The Final Days

I'm composing this from Connecticut, where I have spent the past few weeks staring at all the non-Koreans, eating processed snacks, and trying not to bow when I say thank you.  But this will not be a post about transitioning back to America (which is kind of a disturbing place, as it turns out), but about my final days in Korea which I was too busy/tired to chronicle at the time.  And lazy.  That too.

So here are some belated glimpses of my Korean finale:  

December:

SH hands me around nine resumes of young females from North America, and asks me to read through them and choose a few to interview.  School is in session, but we've finished the textbooks, and have embarked on a Home Alone marathon in which I discover that Scarlett Johanssen is in Home Alone III as a preteen, but it's still a blah movie.  The kids are delighted with the comic violence and they shriek delightedly as the villains get their heads smashed with irons and bricks and are later set on fire and attacked by a stapler gun.  We play each movie in 40 minute chunks to three different classes, and by the end I am a strange juxtaposition of being in the Christmas spirit and being surprisingly desensitized to graphic violence.      

As Kevin mouths "Keep the change, ya dirty animal," I shuffle through the smiling photos of enthusiastic applicants with liberal arts degrees and wanderlust.  On paper, they all seem like they would do a great job, so I pick two or three who have a specific interest in Asia and a few years of experience with children.    

No, no, no.  My choices are misguided. SH is convinced that the age range needs to be a goldilocks mid-twenties; not too young, not too old.  

I go through the resumes and write out the highlights of each applicant on a sticky note for her examine.  SH isn't lazy; her English isn't strong enough to read the paragraphs of I-can-use-this-word-so-you-should-hire-me papers.  We discuss a few of the applicants who stand out, and set up three Skype/phone interviews.  SH hands me a paper of questions to ask the applicants, and then she finishes the interview with a little speech she has written out.    

"Do you like children?  Teaching children is deferent than teaching adults.  Many times students don't listen to you and they will bother you. I want you to know about this."

One applicant tells us how she is obsessively organized and clean.  After the interview, SH asks me what she meant, and I say that it means everything is neat and on time.  We look at our desks which are covered in lesson plans, reminders, and, in my case, a pen shaped like a fluffy flamingo.

"Not like that," I say.  She laughs.  I will miss her.

Eventually we settle on a girl who is friendly and energetic.         

January:

After a three-week vacation in Sweden, which is not an ideal location to winter, I come back to the equally snowy Korea and conduct my two week Winter camp.  

February:

My time in Korea is coming to a close.  Something about the impending departure makes me simultaneously want to soak up every last minute, even as I impatiently wait to leave.  It's not that I'm sick of Korea; I just have the expiration in sight and the remainder feels like waiting in line.  Really slowly -- because each day at school I sit at my desk for eight hours and try to be self-motivated.  I read online that another public school teacher spent his excess desk hours teaching himself finances and is now a bit of an investing guru.  This is inspiring, I think to myself, as I watch my online television shows.

Teacher's Dinner

Our school has a final Teacher's Dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Geumchon.   We are seated on cushions on the floor and there are several long tables in a sectioned off area that we reserved.  It's on a slightly raised platform and we take our shoes off before stepping up.  It's Japanese, but, like every good restaurant in Korea, has kimchi, hot soups, Soju and Hite.  The tables are gloriously laid with sushi and side dishes and alcohol and soft drinks.  As we sit and eat, the waiters constantly stream in with new foods to try; sashimi, soups, fried desserts.  

But before we start: Surprise!  The leaving teachers will all be giving short goodbye speeches to the room.  I suppose I should have anticipated this after having had to give an intro speech at the beginning of the year, but it hadn't crossed my mind.  I wish I could remember enough Korean to say something significant.  The person giving her speech before me is young -- mid-twenties -- and starts to cry halfway through her speech.  Everybody "awww" or giggles and she can't finish her speech.  I, of course, am next.  Yes, I'm supposed to follow the crying girl.

I stand up and bow, and enunciate very clearly and slowly how grateful I am to everyone (wide gesture to the room) and how I love Korea and its mountains (big mountain curve gesture) and it's very beautiful and I am very happy to have come and everyone is very kind.  I end with a Korean thank you and a bow.  They hand me a goodbye envelope with 10,000 Won and a slip of paper with something typed in Korean.

The evening proceeds nicely and is filled with teachers getting drunk enough to feel confident enough to use their English on me.    Most of the teachers who talk to me spend their time apologizing over being too shy to speak to me at school.  I am oh-so-forgiving and we graciously toast each other, knowing full well that we will be silently nodding at each other in the hallways on Monday.  Eventually an older gentleman corners me and leans at me, mumbling incoherent English and Korean that SH also finds incoherent and instead of translating says "Pretend like you understand what I am saying."  So I look at him and nod and laugh.  It's been a couple hours at this point, and the night is just getting started for most of them, but SH tells me I'm allowed to leave.  The next day Correy tells me he saw my Vice Principal and a group at noraebong at 1 in the morning.

