Get it Right Next Time

 "Life is a liar, yeah life is a cheat. It'll lead you on and pull the rug from underneath your feet. No use complaining, don't you worry, don't you whine, cuz if you get it wrong, you'll get it right next time."

This is one of my favourite grooves of all time. One of those songs you want to have a cigarette in your mouth, not necessarily lit, but just to bounce up and down in the opposite direction your head is bobbing with the funky groove. 

And it's a solid life philosophy! Something I've tried and failed again and again to do in so many areas, not the least of which is employment. I'm still waiting for the "next time." Haven't gotten it right yet. Maybe it's because I always worry and often whine. Or maybe it's the racket I sort of fell into.

The song is by Gerry Rafferty. You may know Baker Street or Right Down The Line. Both are spectacular songs! The guy is a legend! I bet he'd be a hoot to have a beer with. Or a joint. I heard a story told by Billy Connolly, you know the crazy, Scottish comedian? He used to play banjo in a band with Gerry Rafferty! And he said he's going to hell because one time he and Gerry wanted to smoke some hash, but they had not "skins" or papers as they're known to the uncool like you and me. They ended up using a few pages from a Bible instead. Connolly says he phoned Rafferty on his death bed and they reminisced about that time and had a chuckle. 

Anyway, hang a smoke loosely between your lips, maybe put on some shades and relax before you play this song. 

Whose gonna call me on my death bed and what stories will we reminisce about? How about you? Do I have a story like that I could call you up and talk to you about? Do you have a story like that you could call me about? If not, we gotta get living. Oh, I dunno, maybe it's the times and this specific year of staying in my apartment for more time than any year ever because of Covid. Maybe it's the fact that I HAD and currently HAVE a lot of time off, with pay, but CAN'T make memories by travelling, sightseeing, maybe visiting some folks. I had really good visits with my closest friends over the holidays here, but when you have two months off, you want to do some bigger, more memorable things. And now that I've lost this job, I have a sneaking suspicion it'll be the last Korean university gig I ever get with the long holidays. We'll see, but there are bad signs...

Demographic winter is coming! I guess the Korean population has been dropping for about 18 years and this year is expected to be the first year of the lowest number of university aged kids ever. It's expected to continue until they start having more kids. Why is the Korean population going down? Why are people less interested in having kids? What does the term "Hell Joseon" mean? Here's a very well done article/photo gallery. My guess is if you read it through, you'll find that Korea isn't a great deal different from whatever country you find yourself reading this post in right now. Like Canada and the U.S., here in Korea there is an older generation that felt if they worked hard or studied hard, they would succeed. And they believe this because it happened for them. They own their own homes and have money in the bank. Why can't the younger folks do what they did? It's just not the case any more, that's why. But these old timers would rather think of the younger generations as lazy or not as motivated as THEY were than believe their country just sucks for jobs. 

High cost of living and limited job prospects has lead to the "sampo" generation here. Sampo translates to "three give up." This doesn't mean three kids, it means two parents and one kid. People are not having traditionally large families because even for those who manage to find the good, stable jobs, it still isn't financially feasible. Sound familiar?

The term I like the best from the above article is "social cartel." Here in Korea it is most likely worse than things back home, but we still have the same thing. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Can anyone reading this NOT think of a handful of people who are dumb as hammer sacks, yet SOMEHOW managed to land a fantastic job and SOMEHOW manage to keep it? Can anyone not think of a world leader like that? (although the one I'm thinking of didn't manage to keep his job) As often as a person hears in Korea, "Please understand our unique situation," it ain't that unique. It may be more extreme in certain areas, but "hell Joseon" is not unique. 

The last term I like, which fits in with our song at the beginning, is "so hwak haeng." Here's another article about it. To me, this is depressing. And when you couple this little bit of self-delusion with the growing suicide rate in Korea, I don't think it's working. It equates to what I've called the "Well-at-least" mentality in this blog and all it is is people ignoring the deterioration of their society by over-accentuating the micro-positive and whipping themselves into submission to toxic positivity instead of acknowledging and doing the hard work of changing their countries. 

I remember pretty regular protests, I mean almost every week, in Korea for one thing or another when I first came here. I'm sure not all of the protests were for good things, but I think they might have had some success in that the government may not have been so cavalier about implementing unfair policies knowing that the people were not afraid to protest. And I can't claim to know much of anything about Korean politics, but it always seemed to me that the good stuff in this country was not so highly concentrated at the very top. Average people had good lives. But the competition is increasing the article says. The country isn't getting poorer and the population isn't going up. So what's happening? Same as everywhere, the middle class is being obliterated and all the money is being concentrated in fewer and fewer bank accounts.

I see a LOT of advantages to Korea having a declining birthrate and population, but when I mention any of them to Koreans, the media mentality ensues. Despite obvious bias in local news producers, which are owned by large corporations that do stuff like the above, Koreans are still convinced it is their duty to crank out customers. They are like Zerg spawning pools (Starcraft language they can relate better to) whose only purpose is to crank out zerglings fast. They even have government programs that reward Koreans for having kids. A sort of baby bonus system. More kids is what the country is crying for at a time when it's harder than ever for them to have good lives. The logic is similar to this thought provoking scientific study from The Onion.

