Stint #2 in Korea

So, last time I checked in, I had just finished working at ULI. I went back to Canada for five months, and then in December 1996, I returned to Korea. This time, I had no job lined up. I was staying at Heather's family's place. I really didn't know what was going to happen.

As it turned out, I went back to ULI - for one month. Just as I was arriving in Korea, another teacher at ULI was doing the 'midnight run.' This left the school in the lurch, as they had a classroom full of students, and no teacher. Since I was made aware of this situation in advance, I conveniently showed up at ULI that Monday morning. The school hired me on the spot.

It was different this time, as I was working illegally. My pay was actually higher, which was nice. But I was surprised to find out at the end of the month that I was not going to be hired fulltime. I could tell that this second year in Korea was going to be a bit more of a challenge.

After ULI, I was directed towards a couple of part-time opportunities. First was a job with a school in Seongnam (southeast of Seoul) that was being run by a former ULI teacher. This place was called Open Language Institute. The second job was a kindergarten position in Seoul near Shinsa Station. This position was recommended to me by Mr. Lee at ULI, whose brother was operating the kindergarten.

Open Language Institute was a dingy place, one floor in a non-descript building in the shabby city of Seongnam. Originally, I was going to teach a morning class of adult students. This seemed all right at first. I had a Korean co-teacher who basically did all the work. I just did pronunciation work, and for that I made decent money. However, after one month, the morning class dried up, and I was given some evening classes with middle school students.

I have a hard time remembering anything significant about the teaching at this place, but I have no trouble remembering the hassle I put up with trying to get paid. After two months, tensions had begun to rise with Paul, the boss. First, I had found out that he had lied to me about getting me a work visa (he didn't even have a license to run a language school). Then came the issue with my pay. Upon our mutual agreement for me to leave this job, he failed to pay me for the work I had done. That added up to 1.5 million won. Suffice it to say, I wasn't going to leave the issue quietly. I made numerous visits to Paul over the next month attempting to get my money. After a while, I finally got all my money, but it wasn't a pleasant experience.

The kindergarten job was something quite different, which is not to say it was any more pleasant. I was meeting three groups of students three days a week. The school itself was nice enough, as were the people who worked there. But I suspected that trying to teach English to kindergarten kids was not going to be a walk in the park. Of course, they had no interest in speaking English -- they didn't even have a conception of what English was, I'm sure. Basically, I talked while they did whatever they wanted. Believe me, this was no teaching job, no matter how hard I tried to make it so.

My fondest memory of this job was the time the little monsters started crawling all over me like I was a jungle gym. They were having fun, but I wasn't. In a moment forever seared in my memory, I looked at this one kid who was grabbing at my face and blithering away in Korean. I looked at her and matter-of-factly stated, "fuck off."

I quit this job soon after. How could I work in a place where I so obviously disliked what I was doing? One thing I promised myself is that I would never teach kindergarten again.

And so, I was back to square one, living in Korea and trying to find an ESL job that wouldn't drive me batty. And this would lead me to Kangnam.

To be continued...

Favourite hangouts during the ULI year

BeerPops - beer hall near ULI

Hollywood - dance club in Itaewon

TGIFridays - only significant western restaurant near ULI at that time

Tower Records - big CD store in Kangnam (no longer there)

Nashville - popular burger joint in Itaewon

Any pool hall - loved billiards in those days

ULI Photo Album

Here is my ULI photo album.

I've also got a clip of some video I took in 1998 when I said my final good-bye to ULI.

Best Memories of ULI

Obviously, the single best memory of my year at ULI was meeting Heather, who would later become my wife. But a little disclosure here: I did something pretty bad along the way. At the time that Heather and I started seeing each other, I already had a girlfriend in Canada. I'm not going to get into the long story of what happened, or why. Suffice it to say, I'm not proud that I hurt Miriam. It was a shitty thing to do to her, and she was justifiably pissed at me. Nevertheless, I know that I made the right choice with Heather. We seem to be just perfect for each other, and eight-plus years of marriage and two children seem to validate my belief.

