Gyeongbokgung Palace

This past Saturday I did my first bout of sightseeing.  I went with my Mandarin Chinese language teacher (Yuu) and her friend (whose name escapes me) to Gyeongbokgung Palace. I had yet to do much historical sightseeing as most of my outings had a purpose of either food or a movie.

A real quick note about my Mandarin teacher. Yuu is 25 years old in international age.  She is attending Grad school for teaching and as a requirement of most Chinese University’s they make you teach their native language to a different area for a year. She is here now teaching Koreans Mandarin around this area. I just happened to hear about her through friends (as anyone not Korean is considered a foreigner and every foreigner makes it a habit of knowing others in this area) so I asked where she lived so I could inquire about lessons. Come to find out she lives in the apartment literally right across from me. Go figure. Now twice a week we get together and have two hours of Mandarin lessons for 20,000 Won.

(That is Yuu on the right and her friend on the left)

Anyways we boarded a bus to the nearest train stop which is about 15 minutes away. We then proceeded to jump on Train Line 1 all the way to the City Hall exit (about 45 minutes.)  After meeting up with her adorable friend (who looks like she is 18 but is actually 24) we started walking down the street to the Palace. On the way we went down this handcrafted arts street. Here there were wooden masks, wind chimes, trinkets and all sorts of do-dads. Let’s just say I’m glad I haven’t gotten paid yet.  We stopped when we saw a crowd crowding around something. After listening for a few minutes we finally figured out that it was an example of a traditional Korean wedding. We stayed for a short time but were completely lost because we came in on the middle of the ceremony.

After seeing these huge walls we knew we had arrived. We paid the modest gate entrance fee of 3,000Won and started walking towards the main gates. Luck for us we came in right when they were showing the traditional gate guard arrival ceremony. As a Bass player I can usually keep a beat but the music they were playing I actually found it hard to keep rhythm. I got to get some of instruments.

(The first thing we saw once we got the tickets)

(Gate Guards arrival. Those swords were real!)

The arrival of the Guards in Gyeongbokgung Palace from Joel Tillman on Vimeo.

Some facts about the Palace. The name means Palace Greatly Blessed by Heaven. The Palace was built in 1395, three years after the Joseon Dynasty was founded, and it served as the main palace. When the Japanese invaded in 1592 the Palace was burnt to the ground. However it was re-built in 1867 and expanded until, surprise surprise, the Japanese tore it down once more. Once again it was rebuilt to what they thought was the original specs and has stood since (I hear those Japanese are too worried about Dolphins and Whales nowadays.)

I won’t bore you with the rest of the details (that’s what Wikipedia is for anyways) but we all walked around speechless the entire time.

(This is the outer-courtyard. Its hugeee)

(Through those gates lies the inner-courtyard)

(The kings palace)

(This thing was huge)

(I have decided to remodel my loft in this fashion. Good idea?)

(Vertigo 101)

(That guard was unhappy with us)

(This is the Queens little area)

We then got free admittance to the Korean Folk Museum (after literally sneaking past the guard, Ninja Vanishing at its best. Herman would be proud) After seeing some cool movies, exhibits and learning a little about Korea’s history we made our way back to the Palace area. Making our rounds more one time to make sure we didn’t miss anything we started to head home. 

All three of us had 0 energy and needed food to make it home. We wondered around the same3 blocks (as they were the only ones that had restaurants on them for a while) looking at the pictures for anything that looked appetizing. We took our chances and just went in one. After trying to talk Engrish to the owner for a while her assistant came over and, surprise surpise, spoke Chinese.  What we wound up getting was basically a giant bowl of Chicken, Cabbage, Spicy Spices and Korean Rice. We cooked it to our specifications and ate every…… last…… damn….. bite.

We then made our way back to the subway, said our goodbyes with Yuu’s friend and made our way home with this guy guarding our journey.

Arrive Finals

This is the last of the arrival series and should bring us up to current day Korea.

Stella and Paul came over to my apartment after they got off for the day. They showed me around the town which I had already gotten lost in a few times since. We went to get my fist real meal in Korea right off the bat and thank god because I was starving at this point for something else besides candy from the local 7-11. Luckily for me this restaurant had a picture menu so I chose the most familiar item on the menu…sushi. For 2,000 Won (or 2 dollars) I had 8 of the best California rolls I have ever had! I don’t quite remember what everyone else got so I will move on. We continued to walk around town with them showing me some places to remember. One of these places is the family mart. Family Marts are basically mini full grocery shops. They are usually a few isles with smaller cooler sections and everything is very compact in them. There is a Family Mart brand name strand but much more that resemble this basic structure. Some of them have more items and others better fruits and so on. I have one literally right across the street from me that has fantastic red apples. 

