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A YEAR IN SOUTH KOREA - CARRUTHERS
JUNE
At the start of December Carruther's flew out to South Korea to start a one year contract teaching English, these are a selection of emails conveying his experiences.
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Thursday 5th June
I hope everything is groovy with all of you wherever you are. I don't have anything of great importance to say, but I'll diligently pursue the path to your boredom nonetheless. As a surefire start down that road..the weather. It's been beautiful here of late. We are in the transition period between Spring and the Summer/monsoon season. It's been above 80 degrees (30 for you celcius people) everyday, with cloudless blue skies - I spend my lunchtime on the riverbank with a book, and sometimes an ice-cream if I'm feeling really decadent! We are also in 'Family Mart' season. Allow me to elaborate. Family Mart is one of the chains of 24 hour convenience stores that seem to exist in plague proportions here. There are for example at least six within a minute's walk from my place. At this time of year they all set up tables and chairs outside, and as a cheap alternative to a bar, many people buy a few beers in the shop then sit outside to drink them. The
shops even have a bottle opener hanging up by the counter so you can open your own bottles.
Dwelling in even more desperate mundaneity (delete this now if you wish to prevent coma) school has been going the same as ever. The Kindergarten spawn in the mornings are as trying, frustrating, infuriating and irksome as ever. Indeed my teaching position is really quite a precarious one, considering the fact that I could be made obselete by the simple expedient of installing a tape recording that says,"SIT DOWN! STOP IT! BE QUIET!! TAKE THAT OUT OF YOUR MOUTH! BE QUIET! SIT DOWN!" ad infinitum. I have been mildly irritated recently by just how inept a system of teaching English my school employs. I don't profess to being an authority of any great note on the subject myself, but even I can appreciate (as indeed could a lobotomised whelk) that some of the procedures we are required to implement are about as productive as trying to translocate the Sahara desert with a teaspoon. Still, I can't change it, so I am trying to adopt the attitude
that as long as my pay keeps coming every month, I can happily sterilise my conscience of any misgivings relating to the fact that the kids are going to be as clueless at English as ever after attending our school. Well,that's not quite true. They have improved since they first started, but undoubtedly their progress would be quicker if they were learning in a system that was designed by someone who didn't have their head up their own arse.
Anyway - it's a public holiday tomorrow (Fri), so I've got three days off, and that, if nothing else is a good reason to stop discussing work. Instead, I shall now regale you with the details of my date last Saturday. Some weeks ago I met a korean girl on the internet, and after the exchange of a few emails, we decided to meet. Thus we did. She turned out to be
very cute, with excellent English, and a delightfully happy personality. We met at 1pm on Saturday, and parted at 7am on Sunday, having exhausted (or at least it felt like it) all that Seoul has to offer in the way of diurnal/nocturnal entertainments. We went to a Japanese restaurant, we went to the National Museum, we went to Gyeongbuk Palace, we went to the arty districts of Insadong and Daehangno. We witnessed 'modern dance' in the street (frightening!) and the worst opera singer in the world (not quite as frightening as the modern dance). We went to cafes and bars, and then went
to the student infested area of Hondae, where we went clubbing. This was followed by a walk through the Seoul night, and then a visit to a pool hall. Finally, to see in the dawn, we went to a DVD Room. This is basically a video shop, where you watch the film on the premises. I was ecstatic to enter the room and see a huge, largely horizontal sofa type bed type thing, for us to be seated upon. By now it was about 4.30 am, and I'm afraid sleeping prevented either of us from seeing a great deal of the film. We emerged into the already substantial heat of early morning Seoul, and parted company. The good news is that this Saturday, we are meeting again, in order to climb a mountain. Oh, her name is Suk Kyoung by the way.
Monday 23rd June
Loathed as I am to conform to British stereotypes by discussing the weather, I feel that in this instance it is warranted. Here on the peninsula we are currently feeling the effects of the tail end of a typhoon that is sweeping away across the Pacific. This has resulted in exhilaratingly strong winds and driving rain. Indeed on the way home tonight I was brutally assaulted by a flying patio chair ( I jest not!). From the vantage of the teacher's room window this afternoon I was able to witness one of those large parasol things that you insert through the small hole in a patio table gliding casually down into the river, chased rather less casually by its owner, as well as a number of Koreans battling to remain upright in the face of gale force winds. Excellent fun!
As far as other matters are concerned, all is well. I could happily throttle a number of my students, but that's nothing new. I can now appreciate just how much of a bunch of bastards we were to our long suffering teachers when I was at school. I am amazed they managed to refrain from violence - I barely succeed some days. JUST THINK OF THE MONEY!!
My feet are beginning to itch now as well. I'm just past the half way stage, and increasingly my thoughts turn to the adventures to be had once I leave Korea. I'm not by any means unhappy here, but when the time comes, I'll be ready to leave. I think this is symptomatic of being in a daily routine. Still, better a daily routine here than in the UK. I'm looking forward to the time when I get a chance to get out and see some of the rest of the country - there are some amazing mountains and temples around, it's just a matter of finding the time to get out for a few days and see them.
Saturday 28th June
Well, as I write it is a gloriously beautiful Summer's evening. The relentless rain of the last three days (of which more shortly) has cleaned the air right out,removing the cloak of pollution so that the mountains are as clear as I've ever seen them. Every ridge, gully, and forest-clad valley can be seen in perfect clarity, glowing as they are in the warm light of
early evening. It's rather nice.
Unfortunately, with Summer come the legions of bugs. Until now, I've tried to be tolerant and respect their right to life, however this approach has led to my apartment being so full of bugs as to be reminiscent of the Amazon. Moreover, most of them seem to want to eat me. I broke out the mosquito net a fortnight ago. Today I finally cracked, and went in search of insect genocide spray. Having located the 'obnoxious aerosol chemical death' department of Lotte Mart, I began to peruse the selection. Soon enough I came across a product which I simply HAD to buy. Now, I'm sure that in Korean, the first part of it's name probably means something totally different ('insect', 'mosquito' or 'bug' in all likelihood) but if you
simply read the name as it is pronounced, then I have just bought a can of....wait for it.....'APE KILLER'. Unfortunately I will have to delegate field testing, as the primate population here is insubstantial.
Anyway - with the exception of blue skied days of paradise like this, we have now entered monsoon season. For the last three days it's been heavy rain 24 hours a day. This is good in that in removes some of the oppressive humidity from the air. It has also transformed the thing that flows past my apartment from a muddy trickle to something that can plausibly be called a river. I was walking out the other night (keeping an eye out for belligerant patio furniture) and was enchanted to hear a chorus of what must have been thousands of frogs singing from within the bankside vegetation. The regular chirruping of insects in the trees is also a pleasant feature of summer life. When I think back to the icy days of winter, when a trip to the local shop left you in serious risk of frostbite, it's hard to reconcile it being the same place. Apparently, Korea has disproportionately harsh Winters for it's latitude. I can attest to this. Anyway, bugger winter...IT'S SUMMER!!!!
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