disillusioned about Korea

I came here thinking that this would be an eye-opening, cultural experience, and experience where I would learn more about the world and more about myself. I felt that I “found myself” in college, like most people say they do. Like most people, I was surrounded by other kids who were just getting out of their parent’s houses for their first time, just being exposed to lots of new, controversial, alternative views for maybe the first time, and sharing, changing, distorting, and adding things to all of these experiences. Then after college, I went home. Hung out with the people I’ve known forever, lived in the house I’ve known forever with the family I’ve known forever. I still had a hunger for learning, college left me with that, but I felt bored and like I wasn’t growing. I needed new, eye-opening experiences, experiences that colleges put on their brochures.

I thought I found a brochure like that when I found out about Korea. A new cultural experience, where you can use that degree you paid all that money for to get a job to pay off that same degree. You’ll try new things, meet new people, see the world. A growing time, right?

This culture isn’t for that. It doesn’t support the same individual growth that American colleges do. American colleges prepare individuals for the individualistic society of America. Korea isn’t the same society. When I first got here, I thought that I’d bow, I’d be courteous as possible, follow every etiquette to the best of my knowledge, do favors, and generally get everyone to like me by being a suck-up, which is the way things are done. I also (foolishly) thought that I could still retain what American confidence in my individuality that I had.

So I bowed, greeted, acted meek around superiors, smiled and got on with it when people joked at my expense, acted obsequious in front of anyone older, etcetera. And my mind didn’t last for long. I’m no stoic, no matter how much I tried to kid myself. I was affected, deeply. I’m not myself anymore, not American, and certainly not Korean, something that I could never hope of becoming. There’s no way that I could have hoped to put on a Korean face and remain confident in my American, individual identity.

It’s sickening. I’m nervous, twittering needlessly. Of course some of it has to do with culture shock and the language barrier; how comfortable can you be in a place where you don’t speak the language and you aren’t familiar with the culture? Still, the part of the culture that’s affected me most is the emphasis placed on my status as a young, inexperienced, foreigner.

I hope I can somehow get back whatever confidence I ever had in myself. My sense of wonder and adventure has been blunted by my daily bows and smiles.

same Korea

I wonder if there are any heros. I mean, there is Kim Yuna. Singing groups (although they’re all pretty formulaic). There’s Ban Ki Moon, but honestly, I know nothing about him. Park Ji Sung, an OK soccer player who sometimes plays for a very good foreign team. None of these are, to me, inspiring.

In fact, little about Korea inspires me. It’s quirky, and interesting, and mysterious, and fun, and there’s tons to learn here. But there is almost nothing that gives me a spark. Nothing wows me. I’m enthralled by nothing. I will myself to find certain things interesting or exciting, because I have no choice: I’ll be here for another 6 months. I have to have some kind of an experience.

But every day I see the same things: repetitive apartment buildings, stores, streets, cars, and people. I rode my bike for 4 hours along a river yesterday and saw nothing but apartment buildings; all the same height, boring design, and in varying shade of off-white. The people I passed on my bike wore biking uniforms; nothing out of the ordinary, exactly what you would expect bikers to wear.

And everyone has a uniform. There are beautiful girls who wear the same kind of heels and miniskirts and clothes; the only difference seems to be how high their heels are or how short their skirts are. The only difference between them is how skinny they are. Same with everything. All a race in one direction.

The competition to get into the best universities is fierce. Kids study as much as they can, at school and then hagwon afterwards if their parents can afford it. They all take the same faceless tests in school. All multiple choice. And then what do they want to do when they grow up? A doctor. Or a lawyer. Their parents don’t tell them “You can be anything you want to be”, they tell them, “This is what you should be, try as hard as you can to get there”. If they don’t meet that goal, there are other options, but only going down the scale, never laterally. All racing towards the same profession, so therefore all racing towards the same schools. There’s other options if they don’t work out, but they’re not as good.

And there’s no way out of the race. If you’re different, you’re out of the circle. Diversity isn’t praised, it’s looked at as rebelliousness. I crave rebelliousness now. Stand up to the man, to the system. How many drunk ajosshis are there every night, in the same suits, drinking the same fucking soju every night. Did they ever have dreams? Did they ever want to be something? Or did they just want to do well?

Sure, this is a conservative country, but isn’t there an underbelly? Other than Itaewon I mean. Where is the haven for the misunderstood, the rejects, the rebels, the ones who are sick of the same race. Where are the outcasts of the oppressive society, where are those in self-imposed exile from a monotonous path towards drunken dissatisfaction as an ajosshi?