But before I get too deep into that, the baby bust (opposite of a baby boom is a baby bust, right?) could affect me. The universities are expecting all time lows in enrollment. Certainly Covid 19 leading to online classes hasn't helped this at all, but it appears that the post secondary education atmosphere in Korea is nervous. Schools are forecasting job cuts. This is expected to create a pile of out-of-work teachers and more competition for the good university positions. Of course when jobs are at a premium, this leads to employers raising expectations. As if this hadn't been already happening! The qualifications have been going up, the paperwork has been going up, the cost of documentation has been going up, the cost of visa runs has gone up, the class sizes have ballooned and the weekly hours have been jacked up almost across the board. There are two things that haven't gone up: salary and vacation time. 

Somebody forgot to factor in China, Arab countries, even Vietnam or other places around the world where ESL teachers can actually make MORE than they can here in Korea. Teachers are going to be leaving Korea so I don't think it'll be such an employers' market. Also, there's a thriving online teaching market and we're all getting used to teaching online. Schools like mine who are shooting for the stars right now and adding hours to the contract and holding out for advanced degree holders only, just might be settling for "lesser" teachers like me again come mid February. We'll see...

There's another place teachers can go, and it's not even a different country. Some people teach on the U.S. military bases here in Korea. In fact, to give you an idea of how competitive and nasty things are getting, I heard a story today about a friend of mine who has been teaching on base for 6.5 years, he's been unceremoniously turfed for no kind of reason. Here is a go fund me page to help him uproot and go home. The description of what happened is quite vague. "Ordinarily" resident of Korea? That smacks of bullcrap foreign fuckery to me! And I have a bit of inside info. 

Evidently, what happened was a teacher was "poached" from a Korean university and went to work on base. A rep from that university contacted the higher ups in Korean government education and told them they didn't want their teachers going to teach on base. So, in true Korean fashion, they hastily implemented a rule or law or policy without really thinking of consequences to people like Joel, and, voila, now he's going home too. As hastily as that policy was implemented.

This sort of thing is happening more, not less, the longer I stay here. I have been seriously thinking about what I'll do if I don't manage to land a new job here in the spring. My visa is good until April. If I don't have a job by then, I can always teach online. But, I'll need to pay for my own health insurance. That's a new law. Time was, a guy could stay here on a 6-month visitor's visa and if you did some online work or picked up a camp or some sub hours here or there, nobody needed to know. I'm not sure that's possible any more either. 

Even moving stuff out of the country could soon be a big hassle. Korea is still accepting passport numbers for foreigners who ship things or receive things. But I've heard we will soon need a personal customs code. I tried to get one and, as expected, couldn't. All of these government webpages require your name and your alien card number. But for the life of me I can't imagine what messed up combination of letters in (or not even in) my name SOMEbody input when first associating my name with my alien number, but it's in all the sites. I try the name as it appears on the card (now you'd think it'd be just that easy wouldn't you?) and it doesn't work. I have tried so many variations of my name, I'm about ready to change my name to something Korean! But nothing has worked yet. Who knows, maybe they got the number wrong.

I am worrying and whining here but the last two apartments I've been in have also overcharged me. It's something they do that has to be swallowed as just part of the Korean experience. It's just not worth fighting it. I'm not 100% sure it's because of my non-Korean status, but in both places I see people walking around their houses in swimsuits, carrying loofahs and sweating while my apartment is a steady 15-17 degrees. I like it cold in winter. It's so cold that I can't even wash dishes in hot water. It gets warm at best. I wear a sweater at all times or a jacket. I skip showers and take short ones when I take them at all. My apartment is so cold here that now I have to keep my bathroom door closed for a few minutes after the shower or the hot air creates so much steam in the cold apartment that my smoke alarm goes off. I'm not kidding. Yet at both places I paid more than anyone else for gas. I checked everybody's bills at gas bill time. They're just hanging out of their mail boxes. Again, I see stuff like this happening more instead of less.

And with my new friend, diabetes, Korea is just not the best place to find the best food choices or medical care. I'm seriously considering clearing outta here too. It seems like it might be the right time. Who knows, diabetes might even turn out to be just another hindrance to my job hunt here. 

However, now that I've completely abandoned the theme I'd started out with, what do you say we get back to it? The job with Gongju University? I got it wrong again, but since I got it wrong, maybe I'll get it right next time. I've put together an updated resume, a solid cover letter and a video of my teaching style. Maybe with these things going for me, I'll be able to get another year of employment here. I really don't want to leave until I've reached my savings goal. For that I need a couple more years. So I'm going to literally give it the old college try and see what I can get. But if I'm still unemployed by the end of February, there might be another move in MY future too. I'm lucky I don't have a big family like Joel though. And I have more time to plan too. 

Maybe I won't get it wrong, I'll get it right next time.