Now where was I a year ago? I had increasing, instead of decreasing debt; didn't have a place or a fridge of my own; had a little rip-off laptop from Indonesia; I had only summer clothing I had brought to Indonesia, and it was pretty much worn out, but I had some good friends and I had just arrived in Korea with new hope that I could make some dough here like I had before and maybe find a good, long term place to work.
Well I'm making dough!
I am not sure how much I should slag the place I work at or the people who own it and run it, but I had high hopes that this was a different hagwon. This was not going to be a mickey mouse cram school where a good teacher would feel like the walk to work every day was a sentence to Azkaban and the students were all joy-sucking Dementors. I was told all the good things about the place and the people who run it and for the most part they have been true. But, me and my cursed positivity, I didn't shift into skeptic mode and ask all the questions that should have been asked before signing the contract because I didn't want to ruffle any feathers and, frankly, I was desperate to get back to work. So I didn't ask what EXACTLY was meant by 10 vacation days per year. This is what comes from experience. In any business engagement with Koreans I have had, (and I have heard this is quite common even outside of the ESL racket), there are obvious scams. Things they don't tell you about and hope you don't ask about. And despite all the good things the previous worker and the owners were piling onto me during the courting period before the contracts were signed, I knew there were a few areas that I didn't want to ask about.
Through the years I have been ripped off by so many Koreans that it has left a scar on me. I try very hard not to think of all the other soulless scumbags who have taken me for the proverbial ride when I start talking to a new employer about salary or vacation or teaching philosophy because I believe that holding other Koreans' actions against this new employer would be racist. But try as I do, when the new employer starts mealy mouthing about some important, (and bad... always bad), information that was left out of the contract, all the old memories start rising up and Lewis Black's little red character from "Inside Out" mans the controls of my brain. At first it's a snide smile and comments dripping with sarcasm like, "Oh, wonderful! YOU choose the days of my vacation! That's so much better for me! Takes the pressure off me. It's so hard for me to decide my vacation on my own!"
Then it gets a little more smirky and to the point, "Usually taken during April and September when the middle school kids have vacation. Okay, that's good. I want to do what's most convenient for YOU."
Then my mouth gets cottony and every word I say is accompanied by a tongue smacking that makes it plain I am suffering from desert mouth, which adds embarrassment to the anger, thereby increasing the rage, the dry mouth and the smacking noises. "Oh, I see. The two weeks in April are already spoken for by other teachers. And YOU have 10 days vacation in September leaving me with the five days you are showing me on the calendar now hoping I won't notice that two of those days are a weekend. Yes, I can see how you FORGOT to tell me about the previous two times I inquired about it."
I was told not to worry and assured that I will be paid in lieu of vacation time for the 7 of 10 days vacation I won't get. And another thing I have learned, and it's a ceaseless frustration for myself and other's here in Korea is this bullshit myth of "chaemyun." "Face," is the highly inaccurate term used for it amongst English speakers, but I find most people really don't understand how entirely loathsome and obviously upper cast-spawned this crippling tradition really is! It's simply a way for rich and powerful people to maintain their riches and power. I have used the example of "jung," before. It's a mythical "love" that only Koreans can have for one another. Really it's just an excuse for powerful people to treat the less powerful like shit then say, "But I have JUNG for you!" A fellow blogger gave an example from a Korean drama, (ugh), that comes more to bear on my situation. It's from the drama called, "Eun-Hee." It's one of those Korean dramas that they have on TV showing how things were before and after the Korean War in Korea. Well... showing how all Koreans WISH they were.
Eun Hee works at a tofu factory. One day the good-for-nothing nephew of the owner of the tofu factory embezzles money from the company and tries to blame it on Eun-hee, the lead character of the show. Amid rampant rumors among the factory staff, it gradually comes to light who the real perpetrator is and the characters are left figuring out how to deal with the situation.
