Week Two in Pohang, South Korea

Well, here I am at my school. I am really here. All of the paperwork has been processed, my visa has been stamped and I have passed my blood tests. My apartment is small but wonderful. I am near the beach so I can start out every day with a sunrise jog along the beach.

I applied with the EPIK program because I wanted a reliable contract in South Korea. Although there is no guarantee of placement location, I felt it was better to work in a public school since I have never been an English teacher in Korea before.

I worked with a recruiting agency, Korvia, and they were very helpful in getting me set straight with my needed documents. They looked over my letters of recommendation, my transcripts, my criminal background check, my diploma and helped me through the process of getting the right stamps and seals on the documents so I could submit them to EPIK. It was a totally free service and I would highly recommend working with a recruiter. They also gave me a free used cell phone when I arrived! (It normally takes 3-4 weeks to get your alien registration card before you can get a cell phone.) The other EPIK teachers were definately wishing they had a cell phone too.

So far, my experience has been fantastic. The packing and application was a nightmare, and I definately took a leap of faith to come here. In my other life, before coming to Korea, I worked at Merrill Lynch. I had a good job with amazing insurance benefits and good pay. I loved my coworkers and my home life... but I've always wanted to travel. I take vacations and when I travel to places like Belize or Thailand, I end up talking with the drivers or hotel employees instead of hanging out with the other tourists at the bars. I never want to go home again at the end of vacation. So, I thought that before settling down to the 'normal' life of an average American woman, I should get some exploring done. The only way I could afford to travel for more than a few weeks is if I am working while I am travelling, and teaching English seemed like the only skill I posessed that people would actually pay to receive.

Now, it just so happens that I actually took classes in college on Teaching English, so I had some exposure to language learning and education. It was something that I studied for fun, becuase I thought it was interesting, but the practical part of me said that it would never "pay the bills". So I graduated with a degree in Finance instead. Imagine my mother's horror when I told her I was quitting my "good" job to travel and teach English in South Korea.

A question I often hear is "Why South Korea?" The answer is that it was the only place where I would be guaranteed decent wages and good living conditions and they didn't require much more than a college degree. I have since learned that South Korea is a wonderful cultural community, the people are very friendly and helpful, the food is delicious and the scenery is breathtaking. I am very glad that my searches led me here.

Pohang is a fishing village on the South East sea. As it is, fresh seafood is plentiful and delicious. Now, I come from Montana in the USA so prior to my travels, I didn't eat a lot of fish. I would occasionally have salmon from Seattle or when travelling I would eat the fresh fish, but I am accumstomed to large quantities of wonderful BEEF STEAKS. Let me tell you, these are hard to come by in South Korea. But, there is squid, crab, and chicken so I will live without my filet mignon for a few years (and when I go home to visit, a big fat buffalo cheeseburger will be the first thing I cook.)

The students are friendly, although they are lower level than I expected. They are middle school students and because this is a public school, they are all mixed levels. There are some students who have very good English and some students who can barely even say "Hello, my name is..." But I am finding fun things to do with everyone. This week we had a lesson on Sports, with an extra session on Extreme Sports. The kids loved watching you tube videos of big wave surfing and Tony Hawk skate boarding.

My job here is to expose the students to American culture, and to let them hear my voice. If I can get even one or two of them to improve their English abilities than I have suceeded. And they are all having fun which is SO important. Their school lives are much different than American school children. Korean middle school students will get up early for class, come clean the school, have classes where they listen to lecture and take notes all day and then go to after school schools called hagwons for extra tutoring. They get home around 8:00 or 9:00 if they are lucky, maybe 10:00 or 11:00 if they are not. Then they facebook or play computer games until early/late in the morning and go to bed.

So, I feel like my job is to make class fun for the students to give them a break from the drudgery. I want to make my class fun so it is something the students look forward to every week.

I am already a bit of a celebrity in my school. Everywhere I go the students come up and say "Hi!" and the teachers all ask me questions about my home and what I like to do or how we do things in America. People think it's funny when I mix foods that are not usually mixed ("That sauce is for pork! Not for chicken!"... "Well, I think it is also delicious on chicken. Tomorrow I will try it on some tofu!") They seem to think I'm a little nutty, but they excuse my "strange" behavior because I am a foreigner.

Sometimes it is a little difficult being a strong willed woman in a Confuscian society. Here, men are far higher ranked socially than women and it can be a bit shocking for the men when I want to carry my own suitcase or when I won't let them do whatever they like to my things. Here, when a man walks into your apartment (invited or not) you offer him drinks and food. I have two glasses in my whole apartment, and one of them is usually dirty. So the Korean men are not very happy when they drop by, I only have water to offer them and it is water I boiled and put in the fridge so it doesn't taste very good. But, I think it is important to be myself. I will adapt to their way of life in school, but when they come to my apartment, they will have to deal with the way I like to live. I allow them to do things like carry my suitcase sometimes and I make sure to think of it as allowing them to befriend me, allowing them to serve me in a way that will make us closer. It's not like they are taking care of me. So if I keep the right attitude and set boundaries when necessary, things seem to go smoothly. Like I said before, they know I'm a little strange by their standards, so anything like that is just chalked up to me being a crazy American.

Mostly people are very friendly and curious about me and the way I live. They want to stop by so they can see the way I stack my suitcase in the corner beside my bed (they don't do closets here) or the spices that I brought from home (BRING YOUR OWN SPICES TO SOUTH KOREA!!! THEY DON'T HAVE ANY FOR SALE HERE!!!) They oogle the amount of food I eat and exclaim that it's amazing I can eat so much and stay thin... (a small salad seems to be an enormous meal to them here I guess.) Also, they think it's funny that I jog in the mornings and ride my bike to school. Most Koreans I've met say they'd like to ride to school but they don't have enough time. (With the traffic, I think it takes me less time to bike but I don't tell them that...)

All in all, I am very happy with my experience so far. I teach 18 classes per week with occasional English Drama club classes on the side. This gives me time to prepare lessons and check emails (and post on sites like this) while I am at school between classes.

My teachers are all wonderful, the scenery is breathtaking, and the food is amazing. I highly recommend coming to South Korea if you are looking for a place to live and teach English.

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• Korean People
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• Strong Willed Women in Confuscian Cultures