At ULI, one of the interesting events we held was a Halloween party. Instead of teaching classes as scheduled, the English teachers got together and organized a big, multi-room bash with music and even alcohol. The alcohol part probably shouldn't have happened, but we sure had fun that night. I don't think the Japanese and Chinese teachers had much fun, though. They chose not to participate, instead opting to teach as scheduled, even with all the noise blaring from our rooms. Ha ha! Later that year, we also had a Christmas party.

Two of my favourite people from the ULI days were Rick and Brian. They were close friends, and I had great times with them, whether it was bowling, shooting pool, or talking about movies (Rick) or cars (Brian). Rick demonstrated how part of being a successful ESL teacher is telling stories. Students really ate up his stories of travelling to other countries -- in fact, I vividly remember the night he had just returned from trekking through the jungle in Thailand. He still hadn't even shaved, but he came to the school and visited my class. Since my lesson was boring, I asked him if he'd like to talk about his vacation. He came right in and started telling amazing tales, which may or may not have been embellished, but it was far more interesting for my students than doing American Compass or whatever text we were using at the time. And I learned first hand the value of using my own experiences as part of teaching ESL. After all, students seem to enjoy learning about their teachers.

Brian, meanwhile, taught me about the value of caring about teaching. He was a conscientious teacher, and I remember watching him almost berating himself one time for a lesson that he said "sucked." Today, Brian is a "real" teacher back in Canada, with a wife and a son. Genuinely one of the nicest guys I've ever met, and one of Heather's favourite expats. And he attended both our Korean and Canadian weddings. What more can I say about him? Well... he did have some quirks. Liked to sleep in the cheapest place he could find (a gosiwon - a closet with enough space to sleep on the floor). And he usually ate tuna and dubu (tofu), in an effort to save money. Otherwise, he was all right.

If I have one other fond memory of my year at ULI, it was playing pool every Friday night with Heather and the boys. I loved billiards in those days, and I became a decent player.

Actually, there is one more good memory from that year. It was the last time that I was truly thin. By the time I had returned to Canada, I think I was close to 150 pounds. Felt real good in those days. Was still just 24 years old.

I had a great girlfriend, too, although the future of our relationship was unsettled at the time. On my final night in Korea, we went to a night club at the Shilla Hotel. It was a strange night, because neither of us was sure that we would see each other again. At one point, Heather said she had a surprise for me. Immediately, my hopes were raised that she had decided to come with me to Canada. I was even willing to buy a plane ticket for her. That wasn't what she was telling me, however. In fact, I can't remember what she told me, because... and this is something I've never made public before... the Michael Jackson song "You Are Not Alone" started to play. And then I began to cry, because it felt like I was saying those words to her, or maybe she was saying them to me:

You are not alone
I am here with you
Though we're far apart
You're always in my heart
You are not alone

And, amazingly, whenever I hear that song, I start to cry. It always reminds me of that night when we both thought it might be over because I was leaving Korea. And it leaves no doubt in my mind that I made the right choice to go with Heather.

I think that was also the time I decided I would definitely be back in Korea in just a few months.

The Korean Staff of ULI

The very first person I met upon my arrival in Seoul on that July day in 1995 was Miss Chung. I never did find out what her full name was, she was always just Miss Chung. She was cute and very friendly, and she spoke reasonably good English, which made her an important link between the foreign staff and the boss. We all liked her.

Miss Chung eventually left to pursue studies in the U.S., and she was replaced by the bizarre Miss Gu. I took to calling her simply Gu. Two memories of Gu stand out for me. One was the time she came into work one morning at 6:30 as per usual after having spent the previous night at a ski resort getting her alcoholism on. She was so sick that every few minutes she ran to the bathroom to "give back that which she had taken" the previous night. We felt sorry for her because she just sat at her desk with her head down, moaning like a sick cow. The funny thing was, she was the person who had to greet visitors, including potential new students. Yet, ULI allowed her to sit there in agony, making the school look like the Betty Ford Clinic in the process.