And a man we call lurch.

We parted ways and I went back to the family mart to do a little grocery shopping.  The next few days were spent me sleeping still trying to get my full body back on track here. Also with no phone or internet in my apartment yet I felt very isolated. I mean I have always felt this way a little bit but this was unlike anything I had experienced before. Sure I had the PC rooms but by the time I went to go get on them everyone in the states were asleep. I remember there was a point in this three day haze that I really thought I had made a huge mistake. I would never be happy here nor did I belong here. If I had money at that point I might have fled the country.

However I stuck it out and Sunday rolled around. Around 6 o’clock my native Korean co-teacher arrived to do a quick inspection of the apartment. We met and made brief small talk. After the inspection was done she told me she would pick me up on Monday for my first day of classes.

My arrival to the school on my first day was an eye opening experience. The drive there alone left me so awestruck I forgot to take pictures of it (this was the pace of the whole day.) I am use to mountains visiting family in the hills of Virginia but for some reason these mountains seemed so much more to me. The valleys were very small as were the houses in them. Every once and a while you would see a bigger house on stilts on the side of the mountain but the farther North I went the rarer those got. I asked my teacher about this and she said that these small little towns have been here since before the war and at one time the whole country was full of them. Only lately have the bigger cities started to build north again. The mountains are nearly impossible to describe let alone driving through them. The pictures do them little justice but they give you an idea.

On a note to myself; this is a much better place to do the scarewolf video I have been planning for a while now.

Arrival at the school was the perfect timing. All the kids were in their homeroom classes so my entry was still unknown to them.  I arrived to meet the faculty (none of which speak English besides my co-teacher) and the Principle. With a warm smile he greeted me with a handshake. I greeted him with a very low bow while shaking his hand.

In Korea it is customary to bow to your superiors when meeting or saying hello. The principle of course deserves a very deep bow whereas a middle aged woman who gives me someone deserves a bow but not so low. With this said you never want to substitute a head nod for a bow as most people will see this as rude. These see it as being lazy and you might as well not bother. Now when someone who is not of your level greets or says goodbye to you they bow but you do not. Example: my students bow when I give them candy for doing an extra goof job but I do not bow to them. I cannot intenerate this enough but it is all about respect in Korea. So much so it is embedded into their language.

Anyways, back to the school. I walked into the office to see that all the teachers share an office.  I got my own desk and school laptop. While waiting for my first class to begin a few students came into the office for one reason or another but when they spotted a new teacher their eyes got as big as dinner plates. The boys and girls alike seemed very shocked and shy once they saw I was in the office. I do not blame them for the simple fact that these are very small town kids who see maybe one American every two years or so let alone someone to tall and big as me. The girls were the funniest first reactions for the sheer fact of how shy they are. One would come in and see me, give a quick startled cry and shimmy out of the office. She would tell her friends and they would come stare as me through the crack in the quarter opened door. They would all giggle and whisper to themselves but when I would look at the looking at me they would all bashfully run off.  A few of the bold ones came in and tried to talk to me in English but it was very simple greeting stuff (these kids level of English is below that of the average middle schooler, for now.)  One kid, who is quickly becoming my favorite student, came in and wanted a very gangster handshake. He is a good student but he LOVES to do weird handshakes, high fives and shoulder pounds.

I had all of my three grade levels that day so I got to do introductions to all the students. I made a powerpoint telling them a little bit about myself with my hobbies, family and photos of said things.  Then they got to ask me questions. The most common questions I got were: are you single, are you married, do you have kids, how big is your shoes and one class clown was asking me for my sister’s number. After the day of introductions my co-teacher took me to the hospital for my initial checkup. Without going into great detail I will say that socialized medicine is the way to go; dirt cheap, clean services and very quick and efficient.

For the remainder of the week I got my feet on the ground and started meeting other teachers in my town. Come to find out there are around 12 teachers in this town and they are all wonderful people. We had a going away dinner on Thursday for the man who gave me lesions on being a good teacher on Wednesday. 90% of the teachers got together for this as he is the leader of the group of teachers, so to say. There was not one teacher who was from the same area or state and half of them are from other countries. I will save talking about food for later entries but as you can see they know how to eat. By the end of the night and a half bottle of Soju later I was crying from laughing so hard at some of the jokes being told.

