TEACHING IN SOUTH KOREA SEOUL SEARCHING

David Einzig just finished a year as a contracted foreign teacher in South Korea. The following is a letter he wrote while there.

Dear Readers: I have been teaching English at a private institute in South Korea for the last year. I was hired — over the Internet — to teach middle school.

Since I started, my situation has changed due to the mass exodus of Korean staff and the increasing number of elementary-school classes. In short, we middle-school teachers are picking up the slack of those elementary teachers. I do assume they would do the same for us, especially if they had no choice.

Even with a busy work schedule, my life outside of the institute has been quite interesting. I am meeting a large number of foreign teachers from Ireland, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, etc.

Qualifications

Most anyone who has a university degree and speaks English as a first language can get a teaching job in South Korea. Of course, being young and having nothing to do but fix up my parents’ house in Youngstown makes an overseas adventure more appealing.

There are some interesting “mates,” “chaps,” “lads” and “blokes” working here on the Korean Peninsula. Actually, there is a whole ex-pat community that thrives in the capital city of Seoul. From western bars and bands to Turkish-run coffee shops and hookah bars, Seoul is not as homogeneous as some Koreans would like it to be.

This is not to say that I have felt unwanted! The Korean people I have met have a stoic shell and a sensitive psyche. If it weren’t for considerate South Koreans, I would have been lost my entire first month here, been fired twice and may even have ended up on the wrong side of the DMZ.

The fact is, Koreans work hard and play hard. They are extreme when it comes to purchasing the full extent of the latest gear for a sport that they intend to learn. I’ve seen intimidation and self-consciousness in the same glance. They are people who care about education and the progression of their country.

Korea is one of the most homogeneous countries in the world, and Koreans are very patriotic. All men serve two years in the military during college. There are so many children wandering the streets by themselves that I wonder if each family has a dozen children.

In Korea, like in other foreign countries — i.e. India — children call all adults “uncle” and “aunt.” It is common for me to mistake a child with his father for a child with a stranger. For example, there are a few children in an elevator; it stops on a random floor. The 40-year-old man who steps on casually turns to a boy and inquires about something or other, they exchange relaxed conversation, and the man pats the child on the head and exits the elevator. When I first arrived in Korea, I thought it coincidental that parents and their children were always running into each other on elevators, in the streets and at the 7-Eleven!

Most e-mails I receive from family and friends inquire about North Korea and how I feel about imminent death.

I have visited the DMZ, which is far from “demilitarized,” and I have pestered my Korean co-workers about their northern neighbors. Their answers are unswervingly nebulous, or overly simplistic. For instance, “If we worried about North Korea, we would always worry.”

I am still on a quest to acquire the true emotions of South Koreans in regard to North Korea. Mainly, they feel — like a lot of the world feels — that Kim Jong-il is a lunatic.

Kids’ stuff

I have a lot to say about South Korean culture, how a slice of the younger generation seems to be anti-canonical. One would think that many of the kids who roam the streets in Hongdae, a popular area for nightlife and a university town in Seoul, were straight out of Seventeen magazine ... young men with pierced ears, orange hair, half their heads shaven, tight leather pants, silver chains hanging, skinny as a famished model. Girls scandalously clad, 5-inch heels, smoking cigarettes with the gusto of Courtney Love, getting too drunk. Believe me, I am not complaining, but there is an obvious rift between traditional Korea and westernized mania.

So far, in my experience, I see two sides of Korea — the traditionalists and the new-age rebels.

What’s unique about their situation is that they are not clearly divided by age and they are constantly brushing shoulders.

South Korea is roughly the size of Indiana, and that doesn’t leave too much room in the many metropolises of Seoul and its surrounding suburbs for great distance between the old and new.

One more thing ...

On a quick, informative, humorous note, I was at a western comedy club and was having a drink with a comedian who happened to be from Singapore. We were exchanging our opinions about Korea, when he turned and casually said, “The best part about Korea is Thailand.”

South Korea is the southern half of a peninsula protruding into the Yellow Sea and the “East Sea.” It’s between China and Japan, not far from many popular Asian getaways like Laos, Thailand and the Philippines.

Have a good one,

Dave

XFor his next venture, David is leaving this week for New Orleans, where he says he will help rebuild the city while pursuing his musical dreams.