Rewind

Today's meeting was bizarre.  We were about 15 minutes late, which turned out not to matter at all because Montana was in a meeting with Julia.  We came and sat in my classroom and a few minutes later, Montana joined us.  No Julia.  Even though she was on campus she did not show her face at our meeting.

Montana jumped right into giving Ian a rundown of how the classes went on Thursday (the day after we were fired).  Montana covered them at Haso while Ian and I took a day off work to clear our heads and figure out what we were going to do.  I stared out the window while Ian and Montana talked.  The meeting was hardly relevant to me at all.  It reminded me (exactly) of when Gene was working here.  This meeting was basically a carbon copy of every meeting we ever had with Gene, pointless and short.  At one point, Montana sketched a worksheet template suggestion (saying the note was from Julia) for Ian that is literally the graph style template we use for 95% of applicable worksheets.  

There was no mention of the firing.  There was no chastising or correcting.  It was as if we were normal, well liked employees and it made me so angry.  I will never let something like this happen to me again.  I know, now, how to see this kind of shafting coming and I am no longer naive enough to give an employer the benefit of the doubt.  There is too much at stake.

Montana went to close the (20 minute) meeting, but Ian and I stopped him to ask him some questions and clear up our timeline.  He supposed to get back to us with tax information, since he doesn't know much about that.  But, our last day of work is the 21st and we'll have someone (Julia, David or Montana) inspect the apartment on Thursday.  As soon as they see that we've left it in good shape (aside from a couple of burn marks from our gas range which we hope they'll overlook) they'll give us our last check.  Based on the bizarrely kind way they've been treating us this past week, I have a feeling they'll say the apartment is up to snuff.  After all, they've already got what they wanted, they're already saving themselves $6,000.   With check in hand, we'll be off to the bank to send the last of our money to our Chase account, change some currency and close our Korean accounts.  That will be a good day indeed.

Good night!

Mala Gente

"Mala gente" is Spanish for "bad people;" but (in Spanish) those words carry a lot more weight than their childish sounding English cousins.

Today's meeting went poorly.  So poorly that my memory of it is clouded with anger and difficult to flush out.  It was nearly 90 minutes of abuse and condescension.  I lost my temper, I didn't yell, but I spoke sternly.  Julia laughed.  I remember telling her that the students should bear 50% of the responsibility in the classroom.  She laughed and set me straight.  Toward the end, she realized she wasn't getting the responses she wanted out of me so she started talking to Ian about my inability to catch the many mistakes I make in the classroom.  "Why can't you see so many mistake?" she asked me again and again.  Then they (Julia + Montana) would pose "questions" like, "Your teaching skill isn't change enough, what do you think?"  I tried to explain that it wasn't really a question, but I was met with a simple, "Yes, it is."  

Montana didn't have our (my) backs.  No one in the country can be trusted to stand up for you.  It's every man for himself and, if there's any benefit to it, feel free to throw your neighbor under the bus.  Climb upon the backs of your peers if it means success.  Korea is a reflection of the worst in any industrialized nation.  Japan's business culture may be equally rough, but at least people treat each other with real respect (as opposed to the feigned variety); and Americans may be dog eat dog, but at least it's (usually) kept on a professional level.  You don't gain anything by tearing your employees down.

I'm sorry.  I try to keep these posts reserved because I don't feel there's a need to complain to a captive audience.  But, today's been a very, very bad day.

A face to the name (from 9 months ago):

Good night!

Seminar

On Friday, Sue told us that we were to attend a "foreigner meeting" at 10:30 on Monday (today).  I had read on Facebook that it was apparently a "sex ed" class and that only hagwon teachers would be in attendance.

I expected a big meeting hall in city hall with a moderately formal atmosphere and a Korean official of some kind doing the talking.

When we got into the cab and handed the driver the note (in Korean) we were given, he had no idea where to take us.  He asked us many questions that we didn't understand and eventually Ian called Julia and had her talk to the driver.  He took us to a parking lot surrounded by three buildings.  No one else was in the lot and we had no idea which building our meeting was in.  There was a man walking into one of the buildings, so we gave him the note hoping he would help us, but he just smiled and bowed.  That building turned out to be a gym.  The next one was an empty Tae Kwon Do studio.  So, we tried the last building and found the meeting and were handed pamphlets.  They were already 30 minutes into it.  Our hagwon had misinformed us.  There were maybe 15 people there and Andrew (a foreign teacher who has been here for about six months) was in the middle of the room doing the speaking.  Unfortunately, Ian and I arrived just seconds before Andrew spoke briefly on taking one's job seriously (as in, show up on time).  Andrew's far too nice to call us out or even think to, but I apologized after the meeting.