And the escapism in cell phones, TVs, technology, Starcraft, PC bangs, roleplaying games. There was a girl who didn’t come to school for a day because she was playing a game where she was taking care of a virtual plant. I didn’t understand exactly because of my co-teacher’s English, but apparently the girl spent about a thousand dollars on the game somehow. This girl had been picked on a lot and my co-teacher had assumed that she was staying home to stay away from the bully. But she was playing a virtual game, in a virtual reality. If you can’t make it in real life, try another game. They don’t just choose another path in life, they decide to start a new life on a computer, and see if they can do better there. Still a linear path. No lateral decisions. Successful or unsuccessful, and there’s always a way to measure it. Society always measures it.

Same haircuts, same skinny jeans, same suits, same likes, same dislikes, no individuality. No graffiti on the boring buildings everywhere. No groups performing on the streets. Just drunk people, sleeping or drinking more.

Korea rant

I wake up at 7:35, say “Ah fuck” and get out of bed. I turn on the hot water, and take a piss and brush my teeth as it heats up. Finally I use the hose in my bathroom to clean myself, dry off, and pick out one of the five outfits that I can safely wear to work without getting comments from several teachers. I walk out of the door to the bus stop at 7:55.

At the bus stop there are usually a lot of students, and sometimes a few teachers from my school. I nod and say annyeong haseyo to them and they do the same and then I just stand next to them since communicating is exhausting and pointless for either of us, but still, we feel obligated to at least stand next to each other because we work in the same place. Eventually the bus comes and people stream off of it. Then I squeeze my way on and, unless it’s an unusual day and there’s no one there, I have to stand.

Once we get to school, I walk into my office and nervously smile, bow, and mutter annyeong haseyo to a room full of teachers who I don’t talk to for the rest of the day.

I turn on my shitty too-slow computer and wait for a few minutes as it boots up. Meanwhile, my shins are scraping up against the shelves under my desk. I open my email and download the lessons for the day. This takes more time again. Finally I download it, look it over, and print it. I tiptoe to the printer behind the chairs of the older Korean teachers in our too-small office to retrieve the paper, then take it upstairs to photocopy. In the main office I keep my head down and make a bee-line straight to the copier, dodging other teachers and hopefully avoiding painful small talk with other teachers. This attitude is sometimes chided by the vice-principle, who expects me to greet him every time I walk into the office. I take the copies back downstairs and waste time on the internet to distract me from the fact that I have to teach in 5 minutes.
The class bell rings and I think to myself, “Ah fuck, alright let’s just do this.”

I leave the office and students are running around, bowing to the Korean teachers, waving and stupidly yelling “Hello!” to me, or maybe making some kind of dumb joke about me. I have to put up with it since I feel awkward disciplining them.

Then I get to class. Maybe my co-teacher is with me, but either way, it takes awhile for them all to finally settle down. I’m yelling and banging on the desk, adding more noise to the din. Finally, somehow, even though they’re probably not paying attention to me, the kids at least get quiet. Then I start to teach my lesson to blank stares.

My classes usually consist of a powerpoint that no one pays attention to, a worksheet that never gets filled out and is usually crumpled and thrown on the ground, and maybe a game that takes too long to set up and usually is just a way for kids to yell and scream some more.

Since the kids don’t get a grade in my class, it’s just a period to relax and have fun. And I’m supposed to be understanding, since I’m the foreigner.

After a few classes, and maybe a break where I sit like a zombie in front of my computer trying to forget where I am, it’s lunchtime. I never go with anyone, always alone. And I usually sit alone and no one tries to talk to me anymore, which is actually relieving. Still, I feel awkward, and look down at my food without hardly ever looking up, and eat too fast so I can leave quickly. The lunch room is just as crowded as the office, so it is always awkward to try to squeeze my way out from between chairs. I wonder what will happen if Sunduck gets an obese person as a teacher next year.

The next classes go about the same. Sometimes co-teachers will come to my office on my 10 minute breaks and ask me what the difference between “shadow” and “shade” is, or between “ornament” and “decoration” and I give the best explanation I can without simply saying “Go look in a fucking dictionary. They hardly pay attention to my carefully thought-out, painfully slow, and sufficiently thorough explanation about the completely banal subject they bring to me, because they always somehow bring up some counter-argument that is completely unrelated to what I just said, to which I usually concede just so they go the fuck away and I say “OK bye!” with an ever-increasingly fake smile.

Soon it’s time for my after-school class which I’ve shoddily prepared for. The class is half the size of my normal ones, which is good, but among the students there is a wide range of intelligence and motivation. There’s always a few kids who play on their cell phones, and if I ignore them to teach a lesson, the vice principle will see them through the window of my classroom, come in and take away the cell phone, and then remind me that they can’t have cell phones in class and that I should take them away.

Finally school is over and I either take the bus or walk home.

If I have to prepare a lesson the next day, I might start at 7 or 10, but I usually finish around 11:30, my bedtime. This is because I don’t have a curriculum or any directions to follow. There is no point for me in the classroom, so I’m left to let my own neuroticisms decide what I should be teaching. This leads to a lot of carefully planned lessons, and many lessons that have been planned twice.