I got into Seoul Thursday night. The plane from Narita to Seoul was delayed. Apparently the idle plane was hit by lightening, and after inspection, the authorities decided to keep it grounded and prepare a new plane. Therefore, instead of getting to the airport at 9:30 and taking a bus to the guesthouse, I arrived at 11, found the last bus had just gone, and was accosted heavily by desperate taxi drivers. One of these guys was overly aggressive and would not leave me alone no matter how many times I told him no. He followed me over to the payphones. I called the guesthouse and arranged for them to pick me up, at a steep cost of about $50. While this was still cheaper than a taxi, it was much worse than $4.50 for the bus had the plane arrived on time.
While I was waiting for the guesthouse people to pick me up, the aggressive taxi driver continued to offer me a ride, attempting to usher me out the door. "Let's go...come...follow me...after you...this way, sir, go go go, come come come...." I firmly told him I was staying at the Seokyo Motel (a fancy motel and a total lie), and that they were picking me up. I flipped my head with the air of a man of great importance. He picked up his cell phone, made a call, and told me "plan change...I bring you now...let's go!" I cringed and walked away and eventually he gave up.
After over an hour of waiting, the guesthouse van arrived. Some young guy named Su Chang grabbed my bags and husked me into the van. He can speak English fairly well and he has a Japanese girlfriend who lives in Tokyo, I think. The guesthouse owner drove. I'm not sure if he could speak English. He barely said a word to me after "hello."
At last we arrived to the Guesthouse Korea which doesn't look like it did online, but not too bad. It needs a good cleaning is all. More about this later. For now, you can see my room at the guest house in korea below:
A good thing about the place is Mark, an Australian guy who is also staying here in a dormitory style room. He's been in Korea about 3 weeks. He's gone out of his way to show me around Hongdae. Here he is above trying to fix the broken guesthouse door.
If you want to find good traditional Korean gifts, don't go to Itaewon...go to Insadong (click here for directions and more information). Usually all the souveniers are the same old crap wherever you go. However, here I was amazed by the selection of unique gifts which I have not seen elsewhere in Korea. Take a look below:
If you are in Seoul or planning to come, I suggest taking a look. If you're not in Korea, buy a plane ticket...hurry!
I wanna wear one of these masks on a blind date back home in New York...
If you hold the camera just right, you can steal somebody's artwork like this and publish it online for free!
This guy is wearing Hanbok, old style Korean clothes. Sure looks colorful. Sure looks hot standing there in the baking sun.
The Seoul Blog - Mr. Heather's College, or Heathers English College
For some reason I thought it might be a good idea to work for a foreigner owned school. I saw an ad offering 2.2 million Won and decent schedule and a promise to pay on time and not to fire anyone after 11 months, before the contract completion bonus.
I sent the guy my documents and he wrote back 3 short emails such as, "That's good. Where are you from?" and "Are you in Korea?"...all of which I had already answered and he would have known had he bothered to look at my resume. I thought he must be Korean, but as it turns out, he is Mr. Heathers himself, a white guy and from LA, and he and his Korean wife own the school, or at least it seems that way. Anyway, I didn't push it for a few days. Then I wrote him back and already he had no idea who I was, so I had to resend my documents. Finally he suggested an interview. I was at a PC room and wasn't prepared - but he wanted me to come there straight away, perhaps even sign a contract, he said.
The name of the school is Mr. Heather's College. If that is not the most outrageous name for a school, especially a kid's Hagwan, I'll eat monkey brains.
I had to take a subway 20 stops and then a bus for 20 minutes, to meet him at his convenience next to his school. He was waiting and in a hurry to get back, making me speed walk as he rambled about his great school. When we got to the school he was running all over as if he had just downed a coffee and speed pills - showing me around, showing off and yapping with the kids. Then he left me for 10 minutes while he went to teach. I sat and twiddled my thumbs, considering taking off. I could hear him in the classroom, yapping on and on in a vibrant school girl's voice about the letter T.
Admittedly, the school was nice and clean and each class had only a few students. One of the rooms had some sort of projector that "if it projects a pig, you touch the screen and it say's 'pig!'"...Impressive, I guess, compared to other Hagwons I have seen, and I would have loved to work there, had this guy not been the owner. He acted like a snooty wiener, if I might use such an expression. He walked me by the classes, which have big windows so that "we can make sure everyone's doing their jobs," and then to the teachers' room, which seemed more like the teachers' closet (while his office is huge and cozy and looks into the classrooms).
