Korean School/Where I Work

School is quite intense in Korea. Most students will go to a public or private school at around 8 am. They get done in the early afternoon, maybe around 3 or so and then return home and do homework for a while. Several hours each evening are spent going to various extra academies, of which the most common are English academies or Hogwons. They get home around 9ish, just in time to work on their homework from school and the academies. They go to bed around 11. Wash, rinse and repeat. They also have Saturday classes most weekends at their schools. Remember, this is the typical schedule for the Elementary School students I work with. As they get older, the schedules only become more demanding. Every day when I ask the students how they are they say they are tired. I ask what their plans are for the weekend and they say they will be going to school and studying. It does sound like they normally have time to do something fun Saturday and Sunday afternoon/evening. I remember the days being pretty long and boring when I was in high-school, but I’m glad I didn’t have to grow up in Korea.

I am working at an English academy that teaches elementary students ranging from 3rd-6th grades. The academy is pretty large and one of many branches of a large chain that operates throughout Korea. We have 7 foreign (native English speaking) teachers on my elementary school floor, which I understand to be an extremely large number for a Korean English academy. Many hogwons are small independently owned and operated businesses that employ only one or maybe two foreign English teachers. They regularly spring up, run for a while, and if they are unsuccessful, the teachers are laid off and the school will eventually go out of business. The floor above us is the middle school branch of our school which employs another 4 foreign teachers. We are employed by either the middle school or the elementary school but teachers occasionally will have to sub on the other floor.

On my floor, English ability varies and most kids are grouped by ability into one of 3 main groups. These groups are each further divided into three additional groups for a total of 9 different class levels. In the highest levels, several of the students have lived in USA or Canada for a year or more and a couple kids have spent enough time there that they have no discernible accent. The lowest level students are just learning the language and can only understand the simplest sentences and vocabulary. I think teachers in these levels end up singing a lot of songs. Most of the students are somewhere in the middle. I just received my class assignments and I have 6 different sections in the middle range which I teach 3-4 times a week. Some of my coworkers were quite happy when they found out which classes I was taking from them because they have some behaviorally challenged students. I think I only have to teach the worst group on two days each week, so I think it will be okay.

It will be nice to start teaching and get to get to know my classes. For the last couple weeks I have just been filling in for teachers in random classes. One of the teachers was on vacation upstairs, so I was subbing for half of her classes and the bosses didn’t want me to start teaching my actual classes because they thought the students would get confused if the teachers kept changing. I got a lot of practice with different classes and abilities which was a nice way to ease my way into teaching. I feel that the most difficult part of teaching is just getting to know the students and their individual abilities and how strict you need to be as a teacher. It will also be nice to have a more regular routine, both on a daily basis, and also in each class as the books are somewhat standardized so that each class can be similarly structured. It was a little chaotic trying to figure out what I was going to be teaching when I was in a different place with a different class and different books most days.

This past weekend I was able to go to Haeundae Beach with my friends Pat (a high school friend from Duluth who lives nearby in Busan) and Aaron (one of my coworkers who works in the middle school). We played Frisbee for an hour or so and then jumped into the sea. The water was pretty cold, but both Pat and I agreed it wasn’t much colder than the average summer day on Park Point swimming in Lake Superior. After we walked around a nearby park on the coast for a while, we met up with some more of my coworkers and went to “Russia Town” for dinner. One of the elementary school teachers at my school was born in St. Petersburg and moved to Boston when he was 9. He is fluent in Russian so he found us a restaurant, ordered our food in Russian, and was able to speak to the waitress (owner?) about whatever it is Russians like to chat about. I had never had borsch but it was delicious. All of the Korean food I have had is pretty amazing too, but I’ll write about that another time.

Where I live

If you are like me prior to planning this excursion, your knowledge of Korean geography may not be very expansive, so I thought I would post a couple of maps on here just to make it easier to know my whereabouts. The first map is of Korea and Busan is labeled in the southeast corner. It is pretty close to Japan and about as far from Seoul as one can be while still being in Korea. The population is about 3.6 million makes it, by far, the largest city in which I have lived.

The second map is of the Busan Subway. I live on the far right side of the map right next to the Jangsan subway stop. If walk out of the front door of my building I come to an entrance to this subway stop before I even reach the first corner. Although I have not yet ventured very far via subway, I anticipate this close proximity to the subway will be nice. It has already been helpful when traveling home by taxi as all of the drivers know after I attempt to say "Jangsan" or the more polite "Jangsan yuk ka chuseyo" that I am trying to go to the Jangsan Station. It is also to live at the end of the line for a novice rider of the subway as I can't really head the wrong way. All of the signs are written in both Korean and English, so it is pretty user friendly overall for someone with no Korean ability.

