Playing Ketchup Pt. 1

When I was in middle/elementary school teachers always liked to pun around with “ketchup” and “catch-up.” It’s forever altered my perception of these two bits of language. I don’t know how to feel about that.

Anyways, I haven’t posted in a while; falling from my 1 post/week goal. Here I’ll attempt to play ketchup after the last month, or so, of silence.

The Korean school year effectively ends in December. Winter vacation runs through January and part of February. The students return for some ceremonious attendance mid February before taking another “break” and beginning the new school year in March. This being my first year I’m not quite sure how this all plays out for the students. Either way, I’ll be on vacation for the month of February.

To recap:

The first half of December I finished covering the required material for Middle School and helped students review for finals. My once-a-week free-for-all high school classes were canceled and the elementary school days cut short by swine flu and a week of preparation for the school festival-a 3 1/2 hour-33 act explosion of cute. The entire elementary school student body participated, performing for a chattering crowd of parents and grandparents. It was the greatest thing I didn’t know about since Wednesday volleyball.

At first I spent the extra free time [granted by class cancellation] at home. However, this “holiday,” granted by my high school and elementary school, was problematic for my middle school so I was reigned in to spend my M-F/9-5 warming desk at the middle school. This wasn’t so bad until the middle school festival was canceled (swine flu) thus negating my duty to teach Christmas carols. The cancellation left me two weeks worth of time slots and nothing to do. Uninspired and a little jaded I pulled out the great equalizer of teaching tools-Movies. We made it through “Charlie Brown Christmas” and some of “Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer” before my C0-teacher politely suggested I not show movies in class because it embarrasses the other teachers (I suppose they don’t show movies). I got us through the last with some creative versions of scrabble and a “Winter Holidays” sideshow/worksheet.

For all my [teaching] intents and purposes December was a wash. Much confusion and poor communication within my school devolved into questions of self worth [in Korea] and hating Korea (sample). My girlfriend was having as much trouble coping as I was. Thus our combined efforts to secure sanity on Isolation Island (as we sometimes call it) were holding by a thin thread. Answer: we took a trip to Kwangju.

Kwangju is home to most of my co-teachers and some friends. My girlfriend and I made the last minute decision to visit a Korean friend who lives there. Unfortunately I jotted down his phone number incorrectly (sorry Yong Sang) so it was too late by the time we corrected our mistake. As luck would have it we ran into a pack of 외국인, way-gook-eun (foreigners), one of whom my girlfriend and I met while teaching @ a summer camp (my girlfriend also knew a few others from a previous girls weekend). We followed them to “German Bar” or what might more appropriately be called “Western Bar” since it seems to cater elusively to the 외국인 contingent (at least that night anyway). The wood paneled scene housing 40+ foreigners offered a much needed release (Song’s Beer) and a chance to socialize with other foreign English teachers. However, the last 3 months of relative isolation made it difficult to handle the like-university bar scene. A feeling of reverse culture shock ensued. Fortunately my feelings of anxiety were dampened by the friendly crowd sympathetic to my situation and experience. For the first time in a few months I felt accepted as an equal within a group, albeit a very drunk and rambunctious bunch. This was a great place to be, however, I couldn’t shake an uneasy feeling amidst the pack of flamboyantly foreign bar hoppers. I’ll relate in tangent.

Tangent: Now’s a good of a time as any to highlight the trend of anti-foreigner sentiment that’d been coming to my attention around this time. I know I’m not the only one to recognize that the blogosphere had been paying a great deal of attention to the matter of Korean/English teacher relations. This apparently stemmed from the reported activity of a group known as the Anti-English Spectrum-a coalition of South Korean citizens whose primary focus is the exposure of degenerate foreign English teachers. It’s been reported that this group  has stalked English teachers, drummed up anti-foreigner sentiment, and even declared death threats. They’ve even gone as far as to influence recent changes regarding visa requirements and procedures. All-in-all I believe this group  represents a radical minority in Korea, however, the media coverage they’ve received has elevated their status significantly and perhaps swayed public opinion. Korea has a rough history with outsiders and xenophobia and harsh criticism of out outsiders are understandable. Unfortunately the fact remains that a slim minority of foreigners commit crimes in Korea thus rendering the generalizations made of  외국인 unfortunate to say the least. For a better treatment of this subject I suggest following the hyperlinks starting here. This blog is an excellent resource for foreign English teacher related material.

Anyways, the trip to Kwangju made it clear that more often than not similarities appear to out-way differences regrading the experiences of foreign English teachers in South Korea. This continues to be a comforting theme reminding me that I’m not alone in the Hermit Kingdom.

Part 2

I also wanted to draw attention to some props I got a little while back from another blog. Check it out-here.

Advertisement