First impression of Korea: English Village pt.1

I know if you are like me, and you are still reading this blog, you are sick and tired of me not getting to point at hand, which is extreme craziness that happened during my travels and how I met my Korean husband already. Please try to hang in there. Sometimes I have to start at the beginning to really figure where I'm going. I promise next week will be a bit more entertaining.


So before I went to Korea, I was still obsessed with Japan. I made this deal with myself that I would sign on for one year and if I hated it, it was only a year. I remember before I took a job, they do phone interviews once the recruitment agency accepts you. This one job in Daegu that I was thinking about, the person that did the interview was very rude and one of their questions was, "Why did you graduate from University in 4 1/2 years instead of 4?" I was like, "Well I took summers off usually, so it took me that long." I'm sorry but why does it even matter as to how long it took me to graduate, as long as I have my degree? They asked a couple more questions along the same lines. As if I wasn't down enough just being unemployed at the time... What pissed me off even more is when I learned that the foreign staff, most of which have been there less than a year, is usually who the Korean director has do the interview. I know because I've done a couple myself my third year. But then another School called me called "English Village" 


English Village in like a camp that provide short-term English immersion for mostly middle school students. It is designed for them to improve their English and become aware of the Anglo-American culture. So for Korean parents, instead of sending their children to study abroad, they can send them to this place and they can learn what it's like to be in a foreign country and speak only English. All the teachers there are native English speakers. Although I had my doubts about a few of them. People always, "Well how can you teach Korean students, if you don't know Korean?" The answer is I had an Korean co-teacher who could obviously speak Korean, and they were only supposed to speak English. They could speak Korean for clarification only. Honestly, though I had my doubts that some of them could speak English.


 English Village is like no other place on earth. Usually whole schools in Gyeonggi province would come for a week and stay in "Hotels" with a house parent to make sure they didn't sneak out at night. 


A typical week at English Village would be the teachers would pick the students in their homeroom class up in the morning. They would have several classes throughout the day. These classes included, (at least when I was there): Movie Making, Advertising, Drama, Music, Art, Science, and Cooking. Each night they would have a special activity like playing a game, or watching a movie, or having a dance party. In Homeroom, they would go to special fake places built around campus. We had a fake police station, bank, clinic, post office, and airport terminal. The students would have to memorize dialogue that they would use at such places. Like purchasing a plane ticket or going to the doctor. The students would have role play with these such dialogues that the teachers mostly invented or found. So when whomever interviewed me about this place, and I first heard about it, I immediately accepted and turned down the other rude ass place. Plus, I made more money at this place.

Speaking of money, when I first got to Korea, the Korean won was a little bit higher than the dollar. I got paid in Korean won. I literally saved like $1400 a month, because I had no car payment, and no rent. I only spent my money on food and beverages, shopping, and the occasional taxi ride. When I got to English Village, I didn't even pay for my utilities for the first couple of months. I got a free TV, DVD player, microwave, and internet all year. For the first couple of months, I even had free air-conditioning and gas. After I moved to Seoul later on, I really didn't know how amazing I had it in English Village. That, however is how Korea works. They will provide a lot more for you if you live in BFE, as opposed to Seoul, because everyone wants to work in Seoul and not right across the border from North Korea or in some place where it takes more than an hour to get to Seoul. 


Before I left for Korea, I started to read all the information I could on it. I had just taught fifth grade at that time, so I was pretty familiar with the Korean War and all that it entailed. I also learned that the Koreans and the Japanese do not like each other, because the Japanese had occupied Korea prior to WWII approximately 1910-1945 and had raped their women and tortured them. They did human experiments on the Koreans. That is one way that the Japanese have developed some of their medical knowledge. So at that time, I was like, "Okay...note to self, don't talk about how much you loved Japan to the Koreans. As I traveled more I found that there are many many countries that hate Japan for their occupations in their country.  


A lot of people ask me how my father felt about me moving to Korea to teach English. He was actually okay with it. I have to give you a little background. My dad is one of those overly protectives. He didn't let me do a lot of things and go out with friends when I was younger. I'm still kind of bitter about some of those things, but in hindsight, he probably saved me from getting into trouble. When I got to high school, he eased up a little, but to give you a few examples: When I was in high school, he would not let me drive my car an hour and a half to Nashville. When I was applying for college, I had thought about going to UT Knoxville. My father told me he would basically disown me if I went there, so I had to go to Tennessee Tech which only 30 minutes from his house. When I was at Tech, I had an opportunity to go to Brazil to live for the summer. I practically had to throw a screaming fit and threaten to have my mother sign the consent form, and she would've because they are divorced and hate each other....he finally gave in an signed. Once I started to work and pay my own way, I started to travel more. I had already been to Spain and Italy on one spring break, which he was against initially, but then when I graduated, he actually gave me the money to go back to Europe as a graduation present. I was kind of shocked by that. My father knew I had had a terrible year teaching and he wanted me to do what made me happy. 