Several options are considered and attempted. Since the guilty party is the nephew of the president, it would really reflect badly on the good owner to announce the truth to the factory workers, but the president can't let the issue slide either (that would look bad too). Somebody has to take the fall for the crime and Eun-hee is about to get fired. However, before this happens, a friend of Eun-hee borrows money and gives it to the company management saying he'll take responsibility for the crime, and then quit his job. Eventually, another friend of Eun-hee's sells his camera equipment to get some money, which he then takes to the nephew, telling him to return it to his aunt (the owner), explain it was an oversight and apologize for an honest mistake. This is what ends up happening.
So a good person loses his job and another good person loses his camera equipment and the asshole, who, let's face it, doesn't give the money back to president, his uncle or aunt, but keeps it, essentially doubling his reward for embezzlement, gets off Scott free! Come on!!! NObody thinks this is the right way of doing things! I don't care how Korean you are! And honestly, Koreans don't want to, nor do they really do this horseshit. They just tell tales of doing it. And when they achieve positions of power, they require this sort of behaviour from their underlings.
So I just have to pretend like my boss was not TOTALLY busted for scamming me out of the bare minimum 10 days of vacation promised in the contract. In non-Asian countries, where we deal more in honesty and less in mythology, we call this eating shit. But I know if I take even a slightly accusatory tone, the whole thing will be turned around on me and I will be the bad guy for pointing out the sins of the true bad guy. Lesson learned from both situations? In Korea, it's good to be the bad guy. That's why business here will never lose its base of corruption. Not until this chaemyun is exposed for the fraud it actually is. And I doubt I'll see it in my lifetime.
There is a growing list of things the hagwon owners "forgot" to tell me before I signed. The very first was the apartment. Several things, in fact, about this apartment weren't told to me and will be met with, "Well! I never! How can you foreigners be so rude?!" if I point them out. First, it's not the apartment I looked at and agreed upon. It's one that was arranged for me while I was 3 hours away in Seoul. Then on moving day I was told of the sight unseen apartment I'd be given. When I arrived it was mostly okay, but there were a few things. Again, it was my proper place to reply, "No, everything's fine!" when asked if the apartment was okay. And wear my smirky smirk again. But I have a single electric burner. I was promised a double before I moved in but it has yet to materialize. The bathroom sink was clogged and taken apart when I moved in. The landlord put the fixture back together, but never fixed the clog. It gets worse all the time. I have tried plunging, baking soda and vinegar, water and Saran Wrap, but nothing has worked. The sink drains at a trickle and will soon not drain at all. Asking the landlord to fix it might result in another confrontation. The BIG thing, however, was the thoroughly black mold infested bathroom. The landlord wore a mask while he fixed the sink, I assure you. But get it professionally cleaned before the foreigner moves in? That would have been too much. It was just left for me to do. Which I did. And have had 3 "colds" in the first 3 months here.
I've used bleach, vinegar, a dozen different cleaners, and just heavy scrubbing, but from what I've read about black mold, there's no way I'll ever have a mold-free apartment here. And I have the chest congestion to prove it. But to suggest to the landlord or hagwon boss that they were in any way complicit? Bad form! The skeptic in me has to believe that the landlord looked into professional cleaning and just didn't want to pay that much. The last dude who lived here was probably sick. He LOOKED sick the one time I saw him. They probably had a helluva time trying to offload this apartment onto a Korean! But dump it onto a foreigner sight unseen! Genius! I was told by my boss that the landlord doesn't like having foreigners living in his place. But if it's in the moldy death trap, well okay then.
Then there's the boss's position in this. I'm sure this place was a sweetheart of a deal! And he's actually TOLD me I'm paying taxes on 400,000 won a month. That's right, the "FREE" apartment in the contract, that is a government mandated part of the contract by the way, is not really free. Whether he is paying 400,000 a month rent or he's really paying less but claiming 400,000, or maybe he just lied and is claiming 500,000... I don't know. But I am boosted into a higher tax bracket because of this and will take a big hit at tax time. Didn't tell me that until the squabble about the pay.
