Living In Korea

Korean Adventure (June 7, 2002 Chautauqua)

A foreigner, coming to Korea to teach English, is a bit at sea on first arrival. It's a foreign country, where people speak a different language. If you don't know anyone, there's only the staff at your school (or "hagwon") to rely on. Sometimes this can be a blessing, as I have met some really good people over here.
I remember when I first got off the plane, I was met by my director and his assistant, who oversaw the teaching staff. They loaded my luggage into the car, and took me for a drive through the nighttime streets of Taegue. Korean cities at night remind me of Las Vegas somewhat. It's not quite that gaudy, but it's close. Koreans like a lot of signage on every available space. The neon lights and banners with the strange symbols are everywhere. It's pretty, but you don't know what they mean.

The street entrance to my second con-apt building.

Eventually, we arrived at the apartment I was to share with another teacher. I was so tired after travelling, I just hit the sack for a couple of days. Most hagwons provide their teachers with housing. Some of it is shared, and some teachers are provided with a place of their own. The apartment I was sharing had an entranceway, where all shoes are left. Koreans only walk around in special house slippers, and leave outside shoes by the door. It's very bad manners to wear your shoes in the house.

The courtyard inside the street entrance. The door into the building leads to a hallway. My door was the last on the left.

The common areas of the apartment were the bathroom, the TV room, and the kitchen. The bathroom had a sink, a toilet, and a shower attachment on the wall. There was no tub, and there was no shower curtain. There wasn't even a drainpipe attached to the sink. The water just emptied onto the floor, and down the same drain as the shower water. I had to get used to not keeping my feet well away from the sink when I returned to Canada.

The door to my con-apt from the inside. The "kitchen" is to the left.

In my last two apartments, I have not even had sinks, just a combination tap and shower sticking out of the wall. It's a bit odd at first, but you get used to it, and even enjoy the space that a whole "shower room" affords. There are even separate slippers that you wear in the bathroom, just to keep your feet out of the water that's there after your shower.

The door into my bathroom. Just a toilet and a tap/shower attachment.Note the fan in the lower right corner. This was just before they installed an air conditioner (my first in Korea).

Sometimes the washing machine is installed in the bathroom. I haven't lived in an apartment like that yet, but I know people who have. One girl even had an electrical outlet almost directly beneath her shower head. Yikes!

The door to the storage room at the rear of my con-apt.


Inside the storage room, with the washing machine in the foreground.


The modern Korean dryer, the latest in technology!

The television is an adventure, as well. There are about 70 channels. Most of them are Korean, naturally, but there are a few movie channels that show English films. There are also American sitcoms shown on various channels. "Friends," "Third Rock," "Seinfeld," and "Married, With Children" just to name a few.

The TV in my second con-apt. The bulge on the top is a VCR. This is before my first computer and the joys of downloading.

There is also the Armed Forces channel, which shows all the regular programming available back home. There are no paid commercials, just service announcements that the GIs film themselves. Some of them are fairly amusing in their amateurishness, and we all get a good laugh at the (unintentionally funny) antics of the American Army.
The kitchen area has a fridge, some counter and cupboard space, and a two-burner gas range for all of our cooking. One of the things I have missed over here is baking or roasting some of my favorite foods. But Korean cooking is very good, and I have no problem with the local delicacies.
Now, the school looks after the rent, but the teachers are responsible for their own utilities. This means TV, water, electricity, and gas for the cooker. There is also a fee for the oil heater. This heats up water for the underfloor heating system (called "ondol"), and the sinks and shower. Unless the school's troubleshooter instructs you on its proper use, you can have trouble getting enough hot water. I remember we had that problem until we figured out which buttons to push, and what dials to turn. Since then I have had no trouble with getting enough hot water.
The only rooms left in the apartment were the two bedrooms. My first roommate had the bigger of the two, which I got when he moved out after one month of our sharing the place. I got another roommate a few months later, and he was a good guy. We really got on well, shared the cooking, and hosted some good parties. Since then, I have had only single apartments for myself.
Next time I will talk about shopping, cinemas, and beer. Mmmmmmm, beer.
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I remember that first nighttime drive. It seemed everywhere I looked, there was a flourescent orange cross. I wondered just what I was getting into.

