The Four-Minute Intro and a Two Month Story

This time around in Korea has been, for lack of a better word, kind of a shit show, or a hot mess if you aren’t a fan of profanity (though what anyone who didn’t like profanity would be doing around me, I wouldn’t know).  Either way, it’s been a mess of problems from top to tail.

First of all, the visa paperwork has changed slightly since the last time I was here.  The big difference is that while last time a local police background check sufficed, now an FBI background check is required.  I could still get the fingerprinting done at the local police station, but I had to send it in to the FBI headquarters in Virginia.  It came back after a few weeks as planned, even if the process was obnoxious.  All that was left was to get it apostilled.  The only way to get an apostille for an FBI background check is through the Department of State.  If I thought the FBI was annoying, it was only because I had NO IDEA what kind of shenanigans I was getting myself into with the DoS.   First of all, I called in to make sure I was doing everything exactly the right way so nothing would get messed up.  Their information hotline has, no exaggeration, a four-minute intro before you even get into a menu where you can select options.  So that’s not good.  Once I finally got through I talked to a woman who told me that I had to go to a specific website to get the information I needed, which was for a private channeler, who would charge me way more money than necessary to get the paperwork taken care of.  Back to the four-minute intro.  This time, I made sure to ask all the necessary questions to get my stuff taken care of.  Fill out the paperwork exactly like this.  Check.  Send it tracked and include a tracked return envelope.  Check.  Include a check for x amount of money. Check.

With all that done I thought I was in the clear and would be ready to start the visa process in the five days it would take them to receive, apostille, and process my background check.  Instead, I didn’t hear from them.  Didn’t receive anything in the mail.  I called the post office and the envelope I had sent had been received, but the return envelope had not been used yet, even though more than a week had passed.  So, once more unto the four-minute intro, dear friends, once more.  I finally got someone on the phone that knew what they were talking about, and they told me that “tracked mail” didn’t mean through the USPS and tracked.  It meant through FedEx or one of the other private mail services.  Anything from USPS gets sent to another office to SIT for three weeks before it even makes it to the main office to be processed.  So I had to sit around and wait for it even longer than anticipated.  Finally, the day arrived when my brand new shiny, perfect background checks appeared in the mail.  When they were opened they revealed… an extra piece of paper saying that because I didn’t answer a question that wasn’t actually asked on the form it wasn’t a real apostille and it wouldn’t work for anything.  So gee thanks DoS.  And then the government shut down.  I took the FBI background checks and sent them to a channeler in California, who told me that it doesn’t even have to go to the Department of State.  Really, it can be apostilled by the Secretary of the State of California, so long as you get it notarized there.  So I just threw caution to the wind and did that.  It took four days through international mail.

Completely frustrated and disillusioned with the government’s capabilities to do even the most basic things, I was at least prepared to finally apply for my visa.  Here’s where the real fun started.

I got rejected.  Why, one might ask?  Last time I was in Korea I re-signed to stay for another year, and my visa had to be extended, which it was.  Then I decided to stay on for two extra months to make the timing of my homecoming a little more fortuitous, and I had to extend my visa again. My boss told me that he would do it for me, and he took my passport and alien registration card to get it all straightened out.  A week later he gave me my stuff back and said everything was fine.

A month later I went to help a friend get a new cell phone using my alien registration card. When I gave it to the woman in the cell phone store, she informed me that my alien registration card had expired 30-something days earlier.  Confused, I looked through my passport.  There was my first extension, allowing me to stay in the country until a date in the previous week.  There was no second extension.  I went to my boss on Monday and he informed me that he’d “forgotten” to get me an extension, but he’d go do it at immigration that afternoon.  I told him I wouldn’t work until I was sure that everything had been straightened out and that I wasn’t illegal.  He took me with him to immigration that morning and we talked to the agent.  Of course, he spoke very little English, so my boss had to translate a lot.  However, the overwhelming message was, “It’s okay.  You can work.  It’s fixed.”  My boss told me he had to pay a fine, and that I would then need to fill out a piece of paperwork at the airport when I finally left the country.

I filled out the paper, the fine was paid, and everything was copacetic.  Only it wasn’t.

