Mail-Order Teacher

Well, I've been in Seoul, Korea for just over a week now.  A lot of people have been eagerly asking me all kinds of questions, so I figure it's about time I began my blog!

This will probably be my longest post as it is my first one, so bear with me!  I think I should begin by telling you how I came to be an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher in Korea.   After working very hard for one year, I received my Elementary Teaching License in my "hometown" of Knoxville, TN.  Before I graduated I learned that Knox County would be losing approximately $14 million dollars.  The school I student taught at was one of the lucky ones; they would only be losing 1 teacher.  Needless to say they would NOT be hiring me.  My principal gave me a letter of recommendation and wished me "Good Luck."  I then moved in with my parents, who live in South Carolina, for several months while I searched for a job somewhere else.  I applied all over in SC, in NC, and in GA.  I found nothing.  It seemed hopeless I would ever find a job!

Missing Knoxville and all my friends terribly, I came back.  After a year of self-reflection and "soul searching," a close friend of mine suggested we go to Korea to teach English, because he had a friend over there who seemed to really like it, and while the application was easy, finding a job was even easier.  At first I thought that sounded really scary...I mean, I know nothing about Korea, I've never even been to Asia before!  However, it didn't take long for me to get used to the idea.  I have, after all, lived in so many places throughout my life that I feel I even have to put quotations around the word "hometown" when describing Knoxville, the city with which I am most familiar.  I guess you could say I am a proverbial "hermit crab," because I view each house I've lived in and left as an empty shell...a house is just something to keep me safe for a while until I grow out of it and must search for a new one.  But also, like a hermit crab, or a snail, or a turtle, I am home wherever I go.  I could even go to Korea for a year, no problem!  One of my favorite songs is "I'm Like a Bird" by Nelly Furtado.  For those of you not familiar with the song, it goes, "I'm like a bird, I'll only fly away.  I don't know where my soul is...I don't know where my home is."  As a lover of symbolism, when the thought occurred to me that I had a chance to quite literally go to a place called "Soul," I went for it!  I applied through an online agency who acts as a middle-man, connecting wannabe English teachers with schools all over South Korea.  I got called by a recruiter shortly thereafter.

When applying for a teaching job in Korea, you can apply with a friend.  The recruiter will try and find you a job in the same city, or even at the same school, if possible.  My friend decided, however, that he no longer wished to go, so I decided I'd go it alone.  I mean...why not?  It would be a fun adventure!

I think I accepted maybe the 2nd or 3rd job offer I got.  It was to start after the holidays in January, and it was a school that only hired licensed teachers, and therefore paid a little more than those who hired people with just a bachelor's degree.  So, you don't have to be a licensed teacher to come and teach here...but it doesn't hurt to be licensed!  All I knew about the job before I got here was that it paid just around $2000 USD/month, that it would include a furnished studio apartment (school pays the rent) and that I'd be teaching Elementary-aged kids.  I also knew that I'd be teaching at a small private school (private schools do most of the hiring of foreign teachers).  I knew nothing about the curriculum, the specific age of the kids, or how you go about teaching Korean kids without speaking any Korean.  In fact, the only time I spoke to the school was when they called and interviewed me.  The interview was very easy, by the way.  They asked me if I'd ever had experience in Kindergarten, what I knew about classroom management, and why I wanted to come to Korea.  "Why not Korea?" I replied, "It sounds like an amazing adventure!"  They soon emailed me a contract, which I read over very carefully, had my father read over very carefully, AND had my uncle read over very carefully.  Then I read it again.  It sounded fair.  I signed it and emailed it back.

So, while getting the job was a piece of cake, obtaining a visa was not.  I was on the phone with my Korean recruiter most every night trying to figure out what papers I needed to get signed and where to get this and that notarized and who to get a criminal background check from, etc etc etc.  It was a pain in the butt!  But, my recruiter was as helpful as she could be, and I got it all in on time.  I even had to drive to Atlanta for an interview at the Korean Consulate during that awful ice/snow storm they had!  I was completely stressed out!  We are talking tears, pulling out hairs, more tears...I even almost broke my back desperately checking the mail for important documents to arrive...it was icy and I slipped on the front stairs, landing hard on my back across the sharp part of the concrete stair.  And my papers hadn't even arrived.  Luckily, they did the next day...in time for me to FedEx them to Korea at the last possible minute, literally.  I got my visa the week before I was set to leave, and my plane ticket (paid for by the school) two days before I left.

