Oh, Korea. What an amazing country. A land where I make money to speak to students in a language they don’t understand. A land where dinner will cost you 3 dollars and fill you up and also make you never want to eat again. A cultural paragon where having blond hair makes me one of the coolest people ever. Sigh…
I was actually really surprised to land in Korea and feel this overwhelming sense of excitement. As the bus drove me from the airport I got excited seeing Seoul and seeing buildings covered in funny squiggles that I can read!! It was a really strange feeling to get back into Cheongju and feel like I hadn’t left for that long. All my bros were hanging around and the apartment looked just the same as always.
The trip over actually sucked. To get a cheaper flight I had to change planes twice – once in Milwaukee and then once in Narita, Japan. This meant 2, 3 hour layovers. The 12 hour flight to Japan was my favorite mostly because I was wedged into one of the middle seats and sat next to this chick who kept her overhead light on the ENTIRE TIME. For some reason they feel the need to make plane lights burn at 1000000 watts and blind everyone close to whoever has it on. This dude sitting in front of me was literally passed out the entire 12 hour trip, which made me super jealous. I did get the chance to watch Marly & Me on the flight, which was pretty good. Afterward they showed one of those obscure, independent movies that no one has ever heard of – except, of course, the one guy who reviewed it and whose ecstatic praise they put in the airline book. I.e:
EMO INDIE MOVIE
Starring: 2 People You’ve never heard of, and one obscure TV star
Synopsis: Margaret is a parapalegic mother of 12 who recently discovered that she has a tumor and 6 months to live. Her oldest son goes to work in a coal mine to fund the operation that can save his mother’s life. Then something controversial having do with incest, murder or gay people happens. Rated R. Running time: waaaay longer than it should be.
“An…exceptional…piece…of cinema.” – George Hamilton, ijudgeindimovies.com
I didn’t watch it.
I was supposed to actually have a 3 hour lay over in Japan, but we were running late, so I literally had like 30 minutes to make it to my next flight. No big deal, yeah? Except for some reason they feel the need to send you through security ALL OVER AGAIN when you get to Japan even when you’re just transferring flights. Some may say this is excessive since you only go 200 meters between the flights and there is no purpose in wasting everyone’s time going through security all over; but I disagree. I’m sure there are many a rebellious, terrorist passengers who stop at the airline shop in-between flights and pick up their tubes of explosive toothpaste. I was thinking about it myself, so I only have gratitude for the staff of the Japanese airline who made me take off my belt, shoes, remove my computer from my bag, check my boarding pass and put it all back together again for no reason at all. Thanks, Guys!
I did make my flight, but the next problem I encountered was the fact that my plane in Seoul arrived at 930 pm and the last bus to Cheongju departed at 1040. No problem, yeah? Hahahah! We got on the plane and found out that we had to wait for another flight from LA before we could take off. They were taking so long because (surprise!) they had to go through security all over again! So we sat on the tarmac for almost 45 minutes before the other passengers arrived.
We landed in Seoul about 10:10, so I immediately bolted off the plane, remembering that I had to deal with customs and immigration before I could get to the bus. I charged ahead of everyone on the plane and found out that our plane had landed in Terminal X which is about 7000 miles away from customs and baggage claim. This meant I sprinted ahead only to be stuck in a giant line waiting for the bullet train which could carry us cross country to the other terminal. The train finally came and I was able to make the bus. I arrived in Cheongju about 1 am completely exhausted and hating life and indie, airplane movies.
That night I stayed up til about 230 talking to my friends. I went to sleep and had to wake up at 730 to make it to the early morning kindergarten class that I was going to be taking over. I make it through the kindergarten class, then go to the school I’m going to be teaching at. To my surprise I sat through all the classes without going to sleep. That night I go to bed at 1 again.
The next morning I woke up hating life. The jet lag had hit me like a truck and I was an emo mess the entire day. My first class was one that my friend I am replacing wrote a note that was something like, “The first Thursday class can be a little crazy! ☺” The smiley did nothing to assuage the pain and suffering that was that class. These kids were screaming, jumping around, climbing up the walls (literally), running around the room and in a final act of chaos, fled the room 5 minutes before class was supposed to finish.
When I get nervous or self-conscious, I sweat like crazy. When that class was over, I just kind of collapsed into my chair. My new boss came in and started dying laughing. She asked me, “Why are you wet?” I was so sweaty that it looked like I had literally jumped into a pool of water. The rest of the day went better, but it was pretty tough getting used to teaching the really little ones. At my old school our youngest students had been 11 or 12. At this school we have some 8 and 9 year olds who snort pixie sticks before coming to class.
By the end of the day I was completely exhausted, going back to my apartment and passing out completely at 8 pm and waking up at 7 the next morning. I awoke in much better spirits, naively thinking that the first day would be the worst day.
I didn’t count on kindergarten, however.
I teach kindergarten twice a week. Basically it involves trying to get the kids to say one or two words in English before they are propelled to the next class they have. Well, evidently these kids don’t have a lot of male teachers, because they were SUPER fired up to have me there. My first class did pretty well, but the second class was absolutely crazy. One student jumped up and started screaming and doing laps around the room. He kept stealing the markers from the white board and scribbling all over stuff, so I took them and put them in my pants pocket. This only motivated him to hurl himself at me and attempt to rip off my pants in order to get to the markers. This was only one movement in the chaos orchestra that was occurring in the rest of the room, as students climbed on the desks, spun around in circles screamed the Korean word for “Grandpa!” at me, and hurled their books across the room. By the end of that half hour I was a wounded soldier, barely able to pull myself to the elevator and get the heck out of there.
My day at the other school was pretty solid though, and I’m kind of getting into the groove of things. It’s a huge relief though to have good friends to hang out with after the chaos of the day is over. I’m looking forward to tomorrow when the teacher I replaced wrote a note about one class that reads, “Watch out for David. He’s a screamer! ☺”
I can only hope that some day an obscure art house company will buy the writes to my blog and make an emo indie film about my experience. In an airline magazine it would probably look something like this:
KRAZY IN KOREA!
Starring: A tall albino dude, a washed up TV star and a hott Asian chick
Synopsis: Tedd Hawks, a dashing American goes to Korea to teach English to destitute Korean children. Along the way he learns lessons in life and love. Oh, and something controversial and scandalous happens. Rated R. Running Time: 145 minutes.
“I watch this and have only one reaction: this Tedd Hawks guy must have been a complete and total tool.”
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