Looking for work in Kangnam

It was late March, 1997. Although I was staying at Heather's place in Bundang, I decided I wanted to find work in Seoul. So I went to Kangnam, which was not only the location of Seoul's first Internet cafe (Web Village), but was also the place in southern Seoul you went to for decent nightlife.

The first place I visited was Pagoda, a well-known language academy for adults. Armed with my resume as well as wearing my shirt and tie, I walked into the Pagoda building to apply. Strangely, they told me that Pagoda only hired directly from America. What??? Here I am, already in Korea, so you don't need to buy my plane ticket, and I can do a sample lesson for you, and I have prior experience in Korea. But you won't hire me precisely for those reasons? Okay, screw Pagoda.

Next, I went to ELS, which was known as a reputable school. I actually had an interview of sorts, and the person seemed interested. In the end, this person didn't commit to offering me a position, so I thanked him and left.

So, I went down the street to a shiny glass building that said Global Language Institute on the front. Hey, what can I say? I like shiny glass buildings. When I walked inside, I recognized one of the foreign teachers as a regular at Web Village. He was dressed in a suit. Wow! This seemed like a real school, probably with important students. The teacher's name, by the way, was Dan, who would become one of my best friends in Korea (and the kind-of best man at my wedding).

I was initially given one morning class since the school was short a teacher. I took the school up on this offer because I thought it would give me a leg up on a contract position later. For that one class of one hour and 40 minutes, five days a week for one month, I was paid something like 750 000 won.

This was April 1997. I was enjoying the school and the other teachers. I really wanted to work here fulltime. I remember that I eventually received a phone call from a guy named Michael, who was the Academic Director (or something) -- again, sounded very formal. He called me to the downtown office of Global so that I could give a sample lesson. I did this the next day, and the lesson went well. Michael was also dressed in a suit, but he was a fun-loving kind of guy, I sensed. Actually, very fun-loving, I was to find out later. But he took his job seriously, and I heard that when he taught, he was careful to review every mistake his students made. I didn't necessarily agree with his approach (hey, five minutes of student speaking, then 30 minutes of teacher correcting!), but he was respected for it.

I signed a contract that day, and even managed to convince Michael to increase my monthly salary to 1.4 million won per month (standard at that time was 1.2). This felt like a coup, since I rarely convince people to do anything. Ironically, later that same day, the guy from ELS called and offered me a job. I told him I had already signed a contract with Global, which I would be honouring. He told me I could break it if I wanted to work at ELS, but I wondered why a guy would even want to hire someone who would so easily and quickly break a contract. I politely declined, and it was a decision I did not regret.

Thus, at the beginning of May, 1997, I began my official second job as an ESL teacher in Korea.