired.

The location of all our orientationing would be an emptied university campus.  Because of this I had quite high hopes: remembering the chip shop at the top of campus in Aberystwyth that did battered and deep fried cheeseburgers (with ketchup within the batter).  The times I spent reminiscing awful student food set me up for an almighty fall: we were in the only student campus in the world which had no terrible food vendors in or around it; just tyre shop after tyre shop after tyre shop.  This was inexplicably odd.

Before getting the keys to our dorms and our shiny little name and location depicting lanyards we had to be given a quick medical assessment to ensure we were free of Ebola.  This came the same day a bar in the international district banned all Africans due to Ebola.  Not that you ever get the feeling that in Korea there are only two types of people:  A) Korean.  B) Not.  Needless to say, I passed with flying colours.  I had not even a trace of the stuff.  I was then told my roommate (we had to do shared accommodation and because the Turtle has ladyparts and I do not, our cohabitation was strictly forbidden) was already up in my our room.  Given some of the people we met that week, my roommate was an enormous relief: a supercool fisherman fellow who'd been in Korea before but had no laptop (which meant an immediate monopolisation of the LAN line on my behalf).  So overall, I got off pretty lucky.

Pictures I'm using to make up for the
pictures I didn't take in Jeonju

Our first proper day of orientation was one of the most horrific days of my life.  That is, of course, a mild exaggeration also.  Jet lag combined with a one-off case of sinusitis meant my face ached and as a consequence I was a bit of a dick to everything.  The low point came half way through an opening ceremony.  An astonishingly talented taekwondo troop were well into their performance of faux-beating the shit into each other, of fighty dancing and kicking higher than their own heads.  It was a real spectacle, though as an almost outer body experience I found myself leaning over to whinge that they could never kick the first board during a sequence.  They could always kick and break the second, third and even fourth boards held up for them, but they always missed the first.  I did not make many new friends this day.

The main objective of the orientation was to educate the new teachers on what they had really gotten themselves into.  How to integrate into Korea and how to form co-operative partnerships with our co-teachers.  The lectures ran from 9am through to 8.20pm.  Long, long days.  The lectures were mostly informative, however there's only so much space in my brain and after about the third lecture little tiny informations just started to bounce off my head.  I did make some haikus to make me feel better.  The big issue with these lectures was that the scope for what conditions might actually be like for all of us was so wide; such a varying degree of possibilities, that no lecturer could give a definite answer on anything.

"It depends"

That will depend on the school/principal/school's area/education board/zodiac.  This was only mildly infuriating most of the time.

Drumshot.

Cultural field trip day!

We were allowed one day off from our schedule of lectures to go on a cultural excursion, to Jeonju.  For those of you who know me, or have even read any previous blog entry, you're probably aware I'm not the most happy-go-lucky "embrace life" types.  With this in mind, I will not go into just how awfully I perceived this little daytrip to pan out.  Despite my negative perceptions going into the day, it wasn't actually that bad.  What I envisaged was two old but heavily restored buildings to the point of being historically unrecognizable (no I will not make a Joan Rivers remark), with set walkways and signs decorating the tedious exhibitions.  What it actually was was a real, living place with shops, displays and actual people.

Our first activity planned for us was fan making.  I used my "Wind turbines, I'm a big fan" joke several times.  It didn't go well the first few times, but I persisted.  Reactions failed to improve.  The construction of the fans was largely down to how well you could glue paper to sticks to more paper.  An elderly Korean lady saw my efforts and decided to redo a large part of left flank of my fan, given its somewhat shoddy stickwork.

We moved on to drumming once the fannery was complete.  This was my favourite part in the entire day.  In an open room we sat in columns with the two-sided drums between our legs.  We were also given two stick-type implements that would be used to beat the drum.  I properly enjoyed it, if not was a little overeager.  Our group had a lot of issues maintaining the correct speed.  Unfortunately I fear it may have been my fault as to why the timing went askew more often than not.  It was a good experience.

More Jeonju replacement.
Taken from the park opposite our apartment.

Overall, the whole day was quite a spectacle.  The scale of the village was so much greater than I was anticipating, but also the liveliness.  It wasn't just a dead relic to only be observed through a glass case, but somewhere you could buy some weird double-ended chocolate puffcone arrangement, or over priced bibimbap.

TaeKwonNo, never again.

As if realising I hadn't quite had enough Taekwondo in my life, the EPIK orientation co-ordinators thought it'd be a good idea to put on a little Taekwondo activity for all the teachers.  We were each eyed up by one of the experts and given a set of white pyjamas which corresponded to our size.  

In lines we sat and watched some basic demonstrations.  Then it began.  The longest, most drawn out, painful warm up in human history commenced.  Stretching, as a generalisation, is not one of my strong points.  Given I creak when I bend down and make noises when I stand up, I don't think I'm quite designed for the agile nimbleness these crazed men possessed.  They made us twist this way, that way, any which way but comfortable.  