The topic was not sexual education, at least, not really.  The first half hour (which we missed, but I read in the pamphlet) seemed to be about cultural and workplace differences and how to deal with them.  Basically, foreigners are to kowtow (a word which, by the way, literally means to bow and touch one's forehead to the ground- a bow practiced in Korea under special circumstances and on holidays) to everything their employers  ask.  Supervisors do not expect to be questioned, so it should not be done unless one's reasons are very strong.  The second half of the meeting covered appropriate behavior between foreign teachers and students. Basically, they have parents at home to cuddle them and Korean teachers to discipline them, so do not touch them.  It is too easy for children to embellish stories and too difficult for foreigners to defend themselves.  No touch is good touch, completely contrary to what Julia has been demanding of us.  She has told me on several occasions to touch and cuddle my students so that on the street they may run up to me and hug me.  Ian actually told one of the Korean teachers at the meeting about our hagwon's request and she told us we were better off not touching students at all.  At the end of the meeting they reminded us not to private tutor.

Andrew later told us that it wasn't until Friday that he was told he'd be speaking at this meeting.  And even then, he was told he'd say a few words (in reality, he was handed a pamphlet and told to go for it).  Apparently, these meetings will be held twice a year.  Luckily, we'll be gone before the next one.

This meeting was just a further reminder of the bum deal we got with our hagwon.  Granted, they pay us well and on time, but they treat us pretty terribly.  As far as I could tell, all the other teachers came in groups, escorted by at least one Korean teacher.  Many of the schools provided transportation and lunch or coffee afterward.  Ian and I were left to catch taxis with no information as to where we'd be going (not too mention the start time miscommunication).  We left feeling alone and abused, not a good start to a week.

Last I heard, we still have a mandatory meeting with Julia tomorrow, so the good times will keep coming.

The Blame Game

Ian and I had a meeting with Julia this morning.  She was in great form this morning, laying the full weight of her company's financial problems on us.

As we sat down she brought out a sheet with the enrollment numbers for all three campuses.  She told us that, for Haso and Goam, the numbers were down 40 students from the beginning of the year (September).  She said that the "students don't want to come" because our classes are "not interesting or beneficial."  I talked to a student last week who told me he wasn't coming back next term.  When I asked him why, he told me that his mom didn't want him in classes at night, so they were going to find somewhere he could take a class an appropriate level class during the day.  It had nothing to with Yoon's itself.

Then she scribbled some math regarding our severance, airfare and remaining three months.  She asked us (and not hypothetically) how she should find the money to pay for that.

At one point, while Julia was chiding us for the seven months that we lazily "wasted time" ("Your teaching skill is fine now, but you wasted so much times," then she drew a time line from September to April, in case we didn't understand) Ian swallowed hard and told her that it was difficult to know how she felt about our performance during those months because Gene rarely spoke of it and when he did, he told us we were doing well.  Julia said, "But, Mr. Gene said he told you all these things, but you didn't listen.  That's why he choose to leave the company.  He felt he had no work to do here."  While I doubt that Gene actually felt that way, I do believe he may have said it to her, as he proved pretty spineless when it came to Julia.

This went on for nearly an hour.  Ian and I twisted uncomfortably in our seats wondering if she was just going to out and fire us.  Then her phone rang and she ran (quite literally) out of the room to take the phone call.  When she came back, she picked up one of the new books and started going over potential lesson plans with us.  We went through two books and then she dismissed us.  Just before we went to lunch, Ian tried to tactfully clarify that we were going to finish our contracts with the company.  She answered with, "Oh, just continue to do your best."  So, my guess is that we will be on our toes until August 31.

I was pretty tired after that meeting, but my classes went well.  The first day of a new term is always a little stressful.  The books make it easier to keep the students engaged and the time flew by.  I didn't have time to finish my lesson plans for tomorrow, but I should have ample time before tomorrow's begin.  I'm hoping things settle down enough for me to work on my article.

Good night!