He never paid a fine.  He mistranslated intentionally at the immigration office to make me think that everything was taken care of.  He told me to fill out the piece of paper that was actually a confession to overstaying my visa and working illegally.  I had been blacklisted from living or working in Korea.

Here’s the problem with that: I was already in Korea when I found that out.  Basically, at that point, it looked like I was going to get deported, which is a situation I never imagined finding myself in.  

In the end, my new boss went in and talked to the head of the immigration office and got special permission for my blacklisting to be lifted if I could get my old boss to write a letter of recommendation that corroborated my version of the visa debacle.  Obviously, the old owner of the school who had made all the mistakes and screwed me over wasn’t going to write that.  Instead, I went to the director of my old school, who no longer worked for the old owner and who knew what kind of a business owner he had been.  She wrote the letter, and we sent everything in, hoping that would be it.  But this is my life and this is also the LONGEST STORY EVER, so of course it wasn’t.  Don’t worry though- it’s only going to be a tiny little two week long investigation into my life the last time I was in Korea.  No big deal at all.

SIGH.

And yet, in the end I won.  The blacklisting was lifted and my visa request was granted, finally, after almost two straight months of stressing about it.  On the day my boss found out he came to talk to me, and some students were nearby.  He told me what had happened, and we both fake cheered and he said, “We are the winners!”  I laughed and he went back to work.  Then one of the students asked me, “What?  What?  Kelsey finish her sticker chart?”  Which is the most awesomely childish misinterpretation of adult life I’ve ever heard.  Yes, darling, I finished my sticker chart.

So last week instead of going to the school’s Halloween party and taking pictures of the students in their costumes, I took an hour long flight to a town in the south of Japan.  I landed in Fukuoka at around 9:30 am, and took the subway to the Korean consulate.  After dropping off my passport, they told me to return the next day at 1:30.  I went to the hotel my director had booked, but I wasn’t allowed to check in yet.  So I grabbed a quick bite, and spent my afternoon reading Oliver Twist in a beautiful park around the corner from my hotel. 

When it was time for me to check in to my hotel I went.  I thought I’d seen small hotel rooms before.  HA.  The room was the length of the bed, with a TV between the end of the bed and the wall.  There was a desk attached to the bed that was about one foot wide and touched the opposite wall of the hotel room.  The bathroom was a cabinet.  It was actually kind of interesting to see how they had fit all the essentials into the smallest possible space, maximizing the utility of the space.  It wasn’t really a big deal that it wasn’t huge and comfy anyway, since it was only for one night.  I ended up grabbing some dinner and crashing early, which was nice.  The next day I got to sleep in and take my time getting ready.  I read in the park for another hour or so, before going back to the consulate to pick up my visa.  I arrived precisely at 1:30, only to find out that (surprise, surprise) the computer system was down and it was going to take a while to get my passport back.  I finally got out of there and went straight to the airport. 

My flight wasn’t until 9 pm, but I wanted to see if I could get bumped up to an earlier flight.  I got there are 3 pm and talked to the woman at the ticket counter.  She looked up my reservation, hit a few keys, and gave me my passport back.  “You can go check in,” she said, pointing over to the empty line area in front of the check in counter.  I went over and gave the woman there my passport.  She handed it back to me with a ticket and said, “Your flight leaves at 3:40.  It starts to board at 3:15.  Have a great trip!”  Seriously.  No extra charge to book a flight 40 minutes before it left.  I got on the flight with no trouble at all, and got home several hours before I was even supposed to leave Japan. 

It’s kind of crazy how simple a lot of things are in Asia when compared to the US.  It’s something I’ve noticed a lot of in the years I’ve lived here.  Things that take days in the States takes hours here, and things that usually take weeks take days.  It’s amazing how taking down a lot of the red tape and streamlining processes can make day-to-day life SO much easier.

Anyway, epic story still long, I have a visa now!  I’m going to immigration to get my alien card next week, and then I’ll be so legal I can get a cell phone!  Exciting, exciting!

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Until they change again.

It's funny how much moving from country to country, apartment to apartment, school to school is generally more the same than different.

And yet, differences do pop up everywhere.