Okay, so I made up my mind, had my dad sit down and talked to him about it. He drove me to the airport. I remember. I was anxious and nervous and I almost missed my flight from San Francisco because the huge airport was so confusing and my flights were so close together arriving and departing. They had to hold the plane and I was running so fast with my stupid heavy laptop. I was the last one on the plane, but I made it. I remember thinking, this is it. I have no idea what is going to happen with my life now.


I have to tell you that the weekend before I left to go to Korea, I went white water rafting with my church. I thought that is what gave me tonsilitus when I first got to Korea, but later found out that it was just Korea. I would later get it about ten times. I got every single time that I arrived back in that country due to pollution, I think. It worked out being okay every time, because in Korea. I could have a doctor's visit, a shot, get examined and medicated for $10. I'm not exaggerating. I almost fell over the first time I discovered this because just before I left the states, I had to pay a $30 co-pay (this did not pay for any of my meds) with "good" insurance, just to get someone to examine my foot. 


When I got to Korea, there was a little man waiting outside the gates with a sign with my name on it. He spoke no English. We had to use body language. I got into his cab van with all my luggage. He pointed at a bunch of things on the way to English Village. I just nodded and smiled. I have no clue about anything he was talking about except the word, "Seoul".


My first impression of English Village was, "This is a pretty surreal place."  It is way out in the country, in the North part of South Korea, across the river from North Korea. Along the interstate on the way there called the "Ja-uro."  They have guarded barbed wired fences and guard posts set up all along the river. It is very close to the DMZ. 

Before you get to the entrance, you will see a life size Hollywood sign that says, "English Village" at the entrance, but then it also has an exact replica of Stonehenge. You walk in and it is literally a little village. You will find some security guards at the entrance, and of course the fake airport terminal. Past the airport terminal is a gym, with a soccer field and a pool. You walk through these castle doors and you find a few "Western" restaurants. They had a gift shop, a convenient store (that was way overpriced), a Mongolian restaurant, a book store, a restaurant that was fast food called, "Meister", across from that was sub sandwich shop, and a coffee shop (my favorite place), then there was a bakery, then you had an UK style pub (where lots of residents spent most of their time). Above all the restaurants was where all the teachers lived. We live in these very colonial style looking apartment buildings with little fake mailboxes out front and everything. The building where all named after planets. My building's name was Jupiter. They also had teachers apartments above all the restaurants. Down below that, there was a huge Theater. English Village doesn't just employ teachers, they also employ what they call "Edutainers", which are actors who write words, music, and star in plays in which they teach "one day visitors" English. We also had a talent show at the end of every week and this is where all the students who participated would perform.  In the Theater is where we also had movie night, and game nights with the students. Surrounding the theater were all the classroom buildings and also all of the fake places like the bank and the clinic and such. There was also an Italian restuarant somewhere in the mix there. Although, there was actually a real bank there, where all of us foreigners went to withdrawal our money from the ATM and also send money home to our countries. Beyond that there is a building called City Hall. This is where all the Admin. works and where we all would clock in. If you walk on through you will see an outdoor Amphitheater, and then the Hotels where the students stay. It also has a huge fountain somewhere in the middle and a trolley on tracks with a conductor.


Now that I've given you an idea of what this place looks like, I feel I should tell you this place is extremely popular among Koreans, particularly famous Korean actors and pop stars.  They were always shooting commercials, modeling, or shooting videos and TV shows on site. I guess, because it looks like it's not actually in Korea. It was very cool, but also kind of stressful sometimes because when your students would see these famous people (and of course I didn't who  half of them were at the time), they would go bat-shit over them and there was no controlling them. 


When I first got there, I met my head teachers, Dean and Aaron.  I will have to go into more gory detail about all the people I lived with thereand all the crazy things we experienced  in my next post. (thank goodness, I'm not using anyone's real name, please no one sue and also all the people I'm going to really go in gory, entertaining detail about never ever read this and don't ever assume I'm talking about you, even if you are so paranoid that I am)  Congratulations if you got through this one. :)

P.S. Just because someone was a ridiculous lunatic years ago, doesn't mean they still are. I totally understand that, but I need to use you for my story for who (and I'm not talking about you) you were then...There I think I've covered all my bases...hopefully?