Vacation Time

Vacation time in South Korea can be broken into two categories. First is what you get at Public Schools and Universities. The second is what you hope to get at a Hagwon.

The public schools and universities tend to honour vacation time. (I haven't heard of any that haven't. Which doesn't mean it hasn't happened, I just never heard about it. ;) ) You will probably have to teach a "camp" during the overall vacation period. However, you will receive your alloted vacation time, usually after the "camp"

The "camp" is just extra "intensive" classes. (Damn my " key is getting a workout today.) Intensives are extra classes, outside your regular schedule and curriculum, that kids (and University students) take during their vacation period. Instead of enjoying their time off school they are usually forced (kids) to take these extra classes. They are called "intensive" because what is normally done in 1 semester is crammed into 3-4 weeks. For example, a 20 chapter book that normally takes 2-3 months is done in 1.

Not much of a camp eh?

At the public schools you will have to do what is often called "desk warming" or "chair warming" time. School will be closed for the vacation period but you will still have to be there. Usually a Korean teacher will be there too. A Korean teacher I used to know said that they would rotate. One teacher would be in for a few days or a week. Then it was someone elses turn. Based on what I have heard the foreign teacher is usually there too the whole time (sans their week of vacation and camp time.)

Hagwons are a whole other story. My 1st contract simply said I received 2 weeks of unpaid vacation. When I asked about booking my vacation time a few months into my 1st year I was told we don't book it. We get it after we finish our contract. It was the 2 weeks you had before you HAD to leave the contract after your VISA expired. The director considered THAT to be your 2 weeks of unpaid vacation time. Yeah, pretty shitty but pretty standard for the way Hagwons screw around the foreign teachers.

Any contract I signed after my 1st stated that I got 10 paid vacation days. Ivy school said it would be 5 days in the summer, around a weekend, and 5 in the winter, around a weekend. That actually worked the 1st year. The 2nd year they shaved a day off each vacation. The third year they tried to force us to take a TWO day vacation plus weekend. In the end they screwed everyone out of 2 vacation days, making it 3 days plus a weekend.

The next school had the same amount of vacation days. The boss said he would TRY to give us 5 and a weekend but was never able to. However, we were able to take vacation days here and there with permission. Including around chuseok and seollal.

The guy who bought that school turned out to be a real asshole and was just like the scum that ran Ivy School. He was going to give us ONE day and a weekend. It ended up being 2 and a weekend. Luckily he sold the school before I had a chance to quit.

Vacation time is a prime example of what is wrong with contracts in Korea. They are only honoured IF the director wants to. While you can complain to the Labour Office don't expect it to go to far when the OFFICIAL government policy now seems to be that contracts are not binding.

Yes, that is what I said. A contract, according to the Korean government is not binding. In a seminar that all Hagwon teachers were forced to attend in the spring of 2010 teachers were informed that contracts are a starting point not an ending one. You should expect to be asked to do things that aren't in the contract and you should accept at least part of what you are asked to do.

I particularly liked their comments about "never give an inch" not being the Korean way. Hagwon owners rarely ever give an inch, YOU are expected to. I only ever had one Director in Korea that understood what compromise was, and was willing to do it. And he honoured his word. Most of them don't. One of the pitfalls of working in a Hagwon.

What the ... hatchet job?!?!?

The expat community in South Korea is in a bit of an uproar again. Why? Well, the World's Worst Newspaper is at it again with their anti-foreigner vitriol. Kang ShinWho has yet another negative story about foreigners, this time focusing on an on-air personality, Adam Walsh.

Adam went to work on a radio program while sick. He found that he couldn't perform the job and another host took over. Is that a big deal? Of course it is to racist pieces of shit like Kunt ShinWho. In the Korea Times he has to speculate about whether Adam was drunk or not. He covered himself as he always does by attributing the comments to anonymous sources, people who posted on a websites comment section, or just parroting what AES has to say without verifying their made up "facts". In other words ... unreliable sources that no proper media outlet would use.

Adam and Kang the Kamikaze Kunt (feel free to just substitute KKK when thinking of Kang) have a history. Kang is a spokesmouth for the Anti-English Spectrum assholes. He blindly prints whatever anti-foreigner bullshit AES spews out. Adam has called AES on their behaviour, in print, many times in the past.

For my part I can understand people (them durn furriners) being pissed off but I can't understand why anyone would be surprised by the story. Yes, it is attacking someone who can't defend themself in print anymore. Korean's are never braver than when you are defenseless. Yes it uses unreliable sources. Yes it looks like character assassination and doesn't really have any "proof". But it is the Korea fucking Times we are talking about. The most useless piece of shit to ever call itself a newspaper. And Kang ShitWho, the worst reporter in South Korea and maybe all of Asia. Maybe the world. Kang shin Who and the Korea Times go together quite well. They complete each other. The Lousy Newspaper and the Lousy Reporter. A marriage made in xenophobic heaven.

