Korean Job Discussion Forums

[aboxofchocolates]

You should really read 'Angry Young Spaceman'.
It was written by Jim Munroe (http://nomediakings.org/ays.htm)
I picked it up this morning because of the back:

"Sam's going to another planet to teach English, where he hopes to earn enough creds to pay off his student loan and maybe buy a jetpack. He's not entirely comfortable with spreading the English virus but it beats working for the powerbrokers on Earth, and Octavia is a dreamy underwater planet populated by eight armed beings."

Sounds like the perfect book for an overseas ESL teacher, right? It gets better. Here is an excerpt from chapter five describing Sam's first day in the classroom:

‘….[My co-teacher Mr. Zik] slid open the [classroom] door with a flick of his tentacle.
Pling, Pling, Pling I repeated to myself as the class saw me and started to froth over like a test beaker. Luckily, Mr. Zik was a stabilising agent.

"Good morning," he said to the students, a few of which were still running about the room to their desks. One student was cleaning the board, an expectant smile on his face. I heard someone gasp, "Handsomebloy! Oh!"

I smiled and smoothed out my tie. Mr. Zik said something in Octavian. The class laughed. One girl asked Mr. Zik something, plucking at him.

"Ask him," he said with a smile, pointing at me. She buried her head in a tangle of tentacles and made an embarrassed-alarmed sound: waah!

The boy cleaning the board handed the brush back to me with four twined tentacles, his eyes wide and grin infectious. "Thank you," I said, relieved that I didn't have to mumble through the Octavian translation — in fact, this being English class, I shouldn't speak Octavian.

"This is Sam Breen. He is from Earth. He will blee your teacher." He nodded to me.
It seemed to me like he had already used all my best material. What else could I say in simple, easy sentences? What the *beep* was I thinking? Teaching? Me?

"Hi!" I said, smiling as broadly as human physiognomy would allow.

"Hello!" said forty unreasonably excited children.

If I had my goddamned translator I... I what? What would I say to them, even with a translator? It would be a good prop, I suppose, something official to fiddle with...


Write something on the board drifted up to my consciousness, perhaps from orientation.


I took off my blazer to buy some time, and the female part of the class made a siren sound like a line graph, rising and falling, against a solid giggle background. A little alarmed by this, but completely without a response, I turned to the board. As I picked up a black marker and wrote my name, I tried to figure out why taking off my blazer had that kind of effect. Octavians didn't wear pants, just a loose multi-armed shirt to cover their chests, so it was kind of hard to know….'



'Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a map on another wall.
"Ah," I said, leaving my crappy drawing and striding fake-confidently over to the galactic map. I pointed to a planet at random.

I looked out at their rapt, spellbound faces and was temporarily speechless. God, it was scary! Was I that fascinating?

"Is this Earth?" I asked.

"No," "No!" "N000," and "NO!" pelted back at me.

"Right. This is Earth," I said, pointing to Mars. I watched them expectantly.
Eventually, "No!s" started coming.

Mr. Zik hiss-laughed. "You are lying." He had taken a seat at the teacher's and I was glad he was relaxed.

"Psycho!" someone called out….

I could hear Mr. Zik talking to a student with the part of my brain that wasn't scrambling. "Sam? She has a question."

I turned around and put a friendly smile on my face.

The same girl who had drawn the rocketship stood up. "How.., old are...

"I'm 23 years old."

There was a murmur of translation, so I wrote the number on the board for measure. The class gave that funny up-and-down 'w000' of approval. I Led at Mr. Zik, a little confused at it.

"You're young," he said. "That's good. Young teacher."

Another boy put up his tentacle. I nodded to him, but he was really looking Zik. He stood up and grunted out, "Do you... like Octavia."

"Yes," I said enthusiastically. "Octavia is beautiful." I remembered the Octavian for beautiful and said it with gusto. They were impressed, and so was Zik.

"Oh very good," someone called out.

A couple of girls stopped giggling long enough to beg Mr. Zik to ask me aething. He refused. They looked at me and went back to beg Mr. Zik some zee. He was laughingly adamant. Finally they turned their fearful eyes back on and one of them blurted out: "Girlfriend?"

Through the sudden deafening noise, I attempted to clarify with Mr. Zik: o I have a girlfriend?"

He nodded, calling out something that reduced the noise level.

"Uh, no," I said to the girls, and they were happy with this answer. Indeed, the girls seemed to like this answer. What the hell were they planning for me?....’

That is as much of an excerpt as I can reasonably put on a forum, but it is well worth it to read the whole thing yourself. It only gets better beyond that- it is awesome!

And no, I don't know this guy and I think my brother bought this book before I left for Korea. Interesting!

[andrewchon]

I'll wait for the movie.

[Konglishman]

That is absolutely hilarious. I wonder which country the author taught English in. Of course, I am assuming that he has taught English overseas before. Well, at least, that is my hypothesis.

[DWAEJIMORIGUKBAP]

Good Lord.

ABOC - you're not the author are you...?

[makemischief]

It's a funny quick read, not great literature, but enjoyable- they have a ton of copies at What the Book. Author was a teacher in Korea before- the "alien" alcohol is called UJOS, soju backwards. Scott Burgenson reviewed it in his Korea Bug book.

[AmericanExile]

I read it last year. A copy was left in my apartment by a previous teacher.

The writer is without question a Canadian who worked in Korea. There are many little indications. The main alcohol is Ujos which obviously is soju backwards. I recall a big holiday with a name that was a variation on Chuseok. There were several other things I won't go into that made it clear it wasn't based on just any place. It was based on Korea.

The things I enjoyed about it was the whole subculture as consumer fashion, and his hyper sexual friend.

[DWAEJIMORIGUKBAP]

I just couldn't finish any of the sentences.

I'm an a'hole I love slamming poor writing.

And on the plus side when poor work is slammed the worst it can do is piss someone off who deserves it and at the best maybe make them start digging deeper and working harder.

[aboxofchocolates]

[Konglishman]

[DWAEJIMORIGUKBAP]

[Tiberious aka Sparkles]

That's absolutely horrid.

[Konglishman]

[DWAEJIMORIGUKBAP]

You didn't think I intended sarcasm. Me?

[reactionary]

Not a bad idea, but the execution...

[Konglishman]