A Night on the Town

I seldom go into work early as the demands on me are not very great. This is probably because I am still in my first month but think it has something to do with the way that the school is set up. There is a sharp line between what the Korean teachers and the foreign teachers do. The Koreans teach grammar and hit the students with sticks; we are required to give oral tests and try to get the students to pronounce words correctly. At least that is what I assume my job is and no one has really told me any different. I have been criticized for not teaching two books per class period and not covering enough material but those are simply issues of pacing on my part and I am learning to adapt. In the folder for each class is a little box where each teacher writes out what they have done in the previous period. I am now getting notes addressed to “Scott Teacher” and when I as if there was another “Scott” that may be reading the note they don’t seem to get the joke. A boatload of my “A – list” material is simply wasted.

On Fridays I only have to teach for four hours and I don’t have to be at the school until 3pm. For some reason I went in early yesterday and this was fortunate as it turned out I had to give an oral test to the class with the hand stabber (I guess he’s OK, it is hard to tell).

Beth, one of the Korean teachers, helped me prepare the paperwork for the tests and then we chatted for a few minutes. She asks me how I am adjusting to life in Pohang and whether or not I have any friends. How do I like the city? Am I bored? I tell her that I am adjusting as well as can be expected and that most of my time has been spent trying to figure the place out and cope with ordering food and the rest of it. I am still struggling with the alphabet and my vocabulary still sucks. But I am learning how to travel by bicycle and this is always a good thing. On the whole it was nice that they were concerned about my well being.

The test went as expected and the students basically spent the time trying to karate chop folded pieces of paper and then suddenly perking up when I called on them to answer a question (there each must answer ten questions over what they have been reading). They were clueless but I didn’t care as I didn’t start that book with them. If they are still clueless after I finish the next book . . . well, then I guess I need to buy a new saw and go back to making long boards into short ones.

After the day was over I was getting ready to leave and another of the Korean teachers, Anna, asked me what I was doing this weekend and I explained that I hadn’t really thought about it. She gave me directions to a temple and I thought that was a good plan. I am very close to being broke in a foreign country and her suggestion was a cheap way to spend the day. I have two days until payday and about $20 USD in order to make it.

I went home and that is when I decided that I was indeed bored. I am not bored of the country or my job. I guess what I am bored with is not being able to speak. I hate it that my jokes are not making people, at the least, crack a smile. Each day I only speak “normal” English between classes. Then it is off into this world of broken English, hand gestures and blank stares. When I got home I made a decision, I was going to find the ex-pats.

The internet is a pretty cool tool and within about an hour I had found this odd link on Dave’s ESL Café that had entire section on Pohang. It turns out that a few years ago one guy posted a question about what life was like in Pohang and three years later there are 28 pages dedicated to life in this fair city. I read about the first eight pages and then skipped to the last three to see if there were still keeping up with postings. They were. And they also listed four bars that the ex-pats hang out at. They also noted that a few times a year about 2000 US marines show up and things get real crazy. I haven’t seen any jar heads so I figured I was OK so far. But I hadn’t seen anyone that looked even remotely Anglo so any conversation would be appreciated.

I went outside and waited for a bus and it seemed to take a REAL long time. Finally a bus that was dropping off kids (they are like Greyhounds, filled with school children) stopped and gave me and the other guy waiting the Korean sign for “no” which is arms crossed in an “X,” fists closed. The other guy got up and started walking and I started to head home. Whatever was said it was obvious that there was not going to be anymore busses coming our way.

It is a forty minute walk downtown and I decided to take the walk instead of going home. A cab ride is only $3.50 but I figured the walk would do me well and it is simply a journey around some main roads that snake their way into the two major downtown intersections. One has five roads and the other has six and crossing them on a bicycle is sort of intense. To walk around them on foot is a pain in the ass as you must cross each street and the wait is very long between lights. No one jaywalks.

So around 11 I made it downtown and looked at my little notebook and found the first place on my list: The New Hess Bar. It is located in this pedestrian area of town and is on the second floor of a shop front. The place had an 8 foot pool table, which I take it is a rare thing around here, and it was sort of smoky, no Anglos, and pairs of Korean guys watching ultimate fighting on TV. I sat down and ordered a Coke. This caused great confusion. “Coke and Hennesey?” Hell no! How Ghetto does I look? So, after some discussion between a couple of very attractive bartenders, she finally gets it, brings me a Coke in a REAL GLASS BOTTLE and then gives me some popcorn. The popcorn was as good a popcorn can be (not The Torch good, but good) and then the manager comes over and starts talking to me.

She has been running the place for a few months as the owner has just married and is now living in Hawaii. There is a picture of the owner above the bar and it is obvious why she would be married and living in luxury in Hawaii. The manager is very attractive, speaks decent English, which she learned in Korea and the Phillipines, doesn’t have a boyfriend, wants to move to China, thinks marriage is not for her and hates the fact that she can’t smoke cigarettes while walking down the city streets. When she mentions this fact I realize that I see all of the men smoke in the streets but none of the women. She then goes on to explain that women are second class citizens and that Korean men are pigs and this goes on for a while and I decide that this is an OK place and that all the bartenders are eye-candy but it really isn’t what I am looking for. Although she was very nice to talk to . . .