Take my current school, for example.  A lot of the structure of teaching is the same as before, with kindergarten for the same amount of time in the morning, followed by two different primary classes in the afternoon, split by only a short five minute break.

However, the two schools really couldn't be more different.  Where my first school had administration that was hands off and stayed out of your way unless parents were calling in to complain excessively, this school takes every parent complaint to heart and I hear almost every single one of them.  The administration, from teaching partners (mine and other teachers') to the school director to the secretaries frequently watch all the classes through the glass walls, hoping to see how things are going, but realistically just making the students freeze up.  Discipline is taken ENTIRELY out of my hands and put into the hands of Korean staff, which, though nice (no one really likes being the bad guy), also strips me of any and all authority.  There is 17 million times more paperwork (progress reports, online reports, daily attendance sheets with more boxes to check than an American presidential ballot, computer input of said attendance sheets, plus monthly phone calls to approx. 1/3 of my primary students), most of which is the adult equivalent of fourth-grade busy work.

The change isn't all bad, though.  Classes are broken up with breaks and mandatory bathroom times, which is a nice way to bookend each section of the class, and cuts down on individual students missing important parts of a lesson because they need to use the bathroom.  Afternoon primary classes have 5-minute breaks every 40 minutes, which is perfect if you've forgotten something or if, as more frequently happens, your class is driving you up a wall and you just need to take a few breaths and calm down.  Lesson planning is entirely not my responsibility, except for the need to add some color commentary.  Classes that behave well and do their work generally finish early and most of my kids have a high enough level of English that games are not only a possibility, but they're actually fun.  One of my students is high level enough that usually when she finishes her work we just sit and tell stories and laugh.  The class size being capped at ten is nothing short of miraculous after a year of twenty-five three-year olds.

The main similarity between my life now and my life then, however, is in the cities.  Suwon is larger than Yongin, which was primarily built to house commuters to Seoul and Suwon.  The neighborhood where I worked in both cities was large, lively, and full of good restaurants, bars, and shopping (though admittedly I did not live in a neighborhood at all like that in Suwon, just worked there).  The other good area nearby in both cities was the local subway station, where there were countless more good restaurants, bars, and cafes.  It's reasonably easy to travel between the two cities (sure, the bus takes almost an hour to go thirty miles, but at least I don't have to change buses multiple times) and to get to Seoul from both cities as well.  City-wise, it's been (literally and figuratively) a lateral move.

And so, the more things change, the more they stay the same (though admittedly they also get a little different).  I know this has been fairly dry and not as wildly entertaining as previous blogs, but who cares.  I'm a teacher, not an entertainer.  Also, I've discovered that as I get older, wiser, and a lot less tolerant of useless idiotic bullshit, the drama tends to die down and life tends to become something more akin to comfortable than lively.  I've got to say, as far as that goes, I'm not hating it.  Although, knowing me, drama is waiting just around the corner with a hand full of Pop-Its and a can full of worms.

Korea 2: Electric Boogaloo

Greetings from, once again, South Korea.

This time I'm located a little bit northeast of where I was last time, essentially halfway between my last city (Suwon) and the capital (Seoul).  I'm about 20-30 minutes from the outskirts of either, an hour away from the good parts, which is kind of a nice spot.  My new city is called Yongin, and I live in one of the more populated neighborhoods, called Suji.  It's a huge step up from my previous neighborhood.  In Gokban (in Suwon) I was surrounded by highway and rice paddies.  Here I'm surrounded by restaurants, schools, parks, and stores.  It's kind of nice to be in the middle of everything, still set far enough back that street noise isn't an issue.  It's also nice that, where last time I was a 50 minute walk or 20 minute drive from work, it takes me about three minutes to walk to work.  I just go back to my apartment for my lunch break and relax, unless I have work to do.

Work itself is pretty straightforward.  My Korean partners plan the lessons, so outside of the classroom and progress reports I have very few responsibilities.  The classes themselves are good, with their size capped at ten students.  I have nine kindergarteners.  I also have eight different primary classes, ranging in size from one to nine students.  Two of my classes I have twice a week for different subjects.

