Feeling like Alice crossing the city on the way to work this morning reviewing the suprises that
travelling and working in another country brings.
Its raining and the market is flooded with cheap umbrellas, [excuse the pun] the subways are filled with vendors advertising the benefits of their wares which are exactly the same as the other three stalls i have passed in the last 100m.
I started teaching casually at a kindergarten, Funny English, this morning. A couple of classes two mornings a week in the pastel palace run by Reverend Nice. I walk in and all the kids are indulging in loud tinny kiddy karaoke in response to a florally embroidered dungareed woman waving an imposing stick. I can't hear introductions because the noise is so loud and I nod politely and smile (hopefully sweetly).
Children are crammed 40 into a tiny classroom. Left to "teach" I am faced with a sea of eager faces struggling to be noticed in this overcrowded school in this overcrowded country. Survival of the fittest. Tiny children grab my arms and pull me down to their level so they can make me hear them. How do I make them hear me? Dicipline is non-existent in this human cage and I am expected to teach by rote, inside pink walls with friendly round windows.
Reverend Nice is nice. He wants everyone to love one another, offers to teach me Korean and a full time job next year. After haggling the difference between 49 and 50,000 won he offers me a bottle I swear says "drink me". I look again and realise it really says Nestle. Same thing.
Walking outside I realise I left my hearing behind and wonder how long I can do this for. Reverend Nice gives me an umbrella because my raincoat will not suffice in his eyes. I am building up quite a collection, perhaps I could go into business.
Eat me. Yesterday morning at Apple English.
Yup, trying to pick up some extra work and cash before finally being seduced by one of the crew wanted ads that entice me everyday and leave me falling asleep dreaming of salt water.
Judy and Shou run a hogwan in Shou's very tiny apartment from 1-9pm everyday. She also shares the apartment with her husband and two children. Everything in this abode/business place is labeled in english, from the refrigerator to the soap.
It reminds me of spending summers as a child living in my tiny tent, taking honey sandwiches back to my haven, munching next to the imaginary petal food I would collect. Or winters in my best friends bedroom where we would build miniature cities of out of camp beds, duvets and sleeping bags. But I got to go to bed and wake up to new games of bicycle soccer and spying
on the neighbours. Shou and her family must move their fold up beds out of the way everyday to accomodate hordes of tiny children. My job is to teach them conversational English once a week so they can teach young koreans. Another umbrella.
Coming to work at my expensive English With a Smile hogwan I realise how sheltered I am from korean lifestyles. I get a glimpse of the rich and their kids and go home to hide in my comparatively luxurious apartment which I can leave along with this country at any time.
I thank the universe for not making me an umbrella salesperson, wishing for rain, and prepare to go and teach my huge class of two beautiful 7 year old boys.
I hope you are all well and being continually suprised by how bizarre this life is.