I head off to Mindy’s.

Mindy’s is down an alley and there is a sign that says that it is an English Café. The music is LOUD and there are some people dancing and they appeared to be rather hammered and they were all ANGLOS. All of the signs were in English. They served Diet Coke (this seems rare as well). They sold Newports behind the bar. They even served ham sandwiches. There was a computer hooked up to the sound system and the patrons were busy picking songs off of a huge list and then checking their e-mail once a play list was established. The music reminded me of a frat house or a gay bar: shit you can hop around to and of which everyone knows the lyrics. Nothing I would listen to on my own time but fine for the moment. I ordered a Diet Coke and sat down at the end of the bar.

After I sat down, Mindy introduced herself and said that her bar had been open since April and that what she wanted was a Western Style bar with loud music and where people could have fun. Her clientele were all westerners, few Koreans came there and those who did came to practice their English. Mindy said that she learned her English by studying for five hours a day and I would have sworn she was educated in the states. She was cute, spunky, fun and seemed to love what she was doing. She then started to introduce me to people.

The first guy I met was from Ireland and he was hilarious. He had no time for any of this. He could not understand the Koreans and basically didn’t want to. He was chatting about the economic mess the world was in, talking about what a dumbass Bush was, said to drink a pint of Guinness here was pointless. He had been to the states and had even been to the U.P. which he said was like Ireland without the Irish. He offered the following bits of advice that he had learned in his first few months here as he had arrived about a month before I did. He interjected these while he typed out email:

1. Register with your embassy and put that number on speed dial. If your employer starts to fuck with you, threaten to use it.

2. Another thing that is useful to know is that the internet is a powerful tool. Explain to your employer that if they fuck with you a few nice notes to Dave’s ESL café with basically put them out of business. If they try to cheat you, they will be ruined. If they do cheat you, resort to number one.

3. Never volunteer for anything. Once you do it will become expected. You will be fucked. He did one Sunday as a favor, now he is doing one Sunday a month.

4. Don’t under any circumstances, learn the language. It is your levee against them and if it breaks you are fucked. Play dumb. If the students find out you know Korean, any Korean, they will trick you into using it and it will be your ass as this is what they want and the classroom will become your Korean lesson instead of their English lesson. Learn just enough to order food, get around in a taxi and maybe get laid. Other than that it will come back and bite you on the ass as it will lead back to #3 and then it may be too late to use #2 & #1 as you have set yourself up.

5. Remember, the only power that you have here is that you are a foreigner. We make up less than one percent of the population and the fact that the one commodity that we have is our ability to speak English is something that we need to hold onto with a solid grip. Lose that, you’re fucked.

There was other advice but the bottom line was that assimilation meant death. It meant that you would be owned and basically pimped. I thanked him for his advice and then was introduce to some people who really like what they did and thought that teaching English was a great profession.

I met the guy who posted the initial question on Dave’s and he was a real nice guy. He has been teaching in Korea something like 10 years and was able to offer a great deal of information about where I am at in the world and what the future may hold. He started off by asking me if I was happy about my situation. I told him that I was. Then he said that if I wanted a killer nightlife, Pohang was not the place to be. If I wanted to pick up anonymous women, Pohang was not the place to be. If I wanted to make 75,000 won per hour teaching privates, Pohang was not the place to be. If I wanted to live a rather anonymous existence, Pohang was not the place to be as it may be a city of 500,000 but it feels like a city of 5,000 and everyone knows everything about everyone else. But . . . If I simply wanted a nice place to live and a fairly good community with nice people and great places to eat (they say the food here is better than it is in Seoul) then I am in the right spot. It is a good place to save money and if I am in the right teaching environment then things should work out fine.

I told him that I had read his posting on Dave’s and he was sort of proud of the fact that what had started out as a lark had turned into this odd thing. There is even a Yahoo Pohang community with 42 members. He introduced me to the other teachers with whom he worked and they were all charming and interesting and all of them had solid perspectives on what to expect from the students and what to expect from myself as a teacher. Everyone was encouraging and on the whole it was a helpful journey into the night.

After a couple of Diet Cokes and a fresh pack of Camel Lights (US Army I think), it was rolling on 3am (I think Mindy said that last call was 6am on Friday and Saturday, 3 am during the week) so I left Mindy’s and searched for a cab home. The streets still had people on them and they were all loaded and eating snacks and life, for the most part, seemed good.

So I am not alone. Far from it. I am simply part of a community. I am pleased that I waited a month before I ventured down that road as it gave me some time gain my footing and make some choices on my own. As much as I enjoyed the Irish guy’s advice I think I’ll try to learn the language and leave the US embassy out of my affairs. Besides, I have no idea how to use the speed dial on my phone. I enjoy my employer and if I am paid on Monday then things will work out just fine. If not, well, I’ll be down to my last few won and this would have been the worst decision I have ever made (at least that I’ll write about in a semi-public forum). Then I’ll seriously have to ponder the thoughts of an Irish man . . . though the only one I ever really liked was Beckett and he wrote in French.

Peace,

sh

p,s. The reason there was no bus – they are out on strike. I guess my bicycle is a good stroke of luck after all . . .