The other Miss Gu story concerned a planned trip to Hong Kong. Originally, she, Anna (a teacher), and I had planned to go to Hong Kong on the Lunar New Year vacation. The problem was, Anna soon realized she couldn't go. I looked for another person to take her spot, and the matter was resolved when Heather (my kinda girlfriend, off and on), agreed to go. At least, I thought it was resolved, until whispers of Gu backing out of the trip arose. You see, an interesting side story to this affair was that Gu and Heather had been classmates in high school, and there was some minor history there. I don't know exactly what it was about, but Gu wasn't comfortable. However, everytime I asked her if she was still planning on going, she insisted she was. On the day we left, Heather and I went to the airport, and Gu was supposed to meet us there. Of course, she never showed. After we returned, she told us she had fallen and "broken her head," so she couldn't make it. Ahh, good ol' Gu.

Our manager was Mr. Shin. He was a quiet guy. Literally reminded me of an over-sized mouse. Other than that, there was nothing remarkable about this man.

The owner of the school, as we found out months later, was one Mr. Jack Suh, a guy who lived in Australia much of the year. I had virtually no relationship with this man.

There was also Little Mr. Shin. He was a guy brought in late during my year at ULI to whip the place into shape, or something like that. He worked side-by-side with the original Mr. Shin. We took to calling him the weasel because he looked like one and he acted like one. Or so we thought.

I remember the work of the sales staff, as well. ULI employed dozens of people to roam the streets and convince people that our teaching methodology would bring about the best results for them. In short, they supposedly promised people who could barely read English that they would be fluent in six months. Of course, when these people were invariably disappointed with their ULI experience, we teachers took the blame.

I'd also like to briefly mention some of the other teachers at ULI. This school not only taught English classes, but also Japanese and Chinese. Megumi, the native Japanese teacher, was funny and personable, and spoke impeccable English, as well. We had some very cute Chinese teachers, but since they didn't speak English, we never really got to know them.

Finally, I could never finish talking about ULI teachers without mentioning Anna Banana (yellow on the outside, white on the inside). Imagine Lucy Liu as your English teacher, that's what Anna was like. She was the daughter of a diplomat, so she spent most of her youth living overseas, attending international schools. She came back to Korea and became an English teacher. At the time we worked together, I would have believed that she could have become anything she wanted. As it turned out, she got married to a Korean guy and... well, I don't know how her story has turned out. I wish her all the best, though.

The Students of ULI

ULI was a language academy meant primarily for young adult and adult learners of English. This meant that my students were mainly business people, homemakers with spare time and money, and university or high school students. On occasion, younger students (elementary school age) were admitted. This was a big mistake. It altered the dynamic of the classroom. I remember one day having a seven-year-old girl brought into my adult conversation class. She cried non-stop. What the hell?!

Many of my students worked for the company that was building the bullet train (KTX, as it came to be known) railway system in the mid 1990's. There was nothing remarkable about them as students; I simply remembered that they were working on an important project that was helping to modernize Korea. Good for them.

I seem to remember a Mr. Lee and a Mr. Choi, two nice gentlemen who showed up everyday for their conversation class. Mr. Choi, as I recall, worked for Bausch and Lomb in Korea, and he gave me a whole bunch of free contact lenses. I also recall an elderly gentleman, 70 years old, who was a retired opera singer, I believe. He sang Happy Birthday to me on my 24th birthday, my first in Korea.

In general, I was amazed at the respect shown by Koreans towards me, in spite of the fact that I wasn't a very good teacher for them. They brought gifts on my birthday; as well, they took me out for lunch, or we would go for drinks after evening classes were finished. Some tried to set me up with private lessons.

The most memorable group of students at ULI were the people who comprised JBC, the Just Because Club. This group of university and post-university students included my future wife. They not only spent time as students in my classes, but they also allowed me to party with them after work, especially on Fridays.

I came to enjoy teaching these people. They were mostly fun to argue with, and I would rather just talk to people than try to teach them grammar or other boring shit any day of the week. In general, that's what students want anyway. They just want to try to converse about meaningful topics, and to develop friendships with their teachers. That was my strength, I think. This is also part of the reason why I would find myself less successful as a teacher of children years later. I simply relate better to adults.

And that's that.