Repackaging

Ian and I went to the Goam campus at 11 this morning for our meeting.  When we arrived, the place was dark and no one was there.  At 11:20 Julia called my phone and, sounding distressed, asked if Ian and I were currently at Goam.  I confirmed that we were there waiting and she told me she'd be there "ten minutes later."  I ran to Dunkin' Donuts to get some tea (and some air before what is always an exercise in anxious hand wringing these days).  Ian called as I was walking back to the building to tell me that Julia had gotten there about five minutes ago and was at the computer, meaning we were probably going to have a video conference with Terry.  Terry is Julia's son, for those of you who aren't familiar, who attends university in Australia.  In no official capacity is Terry attached to Yoon's English Forest, but he translates/ composes Julia's hateful, condescending letters to us and he has recently started translating for her via video chat during our meetings.

Julia looked very frazzled this morning.  She wasn't wearing any make up and she sat with her head in her hands for minutes at a time and there were long, awkward pauses in which no one said anything and Terry just sat in Australia, staring at us on his monitor with dogs barking in the background.

She has decided to switch Ian and I.  I'm not sure when it will take effect, but soon (as in, any day now and probably with little warning) I will begin working at Goam and Ian will take over Sinback and Haso.  I asked to be told a week in advance so that we could train each other, but they ignored me and moved on to discussing Ian and my faults as teachers.  Julia is concerned with the low number of students at Sinback (she lumps in Haso, as well, but Haso isn't losing students as far as I can tell) and she believes that I have a critical lack of enthusiasm that is causing this problem.  To be completely honest, when I first started this job I had to learn how to be 'on' all the time.  It took me several months to learn how to engage my students and have the same amount of energy at the end of the day as I do at the beginning.  It took me a long time to adjust and that is one of the reasons I will cite when I tell you I've figured out that teaching is not for me.  That said, I did work it out.  My classes have been running splendidly for months.  We have a rhythm, my students like me and they seem to really enjoy themselves 95% of the time.  Julia suffers from academics might call a "consistency bias," as well as a "self-serving bias."

Julia thinks that if the parents see a different English teacher at Sinback and Haso, that they will be more likely to renew their student's enrollment.  She's repackaging the foreigner, changing it up and creating interest.  You know, like when Coca Cola or Pepsi redesign their labels. 

It's trade places or face being fired.  We have no choice and no right to an opinion or input.  But, I'm completely against it.  I love my students.  I've worked hard to bond with them, I expected to spend a year teaching them and they think that they'll have me for the entirety of my contract.  They are the only good thing about this job.  And while they are not stupendous across the board (I've got some rotten buggers), I'm quite attached to most of them.  Ian's students are a lot rougher.  They're hard on him and I expect no different.  By the time I get to know his brats and start to like them despite their attitude problems, our contracts will be ending.  Being forced to start a relationship with a new teacher will set the kids back at least a few weeks.  They'll have to get comfortable enough to talk freely and without embarrassment again.

One of my students, Natalie, came up to me just before class and excitedly said, "Casey teacher!  I want to see you!"  She grabbed my arm and excitedly shook it up and down.  There was a sub for me last week because Ian and I took Mom to Jeju-do (it was someone named James and I have no idea who they are or if they're a foreigner or a Korean or if they even work for Yoon's).  She was glad to have me back and she cared enough to tell me.  This was probably my last week as her teacher.

Daniel, a problem student of mine who my mom probably remembers sticking white stickers into his glasses and pretending to peer at the people near him, gave me an idol card today.  It's a picture of one of the members of a Korean dance pop group called Shinee.  That's all I know about it.  I'm not even sure which member it is.

I have a new favorite snack food in Korea (not that it's particularly Korean).  I had it for the first time when we went to Iron Man 2 again on Sunday.

Super Mix Kernals Popcorn.  It's a mix of plain salted popcorn, caramel corn and chocolate popcorn.  Man, is it delicious and it's only 190 calories for the whole 45 gram container.  I am also currently in love with M&Ms.

Ian, however, loves a less healthy snack.

Potato Sticks.  I think they smell like fatty death (they're way too oily for me), but Ian loves them more than any other snack here.  They are 320 calories for 70 grams, so about the same calories, actually (I can't read the labels well enough to figure out the fat content).

What is your go-to movie or night time snack?

Good night!