**

The week before I leave is low key.  Both SH and I are desk-warming, and, with my extensive experience, I am much better at it than she.  I read a book, chat, surf facebook, watch online TV, write emails, etc., while she sits with her phone, texting and then sighing and telling me she's bored.  I suggest watching Korean soap operas online and she groans and lays her head onto her arms on the desk.  Cool.  Another teacher comes in -- a young woman called Yanghee who was the English co-teacher before SH -- and speaks to SH about lunch.  I hear them say "migook", which means America, so I know they are talking about me.

"Can you eat goats-eh?"Yanghee asks me, looking distrustful at the idea.

"Goats?" It didn't sound like a scary food to me.  They think I'm such a wuss.

"Goats-eh" she says again, and makes a pregnant belly movement over her stomach.

"Ohh, guts?  No, I can't."  I laugh.  We all laugh.  I am a wuss.

'Nsync pose

**

The teacher exchange across public schools in Korea is one of the haphazard aspects of the system that makes no sense to me.   Each teacher is allowed to stay five years maximum at one school, so that different schools have a chance to have good teachers (and bad teachers are shuffled around).  Fine.  What I don't understand is why the management can't figure out where teachers are going to go until a week before they start.  My original co-teacher, Young Rock, was moving schools this year, and he wasn't told until a week before what his new school would be, or even what grade he would teach.  I think some teachers have better luck, but even still -- the physical and mental preparation involved in starting a new grade at a new school requires more than a week's notice.  

**

My sixth graders graduate with a sweet little ceremony in the cleared out cafeteria, which converts into a sort of auditorium.  Proud 6th grade parents sit together at the back of the hall, behind the younger students, and the teachers sit along the left, in a sectioned off area.  It starts with the fifth graders playing the saw -- our principal is a talented saw player (see above video from Sports Day) and once a week he teaches them classic songs that have included "Country Road," "Yesterday," and "Somewhere over the Rainbow."  The principal then gives a speech and starts calling up the names of each student, who bow once in greeting to the principal and once in thanks upon receipt of the diploma.  Afterwards, parents give their kids flowers and hugs.

Before the ceremony starts, when everyone is milling about, I go over to where my favorite fifth graders are sitting and point to the seats at the front where the 6th graders are.

"Next year, you will be there.  Are you excited?"

They stare at me.  I repeat myself with dramatic hand and facial expressions: "Next year" -- left hand makes giant arch over stationary right hand -- "You" -- point -- "Will be there" -- point at 6th grade -- "Are you excited?" -- happy face dance.

"Oh no!"  They make faces and shake their heads.  Ah, right.  A grade higher = more work, more expectations, less childhood.

**

We have our final band night.  It's Katie's apartment and it smells of incense and candles and chai tea, and the lamp is covered by a scarf, which means the lighting is soft as one of us picks up an instrument and sings a slow melody.  We film each other answering questions about where we're at, where we think we're heading, what our philosophies are, and the significants who are enriching or leaving our lives.  Inspired by a documentary, we vow that we will shoot follow up films every five or so years.  In the meantime, we're all enamored with the 1-second-a-day guy who creates montages from seconds of his days.

One of my friends -- who has been pregnant 9 of the 11 months I've known her, so I actually have no idea what her personality is like -- has a birthday and about ten of us squish into the apartment where they live with their newborn.  The child is adorable and my child-holding privileges have been restored after I retracted all kidnapping comments.  And bribed them with a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake.  We take spoons and eat the colorful cake that is split into eight sections of mostly delicious flavors.  The way we consume it is like a really questionable commercial that simultaneously makes you want to purchase, devour and then throw up the product.  

I say goodbye to the rest of my friends and acquaintances, except most of my writer's group, who will hopefully use my mysterious disappearance as writing fodder for a terrific book.  I give my darling cat away to a stranger from an expat chat board.  She has wavy brown hair and seems nice in a probably-won't-eat-my-cat way.

On Monday, I pull my all-nighter packout and am driven to the airport by my Korean friend Jane and her sleepy brother.  We discuss her upcoming English classes, dating, and traveling.  Goodbyes to fellow travelers never feel permanent.

**

Here are some seconds of my last year and a half.  I didn't manage to do seconds from consecutive days (very often), but I still thought it was a cool project.

And that officially concludes my Korean adventure.  Hello America.  

Posted in: ESL Korea 2013, ESL teaching, finishing up, Korea