Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Yu_Bum_suk]

So this afternoon a teacher at my school tells me he wants to introduce me to some poeple. It turns out they're friends of an English teacher at another school who's a freind of the head of English at my school. And who may these people be? A mother and her daughter who are friends of my English head's friend. And what is omah hoping for? That I might be able to tutor her daughter, who spent a year at an international school in the Philippines and is losing her English speaking skills. So, at a student lounge beside the snack bar off the cafeteria at my school the head of English is trying to set me up to do illegal tutoring.

Well, it was easy enough for me to explain why that wasn't legally possible. Then omah asks me if I might be able to 'play' with her 9-year-old 'not often, maybe once a week or twice a week'. Just how desperately hopeful can these Korean mothers be? As a cop-out I was able to refer her to a hogwan teacher in my town who's a near-native speaker, though it will probably be a big disappointment to send her daughter to a perfectly fluent and almost accentless non-white with years of experience teaching little kids instead of a genuine whitey who doesn't like little kids (actually she seemed like a very nice little girl, but all the same).

I really can't get over what a desperately sough-after commodity a white person can be in small-town Korea or how ignorant of and oblivious to the law some Korean educators are when it comes to foreigners.

[spliff]

You turned down a private that was risk-free! Why, don't you like money? 50 - 70 thou per hour...there aren't enough hours in the day...I wish we didn't have to sleep!

[flotsam]

It's not just small towns either.

When I got to my new school, ALL of the teachers wanted me to teach their kids, and their friends' kids--I even got a phone call from a businesswoman in Seohyun one day:

"Hello, is this Mr. T?"
"Yes it is."
"Oh, you taught Bo-Young writing, so her mom gave me your number so that you can teach the workers at our office."

Verbatim. WTF?

That woman I simply told, "Sorry, I have a life."

With the teachers at my school, I made a show of collecting all the teaching requests with the requested hours and times--then I made out a schedule that would allow me to fulfill everyone's request(it would've required 4 or 5 Mr. T's to do so) which I showed to the members of the English Dept. The head of the dept, who is a bit mischievous, agreed to a play a joke during the next Monday morning meeting at the point when each dept head gets up and makes an announcement. When it was her turn, in Korean, she held up the schedule, explained it and announced that as not everyone could fit, and I was not one of a set of quintuplets, we were going to hold a lottery and the teachers who wanted lessons for their kids would have to put their names in a basket.

She started chuckling at this final announcement, but then stopped dead when she saw several of the teachers frantically scribbling down their names, as if finishing so more quickly than the others would enhance their chances in the lottery. Then one older history teacher bellowed from the far side of the office:

"Where's the basket?"

And the whole English Dept. broke down laughing. It literally took about 10 minutes for the wave which read "this is a joke" to lap on everyone's shore. I think our VP still doesn't get what happened. These are my favorite moments though--the English Dept couldn't believe the ridiculous behavior of the other teachers and it is only, only at these moments that a statement like "Do you see what we foreigners have to deal with sometimes?" has any impact.

But funny anecdotes aside, I guess that the one thing that bothers me about it is the shallowness with which they few foreigners' personal lives: the majority of people really don't view us as anything other than "Yeong-Eo Adjusshi" and fail to make that synaptic leap to us having lives which require more than meal breaks away from "I'm fine, thank you. And you?"

[coolsage]

Indeed. We are often regarded as mere conduits for their children's education rather than humans with lives of our own. Yes, they can be intrusive and invasive into one's private time. I've done a bit of proofreading for a K-colleague, and now she insists on dragging me out to lunch. And 'no' is not an option. No doubt I'll have to partake of the obligatory pork cutlet and be enlightened once more about the four seasons. That's not a reward, that's punishment.

[PRagic]

If you've been here long enough, then I'm sure you've heard stories of teachers teaching illegally at government offices...and lots of them! Amazing, but true.

[Privateer]

This entire thread makes me want to tilt my head to one side, frown slightly, and ask "So?".

[PRagic]

Then I suggest practicing that 'tilt and yawn' so that you can demonstrate it to the immigration authorities when they haul you in, tell you that you have to pay a 2 million won fine, and that you have 72 hours to get out of the country. The thread is demonstrating irony. The fact is, unless you have the F2, an F4, or permanent residency, you are still at the whim of the system. People are busted every day, and the newer you are, the higher your odds are of getting popped.

[riley]

Something must be wrong with me because I don't really have this happening. I don't know if this is good or bad though.

[jacl]

[poet13]

to OP and subsequent P's.
what really grates on me, and i mean instant anger (that takes a lot for me!), is when i am in a restaurant and some parent prods and compels their terrified child to come over and greet me. I'm so glad I speak greek!

<take 1, scene 6> Yasu! Eme O XXXX. Eme apo Canada. Apo pou ese?
(camera 2, fade to child BIG EYES closeup)
(camera 3, cut to rear shot of child fleeing)

works every time.

[Son Deureo!]

That's just cruel! Now poor little Yasu will never get into Seoul National....

[PRagic]

Good one. I usually answer by saying hello back in Japanese. When they tell me they are NOT Japanese, I tell them in Korean that I am NOT from an English speaking country. Works like a charm. Yeah, the moms are killers here. I have actaully had moms ask my WIFE if she minded if her kids talked to her foreigner. Glad we are globalizing here, though. Things will change.

[flotsam]

[The Man known as The Man]

You won't be making any money doing privates.


Privates are illegal.

[poet13]

...yasu means hello...but another way of dealing with the little ......darlings... is to say hello in korean (i dont speak much more yet)
and when their startled reaction is to say "you speak kroean?",......then i get to deadpan.....no. he he he