This weekend I wanted to see Clash of the Titans (or Titan as its known here) so we took a bus to a town called Bosan. Bosan is where the big American base is in the North. The second I got off the bus and started walked around I started feeling sick to my stomach. I couldn’t figure it out at first but then I started to notice why. That whole town has been catered to the American solders coming to party off base. From all the Pilipino in town (Pilipino women are the primary hookers in town, I am not joking. Red light and call girls all over) to all the Pawn shops I felt sick from seeing the worse parts of America collected into one town. I’ll save a movie review but know while I was waiting for the bus that night I had plenty of time to open my ears to the solders around me parting. Men talking about big dicks, fighting, getting laid, how drunk they are and screaming at anything they don’t like. I got on the bus light night with utter disgust in my heart at this portrayal of Americans. Now I think it was just too soon for me to enter an area which is such a surreal American dream to these people. I got off at my town where barley any English spoken thanking god I was living here and not there.

As I write this now I am sitting on my bed with a pink bed sheet thanking the heavens for the opportunity that has presented itself to me. I have been to Seoul twice (once again entries based only on this will come later), found some good sources of friends and good food and finally have my feet dug in firmly in this place.

The next year should prove to be quite interesting, to say the least. 

Brief Intermission: Interview

I did an interview with a local Orlando newspaper. I am going to copy the transcript as I think it is very informative.


Kevin: You mention on your blog, ‘The Wind Is Blowing’, about receiving your E2 work visa stamp and signing a full-year contract before starting your trip out to South Korea. Was there any particular group or organization that was able to assist or walk you through the process of looking for work in a foreign country? Did someone help you in your planning/finding a school to teach in, or were you on your own to discover/apply to each possible school?

Joel: Indeed I did have outside help. The agiency I used is called "Teach ESL Korea" (http://www.teacheslkorea.com). I know there are other good agencies friends have used such as "Footprints" (http://www.footprintsrecruiting.com). These agencies help you from the time you turn in your application till the moment you are settled into your school. Usually the way it works is you look at all the requirements and turn in an application. Someone usually emails you back with the current status of the teaching market and asks you a few questions. When they know what type of job in what level you are looking for they start looking at schools for you. When they find a school that needs a native English speaker they email you back with the schools info and a sample contract. If you like it they set up an phone interview with the English co-teacher (native Korean) at that school. If everything goes well then you are hired! After sending off a bunch of documents to the school you wait for the Korean Government to issue you a E2 visa number. Once you have that then you can apply and set up an interview with a Korean Consulate in the States. Once you have a interview date you let the recruiter know and they book you a ticket less than a week after your interview date. There are also other places like Dave's ESL cafe (http://www.eslcafe.com/) where a job board allows you to apply yourself. However, I would recommend finding and using a agency to find a job as some of the paperwork is very,very,very confusing and they can fight for more vacation time for you and such.

Kevin: What subject will you be teaching in South Korea? What is the school and city you will be teaching at?

Joel: Most of the jobs people find overseas are teaching English jobs (unless you get into a international company or Peace-corps). The job I found was at Baek-hak Middle School located in Yeoun-cheon-hun. It is a smaller rural town and the kids feel ashamed that their English is not at the level of a bigger school. This is why I chose a smaller school in a smaller town because I have a better chance to make a positive difference in these young peoples lives.

Kevin: Aside from the satisfaction of living/learning a new culture and location, were there any major financial benefits/arrangements that made South Korea your choice of location to teach at?

Joel: South Korea spends most of it's government income on education. As it is in many Asian countries the kids are pushed very hard to get a good education. With English being such a widespread language and quickly becoming the language of business many schools are willing to pay good money to import native English speakers. Salaries change depending on your background (more money for graduate degrees, experience and majors of education/teaching) but they start you out at a good rate. I currently get the starting pay of 1,900,000 Won (or about $1696.70) per month with a 100,000 Won bonus of being in a smaller town (plus more paid vacation days). Usually bills (electric, cell, internet, water) come out to $100 a month, depending, and as everything else is cheap living expenses come out to around $600 a month. What I'm getting at here is it is very possible to save $1,000 a month here! You also get 11 days paid sick leave, 24 paid vacation days (I get 30 because of the rural area), your airfare is paid for on both arrival and departing (after a years contract completion) and you get a month severance bonus upon completion of the contract.  