Leaving home for my exciting adventure would have been much more exciting if there weren't so many frightening thoughts running through my mind...would my apartment be nice, or full of roaches?  Would the bathroom be decent, or a bucket of water on the floor?  I really had no way of knowing.  All I knew was that I had long since grown out of my current "shell," and it was time to get out of Knoxville once again.  I was just going to have to chance it and hope for the best.

On the airplane I realized I now knew what a mail-order bride must feel like.  I felt JUST like that...like I had been ordered off the internet and was now beginning the long 24-hour journey to finally greet my new life.  Would I like it, or would I long to return to the place I had desired to leave for a while?  I basically had the attitude that, even if I completely hated everything about it, I could do it for a year.  Just a year.  I can do anything for a year.  And I knew I wouldn't hate it.

I didn't sleep a wink on the plane.  First I took an hour flight from Atlanta to Chicago.  Then I boarded a huge plane for a 14 hour flight to Tokyo.  In Tokyo I was rushed onto the next plane which flew me into Seoul.  That was about a 2 hour flight.  Once in Seoul, I was shuffled through customs quickly and my bags were already on the conveyor belt when I got to the baggage claim.  I hoisted them onto a cart, which thankfully was free, since I had no Korean coins (only paper money), then I went outside the door where I was told a cab driver would be waiting for me with a sign.  I saw the man right away and said, "I'm Annie!"  He didn't speak a word of English but understood what I meant.  I went outside, in the dark (It was 10pm on a Friday night), and got into this stranger's car.  Exhausted, I wondered how long the trip to my new home would be.  Half an hour?  Three hours?  There was no way to know.  I rode in silence, practically passing out from exhaustion, until we entered the city.  Oh. My. God.

This city is HUGE!!!  There were rainbow colors of flashing lights adorning streets and alleys and shops EVERYWHERE!  Those of you who know me know I'm a sucker for rainbows and colors!  Well, I woke RIGHT up, like I hadn't even been awake for 24 hours.  I felt like a little country girl...I had never seen such sights before, and I've been to L.A., NYC, Washington D.C., Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Rome...I've been all over the place!  But I'd never seen such a colorful, endless labyrinth of stores with flashing signs like this.  Pink hearts, rainbow circles, crosses, swatstikas???  I think that means good luck here or something!  Anyways, my eyes were popping out of my head.  I was AMAZED.

I still don't know how long that car ride was but I'm sure it was close to an hour.  Once we arrived at my apartment building, my Korean supervising teacher, who works at my school, met me.  It was 11pm.  She took me up to my apartment and showed me how to unlock the door (it's a combination lock that talks to you in Korean when it opens and closes).  Once she opened the door I looked inside and was immediately filled with delight.  It was NICE.  And totally cute.  Adorable, even.  It has a queen-sized bed with pink comforter, a little kitchen area with brand new pots, pans, and utensils, a nice big refrigerator, plenty of closet space, a desk, a huge window, and a really nice spacious bathroom.  She showed me how to adjust the heater, which runs hot water through pipes underneath the floor.  My floor is so warm I like to walk on it barefoot, and it's January!  She gave me a letter from the school with my phone number, my address, the school's address, and the room number of one of the other English teachers in my building who wanted to help me get settled in.  I had internet connection immediately so I could let everyone know I arrived safely.  After she said goodnight and left, I burst into tears.  I was so happy.  All of my fears dissolved away.

After a good night's sleep, I went up to the teacher's apartment who had left me her room number.  Her name is Rebecca and she's from Florida.  She told me all about the school and what it was like to teach there, and it sounded good, about what I expected.  I would get no "training," as they had said in my contract, but rather would be thrown immediately into a classroom with lesson plans in hand.  But, she said, there were lots of people there to help me if I needed it!  It felt good to talk to someone else from the US who was living here and liked it!

That day I went down to the grocery store that's right on my street and bought some brown rice and fresh produce.  I was really happy to find food I could eat because I am a vegetarian with an MSG sensitivity and have to be very careful what I put in my body!  When people asked me how in the world I was going to survive in Korea with such a diet (I can't even have soy sauce) I told them I honestly didn't know, but that it couldn't possibly be worse than it is at home.  Well I was right...it's much better!  They don't use pesticides on their food...they don't fertilize with hydrolized fish protein (back home, I can have a reaction to a plain potato because of that), and they don't coat their apples and vegetables with that obnoxious citric acid waxiness!  I can eat so much more safely here that I'm wondering how I'm going to survive when I finally return to the States!

OK, that's all I am going to write for now!  I will continue this tomorrow when I write about the school and what teaching here is like.  Thanks for reading!