Visa Runs

There are many ways to obtain the standard E-2 visa necessary to work as an English teacher in Korea. The Korean government has added many weird and wonderful prerequisites before they will allow you in. Some of the things they check out (drugs, HIV, perversion) are not asked of Koreans, of course, but regular readers will already be acquainted with my and Flint's rantings about this.
I received my education about the whole process the hard way. The first time I went to Korea, I went without a visa, and was stopped at the check-in at Vancouver.
A person can get a visa before they go to Korea, but I didn't know that. The recruiter neglected to mention the fact that I should keep my visa status on the q.t.
I did get to Korea and finally obtained my E-2 through what is known as the "visa run." My school sent me to Fukuoka in Japan, where South Korea has a consulate that handled the application.
There are a variety of ways to get to Fukuoka. There's an overnight ferry from Busan, as well as a hydrofoil that makes the trip before you can even blink. This time, I took the train to Busan, and a plane from Busan to Fukuoka. Daegu has an airport, but the reason why I just didn't fly from there was never properly explained to me.
My school paid for everything: train tickets, plane tickets, visa fee, and about $500 for expenses. Not bad. They even gave me a map of the city, so I'd know where to go.
It was a very interesting trip. I had to get up about 3 AM or some godawful hour (on a Thursday, returning Friday) in order to make the train. My doofus of a rommmate, who couldn't give directions out of a paper bag, didn't tell me that there were two train stations in Daegu. One was simply Daegu Station, while the other was Dongdaegu (East Daegu) Station.
Dongdaegu was fairly big, and not hard to miss, but thanks to my idiot roommate, I was looking for Daegu Station, which at that time was hidden behind an outdoor market. I wandered around, looking for the entrance to the station, being stared at by all the people getting their stalls ready.
I did find it, and I made my train. The ticket guy looked at me kind of strangely, no doubt wondering why I wasn't at Dondaegu.
Babo waegookin.
One of the things I loved about getting around Korea was riding on the train. They're fast, cheap, and relaxing. It was a nice easy glide down to Busan. Hmmmm, reminds me of Arlo Guthrie's "City Of New Orleans." Maybe Flint and I can adapt the words for Korea...
Anyway, I got to Busan, and even got off at the right station (Gupo). I had to take a city bus from there to the airport, and then made the short hop across the Tsushima Strait to Japan. History buffs will recognize this body of water as the place where the Imperial Japanese Navy took on the Russian Navy in 1905, and blasted it out of the water.
From Fukuoka Airport, I took the subway to a station near the Korean consulate. There was about a half-hour walk between them. After coming out of the subway, you see a foot-wide creek, which widens out as you follow it to the coast.

I arrived at the consulate about noonish, and submitted the necessary forms, photos, and fees. The visa would be ready for pick-up the next day, at which time I would reverse the trip I'd just taken.
I remember when I made a visa run to Osaka in '07 that the visa was ready the same day, but I still got a two-day trip out of it. Time enought to visit Osaka Castle even.

And I got a great picture of this neon bat sign from my hotel.

Sweet.
Fairly close to the consulate was the Fukuoka Dome, where the local baseball team, the Hawks, play.

There's a shopping mall and a hotel attached. The complex is called Hawks Town.

Just down the street is the Chinese consulate.

According to the map, Fukuoka is lousy with consulates, probably catering to thousands of teachers like me, getting visas for all the countries in the area. The ones I saw at the consulate were all doing the thing where they ignored everybody else, so I didn't have anybody to talk to at all during that trip. That's cool. I'm solitary by nature, and I don't feel right about inflicting my company on someone who doesn't care for it. Their loss.
As it was deep December, there wasn't a lot to do or see outside. I wandered down to the beach, but there wasn't a lot to see if you didn't like just staring at the ocean.