Notable Classes:

My kindergarten, which I teach five mornings a week.  It's basically the same hours as kindergarten at Maple Bear, only it's a lot more structured and with a lot more book work.  I have nine kids: four boys (Alvin, Daniel, Eric, and Jake) and five girls (Emily, Julie, Claire, Ruby, and Amber).  If you want to know which ones are my favorites, just look at the order I typed them in.  Emily is actually my favorite, but anyone who knew me well and had met my class wouldn't expect it- she's short, chubby, quiet, and nondescript.  And yet I love her.  Alvin is my second favorite because he's got the best English skills and loves to talk and be loud and silly.  He'd probably be the one most people would expect to be my favorite.  I really do like all of my kids, so even though Ruby (Alvin's twin sister) is listed second to last among the girls, I like her a lot.  Amber and Eric are also twins.  Eric is sweet and adorable.  Amber is a bit of a demonic moron who also happens to be adorable.  It's like she's the three-toed demon, but once you get past the creepy feet, she's a baby rabbit.  But there's still the issue of the feet.  And the fact that she's a demon.  Also that, due to never listening or following along, she has no idea what the hell is happening.

My all-girl class, which I teach twice every week is another favorite.  There are nine girls in one class, all around age eight or nine, all with moderate English skills.  Rosa is the smartest, except when her best friend Rachel is the smartest.  Claire is the liveliest, though her best friend Emily is the most engaged and fun loving.  Ellie is quiet and tends to blend in, except she's adorable and smarter than most of the other girls (even though I have to drag it out of her).  Alice hates studying English, but sometimes she will burst into random acts of brilliance.  Jasmine is beautiful, missing front teeth and all.  She's also a complete sweetheart, though she has astronaut tendencies (space cadet).  Sally is hard to love.  She's at a much lower level than the other girls so she just makes noise and farts around doing nothing and then copies off the others at the last second, for which they all hate her.

My other favorite Is my one student class.  He name is Kabin.  She's the student with the highest English level in the school.  Part of her curriculum is listening to CD tracks and writing down words that are missing from a transcript of what she is hearing.  She most recently did this with a lecture on the latest advancements made by neurologists in the area of human memory.  She's really well behaved and focused, so we usually end up with about 30 minutes left at the end of her lesson.  She and I just sit and talk about whatever- the boy she likes at school, her plans for the weekend, what she wants to do with her life, everything.  She's awesome.  More recently we’ve started reading Holes aloud, one chapter at a time.

That's school.

The weirdest thing about being back in Korea is how much I felt at home from the moment I arrived.  While Thailand always felt like a foreign country (literally and figuratively), Korea doesn't feel like that anymore.  In the airport, I found the sounds of Korean being spoken around me and over the intercom to be inexplicably soothing.  Even though I have no idea what any of the signs say, the fact that I can phonetically read them makes them somehow less foreign.  The food is like comfort food to me now.  There has been no adjustment period because I really didn't need one.

What has been interesting to me is how endearing I find all the little things that I never really realized were inherently Korean, the things that I had forgotten about.  I mean, sure, I got really excited that I could buy my favorite sour candies again, but I had been looking forward to those.  And the food is great, but I was expecting that.  The sorts of things I mean are the most random things in the world.  The shape of the bricks that compose sidewalks here makes me smile, because they're shaped the same all over the country and nowhere else I've ever been, a sort of wiggly edged rectangle, as though the masons cut them out using those squiggle scissors that were the coolest things ever in second grade.  The prevalence of tiny dogs dyed random colors is almost sweet in its unrelenting creepiness.  The immediate affection and connection that children here make to anyone and everyone around them remains endearing.  The weird music videos where a group of five full-grown men dance around in blue sky and cloud pajamas, or women dance while wearing animal-paw mittens.  The random old ladies who move like they're the busiest people in the world, yet never really seem to be doing much of anything.  The hurry up and wait, wait oh shit you're insanely late nature of time.  So much of the culture that I had forgotten, so many nuances and subtleties that had slipped my mind until I was faced with them once again.  As strange as it seems to say, it feels good to be home.

Below are a few pictures of my apartment, which is a little smaller than last time, but a bit better laid out.  I like it so far.