Oh, yes, the pay. I met several times with the bosses here before signing the contract and was quoted a number several times. It was in the ad and on the contract. Never did anyone remember to tell me that 300,000 won a month would be deducted from that amount. 3.3% is what's in the contract. That's about 75 bucks a month. That's what I expected. Nope. I pay over 300 bucks a month tax. Forgot, I was told. Smirky smirk.
When I started teaching, I found a lot of the things I hate most about teaching in Korea even though they too had been "forgotten" about when the hagwon was explained to me. Team teaching. Never liked it, never will. I am a bit obsessive about planning well in advance. This is one reason why I loved the college and university programs. Everything is planned for the entire 17-week program before it even starts. I mentioned several times that I wanted to do this here so needed texts to get to work. Never occurred to anyone to mention that I won't be able to plan ANYthing in advance because I'll be teaching the same texts as the Korean teachers. And even if you find that elusive method of informing the other teacher what you did, that still gives them a day's notice at best. It wasn't until the middle of my fourth month here that I actually was told who my co-teacher was for every class. Slipped their minds.
Another thing that will hamper my efforts at advanced planning is the bizarre schedule. I STILL haven't really figured it out and get surprise classes showing up. "I thought I had the phonics class at this time," I say smirky smirkily. "No, because of the holiday last week and due to the middle school picnic week, elementary school classes are getting more of the time here so we decided to swap the classes." And, you know it is not my place to say, "Sure! Without telling me!"
The textbooks we were using took me a month and a half to finish. Then I was told the other teachers were going to review before we could move to the next book in the series. So I reviewed too. For ANOTHER month and a half! 4 topics per book! It's pretty hard to pull that many lessons on 4 topics out of my, ahem, bag of tricks. Then, at the three month point, I was told that this is normal. A month or two of review is normal after finishing the texts. The very next day, (I'm not kidding!), I was told I have to use the texts more.
This brings up possibly the most annoying of the things I wasn't told. I heard on several occasions that management will just let me do my own thing. I love that. Full classroom autonomy. But at the three month point I have been told to use the text for 30 minutes, homework check 10 minutes, something else like maybe a game 10 minutes, do three pages of this book per day... and I have to give 10 to 15 minutes of homework to every class at the end of every class by rule. I had heard that one of the owners likes homework so I was giving some, against my educational principals. But I understand how Korean parents like the useless homework so I was assigning it. Some students and some parents started saying David doesn't give homework and that, I think, is what brought on this monumental micromanagement. I have now been handicapped by rules down to the minute of class time and the number of textbook pages. As far from full classroom autonomy as you can get.
The whole time I'm being kimchi-slapped in the face with all of these things, (and more), I am wearing a plastic smile and saying things like, "Well good! Now I know," or, "I'm glad we had this meeting. We should have more communication like this." The reason is, with all of this hardship, I can honestly say, hey, I'm working at a hagwon! These things have to be expected. And when you sit down and think about it, yeah I'm sacrificing many of the educational principals that have nurtured me, lo, these many years, but I'm making money. I'm doing MUCH better than I was at this point last year. Or two years ago. Or three or four or... Things have been much worse. And while I'm working at Azkaban Hagwon, I can always throw resumes around to other places that might, (or, sigh, might not), be better. I'm only sentenced to a year. And there really are some very good kids at this place. They're not all Dementors. In fact the majority are really nice, cute kids.
But people are constantly asking me how things are going. If you are not Korean I will say, "Work is a bit of a bowl of suck at the moment." Or something like that. If you are Korean, I will lie to you and tell you that things are fine and give you a fake smirky smirk. Don't blame me, that is what your culture demands. And that statement in itself demands a show of anger from the Korean who has been totally busted. See? This face thing, or "chaemyun," really isn't so hard to figure out. Just a bit hard to live with sometimes. But at least I'm making dough.
So I got that goin' for me.
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