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...