Kevin: Were there any other countries that you considered pursuing a teaching position in before settling on South Korea?

Joel: Like most people I looked into Japan. However I have a friend there and saw both how hard he fought for a rural position (forget Tokyo) and the high cost of living in Japan.  With experience it becomes easier to land a job there but the pay is still nothing compared to Korea. I then looked into the Peace Corps for the tuition reimbursement but after talking to some people in it I realized that trying to get them to pay off your student loans is like pulling teeth for years on end once your complete your two years. Plus the pay sucks if it exists at all. When looking for ESL jobs you have to think rationally. Which areas really need to learn English? All of the  Western Europe areas are out, most islands are out and Eastern Europe nations cant even escape poverty. This leaves mainly the Asias. Out of all those I ran some numbers and figured out that to pay my student loans Korea was my best bet. 

Kevin: Do you have any concerns/reservations with the current and future state of teaching positions within the United States that drove you to look elsewhere for employment?

Joel: I am a Finance/Statistics Major and while my GPA was not the best I scored in the top 25% of the nation on my Major Field Tests. I have plenty of Managing experience and a diverse work history. After three months of looking (not including job fairs in college) I was broke and had no possibilities. We all know the American job market is bad right now so instead of struggling to find any sort of job that I wasn't overqualified for I decided whats the rush? Why not go have a once in a lifetime adventure and get paid, well, for it!

Kevin: How has your room/board been taken care of for the duration of your stay? Did you pick out your own place or was it taken care of as part of the contract?

Joel: I live about 30 minutes outside of the town I teach in. The city I live in is called Jeongok and is a medium sized city with all the ESL teacher living in it. They put me here so I would not get homesick as easily. They also pay for my apartment. Each apartment comes with a bed, rice cooker, tv, cable, internet (Fiber), couch, dresser, table, washer, gas grill and a fan. These are all in your contract and you must have them. I also got lucky and they put me in a three story building with eight other ESL teachers living in it. They take care of their teachers in Korea. 

Kevin: Can you say yet whether or not the school you are teaching at hosts many foreign teachers, or are most teachers there native to South Korea?

Joel: Every single teacher here is a native Korean. I have one co-teacher who speaks fluent English but the rest barley speak any. My co-teacher is the English teacher for this school and we work together on lesson plans for the week or fun activities. Typically there is one native English teacher to a school but some of the larger ones have two native English teachers. 

Kevin: Do you have any friends or acquaintances that have also decided to pursue teaching outside of the United States after receiving a US degree, whether South Korea or elsewhere?

Joel: That is exactly how I found out about Korea! I have two friends from Florida (one from Orlando and one from Lakeland) who currently teach in South Korea.

Kevin: Ates had mentioned to me something about the number of applications having grown exponentially between the year you applied and the previous year? Can you tell me at all about this? Do you know what the figures of growth in application size actually were?

Joel: In March of 2009 there were 200 positions open for the GPEIK board. 150 people applied so everyone got in. In March of 2010, when I applied, there were 189 openings for the GPEIK board with 800+ people applying. (Real quick explanation. GPEIK board is the government board that places teachers in a certain providence, or state. This one was for the Seoul region. You can find individual schools without them but it has always been the easiest way to apply for a job.) Because of the huge increase some of the schools are starting to get stricter with their prereqs for being considered for a job.   

Kevin: Are there any assumptions and/or knowledge you might have about why there is a particular growing trend to teach in South Korea?

Joel: I think all the things I have said above make it a very attractive industry. Also, without going off on a huge tangent, I think we are entering a new age of globalization and this is the beginning signs of it.

Kevin: Have you been to South Korea at all before? What kind of preparations have you made to learn the language and customs of the culture before moving overseas to fill our teaching position?

Joel: I have been over half of the world at this point in my life (I am 24 for the record) but I had never been to any of the Asian countries. Not knowing how to prepare for such a diverse and different culture I turned to the internet. There are plenty of websites out there, including some of the websites I mentioned above, that prepare you for a culture that is almost 180 degrees of our own. I won't bore you with all the small details but there are plenty of multilingual people here that are more than willing to have language exchanges or let you pay them for Korean lessons. I would try to learn as much as I could of the language before I came here but it is not necessary. They do not want you to speak any Korean in the classroom as it forces the kids to learn. 

Arrival Pt. 2

Ok so here goes the second part of a three part arrival series.