I did go on up the Fukuoka Tower, which is not as impressive as it looks or sounds. It's mainly an elevator and some observation decks.

But it does give you a nice view of the city and the bay.
There was an old fortress I wanted to see, but I ran out of time and money.

These photos are from a later trip.

I stayed at the Mimochi Twin Towers hotel. Very nice, and cheap, about $40 a night. I got to experience a Japanese bathroom, which was very economical about the space. Its shower was very similar to the showers in Korea. The spray hits you about mid-chest.
I ate at a Japanese version of a steakhouse (across from the hotel) and turned in fairly early. There wasn't much on the television for the English speaker.
But all in all it is an enjoyable trip, and a bit of a break from teaching, which at that time was torture for me and my poor students.
Japan is very different from Korea. The cleanliness is on a level far above Korea, and the people are polite. They don't stare, and they don't noisily clear their throats and then spit.
I made two, maybe three trips to Fukuoka for different E-2's, and another run to Osaka. The others I got in Canada before I went to Korea. Once I even went to Vancouver to submit the paperwork (I combined the trip with a visit to my sister).
After you get your visa, your hagwon can register you with the government, and arrange for things like your health care. I remember in my second year, the director's second in command Charlie, took me down to register me, and we got laughed out of the office. I had gone to Korea figuring I would do the visa run, but my recruiter and the school had expected me to come with the E-2 already in my passport.
SNAFU, eh?

My First Korean Con-Apt

Jisan-dong in Daegu, where I lived for the first six months of my first teaching contract.
Following are pictures of the first con-apt I lived in while teaching English in South Korea. It was a two-bedroom apartment, the only one I ever had. The rest of my time there, I was by myself in a "one-room." I must say I preferred to be alone. I shared the apartment with two different room-mates. The second was okay. He was a good guy, friendly, and as eager to explore Korea as I was.
My first room-mate, on the other hand was... well, picture the saddest, angriest, most paranoid individual you have ever met. Then double it. Imagine a guy who walked around with his own private raincloud perpetually lowered over his countenance, ready and willing to spread doom and gloom wherever he went. That was my first room-mate. He was to make my introduction to Korea a very bad experience, and a definite low point in my career as an English teacher. I had to live with this mook for a month that proved to be one of the longest of my life.
Why I didn't kill him, I don't know. I still fantasize about a dark alley, a sharp knife, and...
Well, back to the apartment.
The school paid the rent, and I was responsible for the utilities (gas, electricity, TV, etc.). We were provided with a television, hooked up to a basic cable package. There were about 70-odd channels, most of them Korean. A few movie channels showed English language programs, and Arirang showed Korean programs with English subtitles so that you could get an idea of what Korean TV was like. If you were lucky enough to be in a city with an American military base (like Daegu) you had access to the Armed Forces Network, that had a variety of U.S. programming.
There was also provided furniture, of the cheapest value that could be gotten. Most bedrooms had a bed, chair, wardrobe (there were no built-in closets in any apt. I lived in) and a desk/table. The kitchen had a table and chairs, and there was a couch in the "living room."
As I had just arrived, I had the smaller of the two bedrooms. There was just enough room to make comfortable arrangement of the furniture completely impossible, but I coped as best I could.

This is the road in front of my apartment building. A very narrow street, as you can see. It's going downhill, towards the main part of the neighbourhood where my hagwon was situated. If you turned around, you could see at the end of a street a rather large hill, which took about an hour to climb, offering quite a view of the city.

This is the main entrance to the building. The larger door was so that a vehicle could drive in and park in the courtyard, but that never happened while I was living there. The smaller door was the security door, which could be buzzed open from the apt. It never worked, and everybody usually came and went through the gate.

