I am in Gwangju, South Korea: a place I never I’d be. In fact, I didn’t even know South Korea was above the equator. I have come here as an English teacher from the States, though I didn’t know a lick of Korean when I applied.
As a matter of fact, I can vaguely remember scanning job postings from my parent’s living room yelling, “I am too young to die in this house!” before boarding a plane and ending up here.
In the city of Gwangju alone there are over 100 western people teaching English and living here through EPIK (English Program in Korea). In 1995, when the program began, there were only 54 teachers. In 2010 alone, there were 4,818 EPIK teachers recruited and trained to teach English dispersed throughout South Korea.
In a word, we are outsourced.
What About Korea?
Korea education is ambitious and there is a huge push for students to learn English. Students go to school from 9 a.m. until around 1:30 in the afternoon, which is then followed by afterschool lessons at private institutions until 10 at night. One of my co-workers explained that Korea has no natural resources to export but their minds, so parents push their kids to the extreme.
During my stay,I have been provided with an apartment, a very decent starting salary, ample vacation time, and a chance to live and work abroad all without even having to know any Korean. It is the dream job of the backpacker. The tag-line on the website should read, “Footloose?” It is just enough time to scout out an area, make some money and find your way home again.
English is seen as Korea’s way of being taken seriously in the west and they aim to put a native English speaker in every school. They are inviting the west in and it works, because baby, the west is here.
Somewhere in Mokpo you find out they eat dog.
South Koreans eat dog. I always thought that was a myth, but it is absolutely true. In a small city called Mokpo, a guy named Ken (who I met in the bathroom of a bus station) told me. The beauty about being in a country where everyone is Korean, is that any western-looking person becomes an instant friend. In America, I would have never approached Ken, but here we are the only two white guys in a grimy, off–the-beaten path bus station, so why not strike up a conversation? Simply asking, “Have you been to Mokpo before?” led to hiking, dinner, and later drinking way too much Soju that ended the day with a rambling walk down the street along the ocean saying “I’m lost” to random Koreans.
Speaking of Soju, it is a traditional Korean rice liquor with a similar taste to vodka but with less of the burning. But where it lacks in bite it makes up for in the most evil hangover. So great was my hangover from Soju (my first time drinking it) that I was unable to go to the local maritime museum with Ken the next day that had a real shipwreck inside. I have not drank Soju since.
Do Not Underestimate Karaoke
We had a teacher outing one day, which means all the educators leave school early and go hiking together or to see a movie. After our hike and following some rice wine (if the principal gives you a drink, you drink), we hopped back on the bus.
Suddenly neon lights came on. Music started to play and one teacher got on a microphone and started saying something in Korean. All of the teachers cheered. Mr. Lee, my fifth grade co-teacher, informed me that we would be singing karaoke and I would be singing for the fifth grade teachers. I was pushed out to the middle aisle and handed a book of songs. Before I knew it I was belting the chorus to “Take on Me” with a crowd of teachers backing me up in broken English.
It was unlike any trip I had gone on with co-workers before. They showed me Korean hospitality and it was a moment where I felt like I was fully embracing the culture. That is the feeling I look for wherever I go. I just think, “What is an un-American thing to do?” Drink coffee in a café full of cats? Why not?!
Always Try the Squid Jerky
So here I am being footloose. Over the next year I will be commenting on Korea as I see it. A place I came to with no expectations and a place I hope to live and work in with no expectations.
[...] The amazing confessions of an English teacher in South Korea [...]
I am a college student in the states and an avid follower of CollegeCandy (where I found the link to this article)
Normally I never leave comments on the articles I read (I choose to be discreet in the internet)
but I just had to comment at how appalled I am at this article.
The first part of your article contained some factual errors. Students go to school starting around 8:30 am, and then end around 3:00 in the afternoon, followed by after school lessons at private institutions. As a kid growing up in Korea my entire life, I would know this better than an observer.
And to quote your article
“English is seen as Korea’s way of being taken seriously in the west and they aim to put a native English speaker in every school. They are inviting the west in and it works, because baby, the west is here.”
Personally, this is just extremely offensive. What Americans don’t seem to understand is how important it is for the rest of the world to be fluent in English. Being in the superior and dominant culture in the world, no American was ever forced into a situation where one had to learn another country’s language and culture just to SURVIVE.
I wish that you were a bit more understanding of this difference in culture between Korea and the US, and I wish you had not ended on that snide remark where “baby, the west is here” as if we were begging to have you Americans over.
Simply put, I wish you were more understanding of others. The US isn’t the entire world.
Furthermore, the tradition of eating dog in Korea has been a fascination for many Americans, and I do not mind you writing a blurb about it in this article. However, again, I wish you were more understanding when it comes to differences in culture; it’s a simple difference in culture, nothing more. It’s more of an ancient delicacy than anything else, and that you make it sound like it’s some mythbuster article of epic grossness is just appalling as a native korean.
Again, the general feeling of the article was that of an American looking at another culture as if it’s an interesting animal at a zoo. This has happened in American history before (with human zoo displays in the Louisiana World Exposition in 1904, etc.) and, all I want to say is, I wish you’d be a bit more understanding and accepting of other cultures as well
yours truly,
a korean student.