Honest Reflections of my Time So Far as a Fulbright Grantee in South Korea (12/20/14)

I have been living and teaching in South Korea for almost 6 months now. I know that doesn’t sound like very long but since it marks the midway point of my stay here, it is quite significant for me. It all began with a 6 week prison spell at the marble palace in the rural town of Goesan. I feel like I learned almost nothing from the endless meetings and rote Korean classes. Once and a while we were able to escape to play soccer in the sunshine, and weekends I was even allowed a brief foray into the country side to explore the national parks of Songnisan and Woraksan. Unfortunately this will likely be the most I will see of the Korean countryside, as I have been placed on the volcanic island of Jeju.

Here I work at a boy’s middle school in the center of town. Seogwipo namjum, short for namja jum hakyo. For the first few weeks my greatest desire was to run away. I was lonely, bored and unfulfilled. I even checked the prices of plane tickets as I contemplated my escape. In some sense I am still have those feelings, but they have been numbed to a great extent. I see friends almost every day for a variety of activities: Korean lessons, soccer games, weekly poker nights, baking or adventuring. I have explored much of the beautiful island on my bike and motorcycle, and when on occasion the dull roar in my class room abates I realize my students really do like me, just not learning English.

A part of me has always known that this may just be the easiest job I ever have; I pray that it is not the most fulfilling. I generally teach for less than 4 hours a day, and my meals, room and board are provided. The other 4 hours a day that I’m required to spend at school are mine to fret away, reading, watching documentaries, playing games with the children, or more often than I’d like to admit, wasting time paging through Facebook. Of course my salary is pretty dismal, but considering I don’t really need to buy anything, I save quite a bit. The most expensive things I have bought are my 500 dollar motorcycle, my 500 dollar bike and a 500 dollar plane ticket for my 4 week vacation in Thailand. Apart from that most of my money goes to alcohol and the occasional meal out or baking supplies. Oh I also recently bought a 3 month gym membership 170 dollar since it’s too cold to play outside as much as I used to.

I’m not a great teacher, and I don’t really want to me. Not a middle school foreign English teacher at least. Maybe it’s because the kids don’t want to learn, maybe it’s me. My lessons mainly consist of sports, music, games, and movies, since this keeps them from completely checking out. I doubt the students take much away from my class. Sometimes I put some work into a lesson, think of some stuff I think it’s important for them to know. Even when they are engaged and enjoy the lesson, they just throw away their worksheets on the way out of class. I believe that this is what standardized learning does to children; saps their imagination and desire to increase their knowledge, leaving them like robots who only study to pass the test. In a sense this is what it did for me, and if anything it’s far more pronounced in Korea. I don’t give grades and the majority of the students have already decided they don’t like English, I have convinced most them to like me (mostly just by playing soccer and joking around with them), but not the language.

My older host brother (12) wakes up before me and goes to bed after me, usually memorizing endlessly throughout the day. Korea’s ridiculously high standardized test scores come at a price, and it is the well being of their youth. When at home my host parents rarely attempt to communicate with me. I am told that small talk is not a thing in Korea, and that it’s perfectly natural for me to walk by my host mother every morning and not exchange a word or even a glance. Still it contributes to my feelings of loneliness; sometimes I think I would be happier in an apartment.

In the evenings my host brothers fight, and the younger one (9) whines worse than anything I have ever heard, fake crying just until he gets noticed. Then the host mot yells (also in an unbelievably whiny voice). Everything Koreans say is whiny, even when they’re angry. My host is a homemaker, but she also sometimes babysits for mentally handicapped children; one in particular who lives in our apartment complex. He can’t speak but still wines, though a lot less than the rest of my family. He usually shuffles about on his knees, though I've seen him pull himself up and walk on his feet, it seems he usually just can’t be bothered. I wonder who understands less of the goings on in the house, me or him. Sometimes we smile at each other as the mom is berating the kids for this or that, like were sharing a private joke of confusion.

My proudest moment as an English teacher in my first semester came on the soccer pitch. On the last Friday of every month after lunch the kids have a club day, which means they get to pursue sports, film, music or other activities. The athletic kids all choose soccer, and somehow it is has been decreed that the game always consists of second graders vs third graders (or 8^th graders vs 9^th graders if were going by American ages). The third graders always win. I don’t think there has been a game in the history of Seogwipo boy’s middle school in which the second graders have won. It’s not their fault, one year makes a bit difference at age, and the third graders are clearly faster, stronger and more skilled.

So why the hell would they make all of the less physically able players get squashed by the more physically able players once a month? I’m not sure, something to do with Korean ageism and putting the youngins in their place I guess. Anyway they asked me to play with the second graders to try and make it slightly fairer, and to put the foreigner in his place too. And they did the first few games, they beat us handily, scoring whenever they felt like it, and then replacing their best and fastest players with other third graders once the victory was ensured.

I realized the biggest problem was their speed. In all the other categories the second graders were almost as good, but the third graders could just boot the ball and then their two or three fastest players could run around the second graders and score pretty much whenever they felt like it. To be honest some of those 15 year olds are better than me, in a few years they’ll probably be a lot better than me, but as of right now none of them are faster than me. So the last game of the year I decide to just sit back on defense and not let them get any of them get those long balls that they normally use to decimate the poor second graders.

It worked surprisingly well. Every time they tried to kick it over our heads I beat them to the ball and passed it up to our forwards. It wasn't long before we put a few in the back of the net. As time was winding down we were up 4-3 to the surprise of everyone, including myself, and a group of third graders had gathered around their goal anxiously waiting to be vindicated in the belief the third graders would always beat second graders.

That’s when the coach made his last attempt at salvaging the game for the third graders, calling out that it was currently tied (even though it wasn't) and that next goal wins. A cheap move, but by now our team had realized we had nothing to be afraid of, and sure enough after a few minutes we scored the winning goal. Or we would have if one of the third graders standing behind the net hadn't run out and blocked the shot that had already passed the goal keeper and was destined to end the age based hierarchy of Seogwipo middle school.

But he was too late, everybody knew what had happened; the game was over and the second graders reigned victorious. My poor boys were too confused to celebrate, they didn't know whether to congratulate each other or apologize to the other team for beating them fair and square. So without further ado everyone packed up and went home. Now the third graders are gone and the second graders from last year are the new third graders. Our first sports day is this Friday, I wonder what will happen J. Now you may say, what in the world does this have to do with teaching English, to which I would respond, look how much better behaved my third graders are now!!