The low point came when we were made to partner up.  I was partnering a South African who was built like a brick shithouse and could have folded me like paper.  Thankfully though, he was delightful and did not do that.  We had to sit on the floor, with our soles touching.  This was doable.  We then had to lean forward and grip each others hands.  This was less doable.  Other groups full of bendy people could do this no problem.  The experts (ninjas?) noticed our struggles and decided to help in the most unhelpful way mankind has ever, ever seen.  One stood behind each of us, with their legs widened they shuffled forward and lowered their respective weight onto our necks/head areas to get us to bend forward more.

Now, when I was in university, and I would tell people I was to travel and to see the world.  I could feel the envy.  The freedom I had to go and make something of my life in a different country; a different continent!  However, with the ballsack of a 40-something Taekwondo expert perched on my neck, I did ponder how it all went wrong.  At what point did I stop going from star-chasing wanderer to a man yelping in pain whilst the back of their head gets teabagged by a chuckling Korean?

Relocating

By the end of our orientation, we were primed.  Our skills honed and our understanding of what to expect brutally lessened by "it depends".  On the final day we were to be taken, by bus, to our locations.  Those expecting a two or three hour journey took a change of clothes, in order to look a little fresher for their first meeting with their new co-workers.  Our bus, the Daejeon to a different part of Daejeon journey, took all of about twenty minutes.  In a hall we were each given a number and told to line up in said order.  We watched as our new co-teachers walked in and took their seats, not knowing which would be our helpers/allies for the next year.  Some looked terrifying, others looked pleasant cutesy, it was a lottery.

The instructions we were given were that when our name and number was called, we were to step out of line, at the front of the stage, and our co-teachers would essentially come and collect us.  It was a cross between a presentation and a livestock auction.

Not relevant, but this is how close my aircon
plug gets to the sockets.  

I was number 18.  Or 17?  I can't really remember right now.  The Turtle was number 1.  It was to be she who would make a precedent for proceedings.  The only issue was her name.  Kaylie is not a difficult name to pronounce, UNLESS of course you are a South Korean with a microphone, in which case it's nigh-on impossible.  We'd mentioned it to the announcer beforehand that it was "Kay - lee" not "Kye - lee".  This information was disregarded.  Maybe she thought we were taking the piss?  Anyways..  I was aware I was going to have to shake my co-teachers hand.  There was one colossally big issue with this, and it was to do with how awful my perspiration situation was.  I went all out with the suit jacket, to look the part of a confident and driven professional.  With the temperature in the high twenties/early thirties and the humidity at around 400%, combined with my nerves for the situation, I was somewhat enmoistened.  Given that first impressions are everything, I did not want my co-teacher's first impression of me to be "Oh wow, he's recently fallen into a lake.  Maybe that's why his hands are so unbelievably clammy".  The solution for this, I firmly believed, was to subtly sway my arms back and forth, in a desperate attempt to dry out my hand situation.

Upon my number's calling, I stepped forward.  A dainty woman came to shake my hand and took me back to my seat, where I was made to sit between her and another of my co-teachers (most people only had one, I was being spoilt).  It was during this seated period that I forgot how to sit like a normal human.  Where on earth do you put your hands when you're sitting like a normal person?!

School living

Whilst I'd love to write all about my school, obviously my hands are tied, to a degree.  So for this segment I'll write about some of the weirder moments/cock ups. 

1.  Dorky Dancing

Flowers given during my live broadcast.

On the same day as my collection which didn't make me feel at all like a child being evacuated during the blitz, I was introduced to my Principle and the rest of the school's hierarchy.  At these first meets and greets I was invited to attend one of the Vice-Principle's leaving dinner that evening, of course I said that it'd be an honour (before I realised no one knew what that meant, so just said 'yes' and they all seemed pleased).  By time we arrived the party was well under way and the karaoke machine had been unleashed.  Groups of people took it in turn to go up and make wallies of themselves in front of their cheering peers.  Next thing I knew, the head teacher had gripped me by the wrist, screamed something Korean and was marching me to the front of the hall.  The rest of my table had come along too, which made me want to curl and die a little less.  Now, there are a number of ways you can endear yourself to your new co-workers.  There are entire self help guides on how to improve your first impressions; how you can make people like you.  I solemnly doubt the "pat the midgets" dance is in any of these said guides...  People smiled at me the next day though, so how bad could it have been??

Get the feeling subtle notes were passed
around about me...

2.  Jordan LIVE

Elementary schools here are a little bit different to the school I attended as a child.  In my current school there is a studio or "TV room" where things can be recorded in a soundproofed room.  On Monday morning I was to give a speech which would then be broadcast live throughout the school (each classroom has it's own plasma telly).  It was during this speech that I forgot 

A) My name

B) Where I'm from

C) Why I'm here

D) All other words that weren't "so" and "yeah"

But with all that in mind, we're beginning to settle down and get into a routine.  We've made some pretty fantastic friends and the next year doesn't seem as bleak as it did in Heathrow departures saying goodbye again.  

I'm going to try and update this monthly, but we'll see.  But for now (if you're still reading) thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed. 

That kid loves dumplings.
This is the highlight of my blog.