I lied when I said that nothing much had happened on the plane ride. Something really funny did happen. I was sitting next to a sweet older Korean lady. During the last three hours of the 14 hour plane ride we got to talking. She was giving me advice on Korea such as things to see, the people, the culture. I have been keeping a moleskin notebook with all the important information in it that might come in handy one day as a travel guide to some people. She saw me writing in it as we talked and offered to write, in English, some of the spots she was talking about visiting while I was in Korea. After writing a few pages she started to drawl Korea so she could show me where the island was. As I watched her I noticed she was basically drawing a penis with some “stuff” coming out of the tip. I started laughing to myself. She saw this and got confused until she looked at it again. She blushed a little bit and started laughing out loud herself. I had heard that Koreans love drawing penises on things but Jesus Korea; at least wait till I land in your country to show me this. I took Asiana airlines and not only did they have movies to watch that were still in theaters in Korea but they also has game pads way nicer than hotels for you to play video games. Already I was starting to see how much more technological advance they were than us.

I landed around 3 in the morning and it took me about an hour to get through immigration and customs. They had an airport taxi driver meet me to take me to my apartment. We arrived around 5 in the morning and I passed out around sunrise while trying to unpack.

As you can see in the pictures the apartment was a little different than what we are use to in the States. First off you have to take off your shoes before you enter your apartment. This is not only tradition but serves an important function as well. Instead of central air they heat and cool the floorboards. This is controlled by a thermostat on the wall which you can see as well. Some of the dials I do not understand but this thermostat controls water temp(bottom dial), heating said water(bottom right button to start heating)  and floor temperature(very top dial for temp in C, top right button to activate it.) The bathroom is one giant sink. You can literally do all three S’s at the same time. I found out a few days later that it is a good idea to get shower shoes (basically non-cloth sandals) so your socks do not get wet when you use the rest room. All you do it turn a little dial on the sink nozzle and it switches to the showerhead. I will go on record and say it is very fun to spray water everywhere while you are showering; it reminds me of being a little kid. Next we have the bed. Usually Koreans sleep on the floor on a mat with just a blanket over them. Because it is an apartment they got me a bed but there is little difference. The bed is rock hard with a pad over the mattress and a tiny blanket that just barely covers me. Sheets are not a big deal here and more people find them a bit silly. Then we have the laundry room. Dryers are VERY scarce here so usually they just have a washer and a place to air dry your clothes. Luckily the doors into the laundry room are very heavy so it does get warm enough to dry them quickly (a day or two for jeans.)

Back to the first day. I awoke a few hours later, around 9am, to school the sound of school children walking to school. Unable to sleep and knowing that I would rather suffer to get back on a good sleep schedule I stayed awake. It was around this time that I remembered that I had no information about the school besides it address. I didn’t know when I start, if they were coming here to get me, etcetc. I wanted to seem pro-active to I decided to walk in the direction of the children. I walked up to the school, and many staring eyes from the windows above, and told them I was their new English teacher. They seemed confused as they already had two English teachers but took me up to the administrator room. This is a room where all the head and co-teacher sit in between classes. I met one of the English teachers (Shella) and told her about my predicament. She, being the sweetheart she is, called the school and said that I was not to start till next Monday (it was then Wednesday mind you.) I then met the other English teacher Paul and we all had a little laugh about it with mine being way sadder than theirs. The principal of their school invited me to lunch. We all went into the lunch room after taking off our shoes and sat on the ground to eat. I believe they had rice (as with every meal), some spicy soup, Kimchi (I will go into this popular food later), marinated roots of some kind and beef marinated with the bone. I, being the tired poor fool I felt like, tried to eat one of the bones not knowing what it was. I have always had a phobia of bones in my food and almost freaked out in front of these strangers. Luckily the tiredness overwrote the phobia and I pushed right on through to the rice and Kimchi. I thanked everyone and started walking the six block walk back home.

On a side note, I need to say something about the Korean culture. They fully believe in sharing anything that is theirs with other people. The principle inviting a complete stranger to lunch is a perfect example of this. I will show more of this principle later on.

After walking home again I finally crashed around 3pm and slept till 10am the next day. Screw you jetlag, I conquered you. I wondered around town for a while getting lost for hours upon hours. Both teachers agreed to meet me the next day after they got off so once I finally found my way home in this strange city I sat at home and waited for them.

I think this is a good stopping point. I will post the third installment in the next few days that will bring us up to current day Korea. In the meantime here are some of those NY pics and other random ones taken during the first day of getting lost.