1.22.2010

Hello -
It's been quite awhile since my last update and I was just thinking that I would give a quick review of the past few months.

There haven't really been too many changes but I have had a few experiences that people may be interested to hear about. I guess first would be the situation at school. I have been getting a crash course in international relations with my boss. I have had great employees since I've been here but they continue to change so it's a bit of a weird thing. We are down to 2 Koreans and me now, and the newest change is me being alone on Tuesday and Thursday. When my last head teacher quit she was teaching 1 class on those days and I was teaching 5, but she still had to be there the same time as me and she was only allowed to leave maybe an hour and a half before me. She would come from 1:30 to about 7:00 or so and she would only teach for one hour. That was one of the main reasons for her quitting because she doesn't get a salary; she is paid by the class. Their new idea was for me to teach the classes by myself and call them free-talking, which is just a way for them to take the students money. I don't get any books or anything and they expect me to entertain the kids and keep them happy. I have one class that I have taught since I started, it is 2 elementary school girls, who are actually very interested in studying English and they work hard. There was another class with kindergarteners that was moved to M,W,F and one boy couldn't do it. They decided to put this kid in the same class with girls who can have conversations and read really well when he can't say the alphabet or read a single word. I told them that I couldn't teach because of the differences in ability and they said that they knew, but just try. That was the end of it and I have been trying to keep the 3 happy for the past 3 weeks. This is probably the worst class for criers, whether it is for taking a cell phone or telling them no, crying with this class is at least a weekly occurrence. My other new class is a brother and sister who are moving to China because their Dad just got a job. I was told to prepare them for an interview at a hogwan in China. I had no idea what this meant and I told them and they just said to check the internet. I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to fill a few months preparing for English oral tests, but I have been trying.

Two of my teachers who had been there almost since I started quitted about a month ago. We decided to go bowling. We went to a little run-down 3 story building that turned out to be a whole underground health center. They had a pool, bowling, ping-pong room, and sauna. We decided to bowl in teams of 2 with the winning team buying the games. I wasn't really aware of the bet until we finished and I would like to think that I wouldn't have accepted if I had known. One teacher had never bowled, another teacher hadn't bowled in about 10 years, and the other had only bowled a handful of times. I was paired with the girl who had never bowled and we started our first of the 2 games. My partner bowled around a 35 this game, the other team had a career-best 70 and about a 45. I bowled a 135 both games and it would have been a fairly close competition if I was on my own team. The second game my teammate stepped up and bowled a 50 while the other team had a total of about 80. One girl got 9 in the last frame to bring her total to 27 and the other girl was under 50. Needless to say, we won the competition and didn't have to pay for bowling. (These scores are rough estimates, we went about a month ago but I know that the score of 27 was accurate) We had a really good time, complete with several broken nails and a blister which caused my teammate to bowl granny-style for 8 frames of the second game.

I was about 2 months behind in pay as of a few weeks ago and I finally got most of those issues solved. I was lied to several times; the first time I talked directly to my boss and he told me certain specific paydays and when those days came around he said he didn't understand what he was saying. I then talked to his daughter on the phone and she served as a translator. When this day came he didn't do what he said and he said that he didn't know what she said. I then had a sit-down with a Korean teacher and him and we talked for over an hour about pay and how he has repeatedly lied to me. He told me that if he didn't pay me completely I could find a new job and after this he proceeded to not give me everything he promised. It is so insanely frustrating to speak to someone who can lie to you to your face, through a translator, and with a face-to-face translator. I am getting pretty worried about my last time here because I am owed quite a bit of money and also a plane ticket home and it seems like it is going to be like pulling teeth to get everything that I was promised. I have contacted a guy who passed the Bar Exam in NYC and has lawyer friends here. He is in HR and can help me if I come into any big problems. I have also found the labor department in Korea but I think that this isn't really a great option. I have heard that labor disputes involving foreigners generally take forever and most people just end up leaving because costs are too high and results are not typically positive.

I went on a cross-country trip a few weeks ago to a place named Gyeong-Ju (Ke-yong-Ju). We rode from the Northwest corner of Korea to the Southeast corner. The countryside is really beautiful and full of mountains. We wound back and forth through the countryside through countless tunnels and it was a great drive. This city is a historical city with no tall buildings and many different tombs, museums, and temples. The tombs looked more like little hills but they would bury their kinds under these hills and the more important the king the bigger the hill. In the pictures below there is a family buried together (the 3-4 mounds). We also went through a big historical Buddhist temple. We had to climb a big hill to get to the temple and walked around for a few hours. There is a picture or 2 below of stacks of stones. I guess these are a type of wishing stone and I guess people make piles and they are supposed to represent wishes.

I also went to a place called Ains-World (Koreans say Ice-World) which is a bunch of miniature models of different cities from all over the world. We went on a day that was a Korean holiday (can't remember the name) and we didn't see another person until we had completed our loop. It was freezing cold but it was a really cool experience. They had model buildings from China, Turkey, France, US, Egypt, etc.

There aren’t really a whole lot of new things to report. I guess I am really getting used to the lifestyle here and I have gotten used to the routine. I am really looking forward to coming home and I believe that I only have about 30 working days left. I have been counting down the days since I got back here in January. I am very sick of dealing with my boss and having to beg for the money that I finally get months later than promised. I'm very worried about getting everything that I'm supposed to get when my year contract is finished but I still have a few weeks before I really have to get into those discussions. I hope to get at least 1 or 2 more updates on here before I head back home (May 5 should be my last day) and thank you for keeping up with me.

Pictures 1.22.2009

I can only upload 4 pictures at a time so this may be confusing but the first picture is where I live in Korea and there is another GPS picture from Gyeung-Ju.

In between these pictures are first pictures of Ice-World and the other pictures are the ones from the Buddhist Temple