In a way I can also understand why Koreans would believe the idea of someone being drunk at work. It is pretty common to see people hungover, or even drunk, at work. I have had bosses who would often have liquid lunches. I can't count the number of Thursday nights my co-workers went out on the piss. Then they would all be hung over the next day. There were times when some of them didn't even make it to work on time because they were so hung over. So, if Adam were a South Korean, it would be easy to believe he was drunk on the job. No wonder some douchebags were so quick to jump on that, it is something they probably do every week. Of course this does make them a bunch of hypocritical fucktards for complaining about it.

Mind you it is also easy to see how Adam being sick could confuse the Koreans. This is a country where you are NOT expected to use sick days. Where you are expected to come in even if you are dieing. Hell, I had pneumonia and was in a fever induced stupor and let the school convince me to teach. (They actually wanted me to be in the hospital, then when I said I could just take medicine at home insisted I came to work. I guarantee you the kids didn't learn anything then.) That is what South korean bosses are like. That is what South Korean employees are like. How could you be sick and not perform your job even if you would do it poorly? It just doesn't compute with them.

What I would like to know is if Adam is going to sue or not? If a blogger can be sued by his hagwon for posting about how the school fucked him over does Adam have any standing to sue the Times? After all, it is Korea and the truth is NOT a defense. Your reputation is more important than the truth. This clearly hurts Adam's reputation.

Mook of the Week

I was looking through the archives again and came across this mook who lived and parked near my apartment. That is about the only thing that makes him special. He is a common sort of mook who parks where and as he pleases regardless of how it affects others.

He would usually park just like this. Blocking 2 lanes instead of just one. Creating a bottle neck in the cross road.

His crappy parking jobs almost caused a few accidents. The roads he would block tended to have quite a bit of traffic. There is a corner store across from where he parked. This would cause other mooks to park blocking the rest of the street.

You would see the bus driver out on weekends washing the bus in that spot. His back to potential traffic. his mind, what he has that passes for one, focused on the bus. I almost ran into him with my scooter a few times when he was doing that. He would just blindly walk backwards into the part of the road he wasn't blocking. Then when you beep your horn and yell at him to watch out he would have the old slack jawed look. Then he would look at me like I just did something wrong and mutter. Even having his mookishness pointed out to him would never stop him from mooking it up the next time.

Just a garden variety mook in Korea.

You know you are bored when ...

... you actually read a blog post about Kim YuNa's break with Brian Orser AND then click on a further link to an article.

I was bored waiting the 10 minutes for the Daily Show to download and logged into The Marmot's Hole. After skimming 2 posts I started skimming the third one titled "Brian Orser Gets Canned". Ok, I admit the only reason I started skimming the post was because I misread it in my boredom and thought it said "Brian Orser Gets Caned". I wanted to see why he was being caned and by who. Oh well.

Then, because I still had minutes to kill and nothing better to do I hit the Forbes link and skimmed their article about the subject. But it paid off because I read something that made me chuckle. Kim YuNa said:

Do you think it's really true that my mother decided on her own to part ways with the coach? I'm no longer a child.

You are a Korean female who is 20 years old. Of course your mother still decides things for you. :)

Sounds harsh? Well, that has been my experience in South Korea. I have known a lot of Koreans, not just women, who are told what to do by their parents. Even when it comes to marriage.

One Korean woman I worked with my 1st year seemed very liberated. She was around 30 and single. She didn't have a boyfriend and had no interest in getting married OR having kids. She hated kids, which is why she taught adults. Then I went home for a month.

2 weeks after I was back in Korea, and at another job, I got an invitation ... to her wedding. 6 weeks before she had no boyfriend let alone a fiance. What happened? Her mother. Her mother decided enough was enough it was time for her to get married. She was introduced to a guy and told she would marry him. Like a good piece of chattel err daughter she obeyed. Now she is married, with child and very unhappy.

I have been told, by Koreans, that this stems from their neo-Confucian culture. It is the child's duty to obey the wishes of their parent. Even if it is something they don't want to do. If they don't do what their parents want they are bad.

Korean parents often do make decisions for their children, even when they are adults, and the children dutifully obey. Which is why YuNa's declaration that she wasn't a child had me envisioning a teenager having a tantrum saying they weren't a child anymore.

What the ... rude hello?

Stig's comments, and 3gyupsal's in a previous thread, reminded me of something that never fails to irk me to some degree ... rude hello's. You are probably wondering what the kimchi a rude hello is.

A rude hello is when someone greets you in a rude manner. They shout it. Or shout it repeatedly. Or say something stupid instead of hello. Or do it when you are obviously busy, or talking with someone else. Or do it in passing. I think you get the idea.

Once, and this has happened many times, I was walking home from work in YongAm-dong. I was talking to a friend on the phone. I heard something behind me. It sounded like someone (middle school girls it turned out) saying "Nice to meet you. Where are you from?" Since I hadn't met anyone, and I was busy on the phone I ignored it and kept walking and talking. A few seconds later a girl starts screeching at the top of her lungs "Hello! Hello! I said hello!!!!" My friend could hear them loud and clearly on the phone. I turned around and yelled in Korea "Shut up! I am on the phone!" Then I told them they were very rude.