To my chagrin, he told me about his luxuriously spaced apartment and 60" TV, suggesting I stay with him until I could move into the tiny efficiency apartment supplied for the teacher, one without even a washer machine. (He said he and his wife were contemplating getting one for the teachers.) Next I had to mock a lesson on phonics. He jotted the vowels down on the board and told me to teach the sounds. He pretended to be a student. Apparently his students are deaf and mute. When I talked about the sounds, he sat there mind boggled, confused, shrugging. I contemplated hitting him with a stick, as some Koreans would to such a student, or make him hold books above his head until he turned blue. Instead I stuck it out, feeling ridiculous at this point.
He said I failed the lesson, but that was OK and he would work with me for one week to help me. At the end of the ridiculous interview, he claimed he had three more people coming in the following day, but would sign me if I were interested there and then. However, he had some stipulations. I would have to shave my goatee or grow it fully over a vacation period and trim it neatly to his approval, and my "open face shoes" (which I wore unaware I would have an interview that day) would be unacceptable. He pointed to my ear and said I shouldn't wear an earing, something I haven't done since I was 14 anyway. Also, I shouldn't party much, should always have a neat appearance, wear a collared shirt and slacks, be happy, motivated, energetic, etc, etc... At this point I said I'd think it over and left.
Here is the letter I wrote him later:
Thank you for taking the time to interview me. However, if I were to work for you, perhaps I may jump out the window after just a few hours. You really need to calm down and modify your interview approach. You would never know what a good and decent teacher I am based on that style of interview. In fact, I just felt awkward and uncomfortable...as if I was back in America and interviewing at a real school. While it's nice and all, and I admire your idealism, it's just a Hagwan in Korea, man, any way you look at it...
P.S. Unless I work somewhere worthy, I will keep my goatee the way I like, and I will wear my open face shoes until the cows come home...
This is the kind of school people should avoid. We're not in Korea to work as if we are back home, we are here to work and enjoy Korea. Well, back to looking for reputable schools...
Well, I am still here at the Guesthouse Korea, biding my time, undulating undecisively, in lapse of specific direction. All I've been doing everyday is eating delicious Korean foods and walking about Seoul and meeting new people. What a hard life.
I will interview for an easy job tomorrow, five 40 min classes/day for 2,000,000 and free apartment. Sounds too good to be true? Well, it's in Suwon, pretty far. That's the catch. I'll check it out anyway.
I've been meaning to upload pics, but it's not easy here and the PC bangs are too loud and smoky for me. Everything will be easier once I get settled in somewhere. For now I feel in medias res, which means in the middle of things...
Keep checking back for the newest entries...be patient!
Today I was to go to Direct English for an interview, which boasts all adult classes. Their conditions seemed good, even stupendous, but then, surprise, I found them blacklisted. Turns out as it seems: too good to be true, as expected. I asked their recruiter, Jinny Lee, (or Jinnie Lee), to review the accusations, and I asked for more details about the job before I would meet with her. Guess what? She became extremely defensive and arrogant and, well, I hung up on her. Meanwhile, I am waiting the final decision on a university job I applied to. I should get a yes or no shortly. They're considering accepting me with an BA in English Education despite usually requiring an MA of some kind. I guess the rest of their staff is over 40 and they need a young guy like myself, they said. We'll see.
What should I do today? Perhaps I will go for a walk, listen to some music, read my Simpsons comic book, work on adding pictures to my website, eat some delicious Korean foods, and have a beer later with some Korean friends I met...ah, the life of a vagabond.
I'm at the PC bang now in Kangnam with my friend Mark. I had a meeting here today with someone I thought was the director of a school, but turned out to be just a recruiter. Kangnam is 17 stops from Hongdae and took forever to get here. It turns out, I had to travel this far for the convenience of the recruiter, how thoughtful. Also she suggested talking at a coffee shop, where I had to pay for my own coffee...the job she is offering is just ordinary and she wanted to warn me that the school is dirty. I will meet the director and see the single apartment tomorrow, after which time I will demand an outrageous salary, generous signing bonuses, less classes, etc... Let's see how well I can do. I was going to update my blog here with new pics, but I can't plug in my camera card reader on this computer. Will try later.
Mark convinced me to check out Gyeongbokgung Palace while we were in Gwanghwamun. (To read about the history of the palace, click here) The entrance fee, to my astonishment, was only 1,000 won, or about 80 cents. This includes entrance to the Korean National Folk Museum, which features a rather huge and amazing assortment of items and detailed displays based on Korean history:
These guys could speak English. The guy on the right was visiting back from Las Angeles. The guy on the left lives in Korea and learned how to speak English while in the Army over 50 years ago. Their pronunciation was perfect. They both reminisced to us about the old days in Korea in the country side before all of this overwhelming modernization.
All in all we had a great time; the folk museum is truly a place worth seeing. We also checked out the National Museum while we were there which has thousands of artifacts from all the ages of Korea's long history. Pictures are not allowed to be taken there however.
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Enjoy reading about my experiences living and teaching in South Korea.
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