Two stops down the line is the "Haeundae" stop. Haeundae Beach is probably the most famous beach in Korea. It only takes about 15 minutes to walk there from my apartment. I think it is swim-able from May to September. While I have yet to visit, I expect I will spend plenty of time there once it warms up a little more. Save July and August when Korean people go to the beach in drovesI don't think it is really too crowded.

This past Saturday, I was looking for some cleaning supplies. On advice from some of my colleagues, I went to E-Mart. I think this store is the Korean equivalent of Walmart or any other big box retailer. I didn't really know what to expect, but since it was only about a 10 minute walk I figured I'd give it a try. When I got to the store, there were people everywhere coming out and going in. It was a very large store with pretty much anything you could want available. I quickly found some mops and thought I was in the right general location. After almost buying a scouring brush, I found some sponges and a broom/dustpan set in a nearby aisle. Now all I needed was soap and I thought I could find it nearby. I looked everywhere, but couldn't find it. I found children's toys, school supplies, electronics, appliances, clothes, cookware, car wax, but no soap. Imagine going to a disorganized Target that is on 4 different levels and not being able to read any of the signs. After wandering around for about 45 minutes I finally found some downstairs in the grocery store. It was incredibly hot in the store; I'm guessing due to the number of people shopping on a Saturday afternoon. I probably looked a little shady because I was walking around the same areas for so long with my jacket tied around my waist, and I was worried there would be some weird checkout or something I would miss and they would think I was trying to shoplift. It all worked out and my bathroom and kitchen are now clean. Also, thanks to all the time I spent unintentionally "exploring" E-mart, I should know where to find most anything I might need in the future.

*note* I have a several pictures I have taken of my building and elsewhere in the city but am currently having problems uploading them. They should be up soon.

Arrival in Korea

I made it here safely. It was a long trip but I was a little delusional due to sleep deprivation so my memory of it isn't too horrible. I left Duluth at 6am and it took about 2 hours to get to Detroit where I had a 4 hour layover before heading to Tokyo. The flight was listed as 13.5 hours but we made it in a mere 12 hours of which I was able to sleep 4 or so. I only had to wait about an hour and a half in Tokyo before heading off for the last leg to my final destination, Busan. Ironically, we left the land of the rising sun just after dusk. It was cloudy leaving Tokyo, but had cleared up by the time we were approaching Busan. I'm really glad the skies were clear because it was beautiful coming into the city. It is Korea's largest port and largest coastal city. There is a ton of development and lights everywhere with beautiful lit bridges and traffic. Flying over it seemed to just keep going and going, we could have been in a holding pattern, but I'm pretty sure it is actually just that big. It was really an amazing view that I will not forget. By the time I landed I had been traveling for about 24 hours.

I was told that a man was to meet me at the airport and pick me up to go meet with my school's director. After passing through customs and picking up my luggage I headed out and looked for someone holding a sign with my name on it. I found a man who had a sign that said:

JAMES BLOD
-----GELT

I didn't recall being affiliated with any GELT organization, but I figured that the first part was too similar to my name for this not to be the right guy. I was told that he wouldn't speak English, so there was no real way to confirm that this was my man but it seemed right so I went with him. After riding in the back of the van and looking at the sign sitting in the passenger seat for a while I finally realized that the driver had just put my last name on two lines and misspelled it.
The traffic was crazy and it took us about 45 minutes to drive from the airport to our first destination, which I thought would be the school. Instead, we went somewhere else where a package was waiting for me. Inside was my cell phone that my recruiter had procured for me. I had been told by other people at my school that it was a common practice for the new teachers to live in a motel for the first week or two so I was expecting that we would be heading to a motel. We went to an underground parking garage and waited around for about 5 minutes while the driver talked to people on his cell phone. It seemed like we were in the right place and just waiting for our contact.

A guy named Kenneth, who apparently is a Korean guy who speaks English and works at my school, came along with a guy I happen to already know, Joel. (Joel is a cousin of one of my Carleton friends and we all lived together in Minneapolis after we graduated, so I had met him a couple times back home; coincidentally, we are both now working at the same school and living in adjacent buildings.) So we get in the elevator and go up to floor 9. We stop at one of the first doors near the elevators room 909--Joel told me it's easy to remember because of the Beatles song--and head inside. I was still under the impression that it was my motel room, but for whatever reason I was placed in my actual room right away. It was bigger than I expected and a little more modern. Unfortunately, it wasn't totally clean. I'm not sure If I would have really noticed if I didn't have that practice deep-cleaning dorm rooms last Summer. My room is still quite messy, as I don't have any hangers, But I have a couple photos of it and will post some more once I actually get settled in.