This is the entrance to the apt. The door is on the right, and the shoe cupboard is on the left. This is the only apt. I lived in where the shoe cupboard was built-in. The one-rooms usually had a smaller one next to the door. The entranceway featured a tiled area where everyone entering the apt. was supposed to leave their shoes. Custom dictated that nobody should wear their shoes in the house because it was considered "dirty." A Korean would goggle and gasp like they were having a heart attack if they ever caught a foreigner wearing their shoes in the house.

This is the kitchen area, just to the right of the main door. The hagwon supplied the fridge. This one was about the average size, though I have had a few that were bigger. A couple of times I have had hagwons try to get away with supplying what I would call a "beer fridge." These usually didn't last any longer than it took to replace them. One of my directors was astonished that I would need a regular sized fridge.
Foreigners constantly surprise them by acting like regular human beings.
Just on the right of the picture is the plastic garbage pail that I bought for myself. Hagwon owners don't supply these, apparently, and my first romm-mate just had a big 100-litre bag sitting on the floor.
What a mook.

This is the bathroom. Toilet, sink, and shower head attached to the wall. I've never had an apt. with a tub or separate bathing area. The water from the shower splashed on the floor and went down the drain in the middle. The bathroom had a raised threshold so the water didn't flow into the apt. After I'd been there a while, I purchased plastic slippers so I could walk on the floor without getting my feet wet, and a bathmat, so I could wipe my feet after coming out of the bathroom.
My first room-mate hadn't thought to supply these basic necessities even for himself.
What a mook.
If you look closely to the left of the sink, you can see two shower heads and a water heater attached to the wall. This was because that fucking mook hadn't figured out how to heat the water for his shower, and the hagwon hadn't seen fit to instruct him in its proper use. They did spring for this extra water heater, which kept the water hot enough for you to get wet, and then turned cold.
Very bracing!
I must say that I wasn't smart enough to figure out something was wrong until I got my second room-mate. He figured out how to get the regular shower working properly.
Why the hagwon couldn't have figured that out before paying for the extra heater is beyond me. Laying out any more money than they have to is anathema to them.
The way it was set up was pretty fucked up, too. The gas line came in through the bathroom window (Heh. In-joke for Beatles fans), which consequently could not close all the way during one of the coldest winters in Korean history. Nice engineering, eh? Typical of the makeshift that characterized all Korean engineering.
So that was the basic arrangement that I was introduced to when I first met my first room-mate and co-worker in Korea.
More about that fucking idiot soon.

What the .... bathroom!?!?

I am in shock. Almost gobsmacked, but not quite or I wouldn't be writing this now. ;)

My school moved last weekend. Not much of a move, up 2 floors. What a difference a new move can make. Overall the school is cleaner, especially the bathroom.

I don't know what it is about some places but they just cannot clean a bathroom properly. My first school cleaned the bathroom daily, but the adjumma also washed the floors with toilet water.

Until the last school I had pretty good luck. But there ... holy shit (no pun intended) the bathroom was disgusting. The bathroom is the responsibility of the building owner, not the businesses that are on the floors. Unfortunately the bathroom on EVERY floor is public access and always unlocked. The owner only has them cleaned once a week.

There is an after birth hospital below us and rather than sully the works there parents would come up to our floor and leave the bathroom in a disgusting state. It ALWAYS stank of urine, sour kimchi, and often times shit. Once someone threw up in both stalls and it took the building owner a FUCKING WEEK to get it cleaned. It was so bad the smell was starting to coming into the school itself. (I still think my boss got it cleaned in the end and is just letting the owner save face.)

If the kids, or one of these ricetards who came up to our floor, clogged the toilet it could take a week to get it fixed. Many is the time you would go in for a piss and start gagging, have to pull your shirt up to cover your nose, from the stink. I actually hoped people would smoke in the bathroom because it would detract from the odour if I had to use the facilities. Fucking disgusting shit hole. I have been in outhouses that were cleaner.

Now the situation has changed. Hopefully for good. No more ricetards drifting up to use our bathroom. After almost a week of use it still smells fairly normal for a bathroom. No more gagging.

Now if it just stays that way.