Korean Job Discussion Forums

[southboca]

Everytime I want or need to go somewhere new I want to pull all my hair out. Why can no one here give decent directions?

How do I get to the bathroom? "Go out that door, then go straight." I open the door and four feet in front of me is a solid brick wall. Hmmm. Maybe turn right, go straight, turn right, go straight, it's on the left???

"When you go in the room, the door you want is at 2 o'clock." Sure it is, but only if you turn and face the front of the school with the wall about 3 inches from your face on entering. Why not tell me about the HUGE sign on the door with the teacher's name on it???? HMMMM?

"When you leave the subway walk for about 10 minutes until you get to a bakery. Then go left." All righteee ... what subway exit, which bakery? There are 14 exits for your station. And there are only about 500 million bakeries in the neighborhood where your apartment is. Yes, I know you have a car and you don't take the subway. But how can you NOT know? You've lived there for seven years. In seven years you've never had to give someone directions from the subway?

"Go out exit 5 walk until you get to the XXXXX building. There's a sign." Yeah, there is... but only if you look straight up about 80 floors. And, oh, it's not in English.

"Leave the subway. Walk straight until you get to LG mart, then turn right." Silly me. I should have know you meant the SECOND LG Mart. You know, the one on the opposite side of the street and around the corner from the road I was walking along.

"Go out of the subway. Take a small road BEFORE the McDonalds. Don't take the big road. Don't take the other small road. It goes wrong. Follow it to the end. Look for a big building." The real directions? "Exit the subway. Take the first left -- it's a small road. Walk straight until you get to an 12-lane road. The building is directly across the street. Curse, turn left and walk 8 blocks to the nearest crosswalk. Destination: A company that specializes in sending students abroad to learn English. The employees were program graduates. Aiiiiiiii!!!!

The obvious solution is to hop a cab and make a call. But it seems that people who can't give directions in English can't give them in Korean either....it still takes 2-3 phone calls to get there.

There. I feel much better. :)

[identity]

hire a tour guide.

[Privateer]

After lengthy experience I usually avoid the obligatory 'Asking and Giving Directions' lesson in every ELT textbook. The students are pretty hopeless at it, they never remember it, and there are plenty of other lessons I can more usefully and productively spend time on instead.

[HapKi]

maybe you haven't noticed, but most of Seoul is a labyrinth of roads, alleys, intersections and corner bakeries- not much of which is laid out in a grid formation. Deal with it, or maybe figure out where you are going. You give 6 examples- is that a typical day for you, or what? Maybe you have the problem.

[Demophobe]

Yes. Stop needing to go anywhere.

[jinju]

Yawn...another newbie.

[coolsage]

My favorite is: 'Look for the red neon cross.'

[ajuma]

When I teach directions, I always have the students start with "Do you know where X is?" This is the way Koreans give directions to each other. Since there are few street names in Korea, giving directions by using landmarks is the way to go.

OP: It's YOUR fault that you didn't ask what subway and what exit!!

[Ya-ta Boy]

I've been told this is a general Asian thing. Who knows? But it may explain why the Chinese never discovered Alaska.

[identity]

which is why the indians were all green.

[Pak Yu Man]

I hear you. One time my wife and I were in a strange city. The only thing I knew about the city was "there is a Burger King next to the bus station".

So my wife(Korean) asks 3 Koreans where the bus station is. They send us all over the place. Finally I run into some foreigners and ask "where is the Burger King?"

5 mins later we're there.