You will get some people (and it isn't always kids, adults do this a lot) who will shout hello out the window of a moving vehicle. Or better yet they shout "nice to meet you." We haven't met you moron. Shouting that out of a window is not meeting a person, nor is it saying hello.

Strangely enough this has ONLY happened in Korea with one exception. Once, when I was in China on vacation, a guy shouted hello from a passing van in a parking lot. Without thinking I replied back in Korean, saying hello. Then the guy started nattering on in Korean. "Oh. You speak Korean. I am from Korea!" What the kimchi?!? The only person stupid enough in China to shout hello like that ... was a Korean.

I would usually carried my Ipod with me when I walked to work. With the music turned up it was easier to ignore some of the stupidity around me. That still wouldn't stop people from screeching hello at me. Repeatedly. Or, as I mentioned elswehere, some would even jump in front of you screeching it.

Or you get Koreans who will just keep repeating a word or two at you. (Not necessarily to you but AT you.) For example I had a kid once that evidently was never taught hello. He followed me around a store saying "Wow." in a moronic way 5-6 times. Or the idiots walking down the street who, as they pass you by will look at you and say "Ok!" What the kimchi? What is ok? My clothes? You approve of my presence in your country?

Or the even stupider people who wait until they have passed you and say "hello" or worse "nice to meet you." I can't remember how many times that has happened. You know, if you have passed someone it is bye not hi. and if you never talked to them you didn't meet them.

It isn't just that they are rude. Acting like this makes the person look like a fricking moron. What else would you call a person who doesn't even know how to say hello politely?

When I teach I try to make sure my students will never act like this. I teach them that there is a proper time and place to approach someone. I also try to teach them to do it in a proper, respectful way. Now by respectful I don't mean "Hello Sir." I mean using proper manners.

I would always ask them if they would shout hello at Koreans they don't know. They would say no. Some would say "No, they might get angry." So ... why approach a foreigner like that? And why be surprised if they get angry when you do? If you wouldn't act that way with a Korean don't do it with a foreigner.

I have no problems with strangers saying hello in a polite way. I always return it and if I am in the mood will exchange pleasantries. It is the morons who approach me in a rude or disrespectful way I have no time for.

What the ... celebrity?!?!?

I often heard people, foreigners, go on about how we are treated like celebrities in South Korea. They go on about that is why people stare, people will buy you drinks, people will want to talk to you. We are treated like rock stars! What the kimchi?!?

I always thought that was a load of horse shit. It was a way people could rationalize most South Koreans treat foreigners, at least the English speaking ones. That way they wouldn't have to use the zoo analogy. I always found being pointed at, stared at, commented at, talked about made me feel more like an animal in a zoo.

If Koreans were running up and asking for my autograph I may have fell for the celebrity analogy. But they don't. They treat you like an oddity, sometimes one that is barely tolerated. The staring and pointing get old. Especially the hostile staring. As does the constant muttering of "foreigner" in Korean whenever they see one.

A celebrity? Grow up and stop trying to rationalize the bull shit so you can pretend everything is sweetness in light in the land of the Morning Calm and Afternoon confusion.

Goodbye Korea

Well, after ten years of Morning Calm and Afternoon Difficulty, I'm finally closing down my Korea station, and moving on.
I've thought that it was time to go for quite a few years now, and it very nearly came true two years ago, when I was run out of Daegu for trying to kill a Korean teacher at the middle school I was working at.
But then Flint needed my help, and I came to the 'ju to work for him for a couple of months, and that led to me finding a job at the hagwon which I finished working at on Friday.
I had hoped to stay for one more year, and lure Flint back for more cigars and tapping on the deck at Dunkin's, but my director decided the kids could use a change of pace.... er, face. She thought a new teacher was in order, and I was given my walking papers.
I tried (half-heartedly, I must admit) to see if there were any other opportunities here, but nothing turned up. My folks were urging me to come back to Canada and try getting a job as a teaching assistant in my hometown, and that seemed the likeliest of possibilities for my future, when the job of a lifetime, literally a dream come true, popped up in my inbox one day.
I am leaving Korea, spending about a month in Canada, and then going on to my dream job - wait for it - teaching English in London, England!
I am so excited, I can barely contain myself. The opportunities, the history, the chance to live and work in the capital of the UK... words fail me. It's what I've wanted to do most of all, ever since I came to Korea and found out I could teach. I never thought it would really happen, as the difficulties and drawbacks seemed nearly insurmountable. But that's all changed. I'm going.
I have lots of memories that I'll be sharing here, and I just might cobble something together on a new blog about life in England.
My final days here have been kind of anti-climactic. My director didn't even bother arranging any kind of farewell party or dinner or anything. The kids'd been told I was leaving before I had the opportunity to inform them, and they seemed, for the most part, kind of neutral about it. So my time there just sort of petered out, rather than ending with a bang.
Oh well, I've had other, more enjoyable (and memorable) departures from Korea that I can look back on fondly. It's been ten years, as I said, but now it's over.
Goodbye, farewell, and amen.