All in all, Korea has so far been a valuable life experience. A somewhat romantic idea of living abroad has been supplemented with some concrete observations:
1. It’s not easy being away from my people. To be honest, I feel very much cut off from my family. (I don’t have a telephone at home, so I call them two or three times per month from a phone booth. That also means they can’t call me. And sending me faxes is too much trouble because the people here aren’t always that keen on helping.)
2. I always talk about where I’ll go and what I’d experience if I had a lot of money. But just look at where you go and what you do experience in your search for the “fortune” that will put you in that position!
Sunday, 27 October 1996
My life in Korea consists of three distinct periods of time:
1. The long, boring hours at work
2. The hours at home when I take it easy, drink coffee, listen to music, and think about things
3. Good times with friends and acquaintances
I won’t be able to turn back time and continue my life without the experiences I’ve had in Korea. What a strange experience! It’s definitely the kind of thing the bailiff can’t take away from you.
Tuesday, 29 October 1996
An intention: I have to make Korea as enjoyable as possible for myself. At some point it will be just another chapter in my life book. I should also remember that the chapter is still in the process of being written. It’s my responsibility to make sure it’s a good chapter. I’d better start working on interesting material!
What I’m trying to say is that I won’t be here forever. I don’t want to have any regrets about something that I didn’t do or didn’t experience because I just wanted time to pass as quickly as possible.
Working things out on my own enables me to deal more effectively with a confusing world. It helps if my pegs are well anchored to the winds that sometimes tear into one’s tent flaps.
Wednesday, 9 October 1996
I realised today there’s almost always a grey cloud hanging over me. An awareness of being happy is almost always one step ahead of me – but I also tend to stay one step ahead of a definite awareness of being miserable. Maybe a good balance?
The smallest things sometimes make me … happy – like being told just before my evening class that the class has been cancelled.
I am currently struggling to get through my classes. And it’s not because it’s hard work. It’s just so damn boring!
I just want to get through the boring hours at work so I can go home – even if I’m just sitting here doing nothing, at least I won’t be stuck in a classroom with a bunch of kids. I can smoke when I want to, make coffee, listen to music …
I have to do things that motivate me, and that stimulate my interest. I need to do something to make Korea worth staying for a year.
Arrived in Korea on 30 June. I survived my first week, and … what do you know? My first month has just seen its arse.
It’s once again one of those things you know is going to happen, but you have to go through the formalities first. I had to live through the first month day by day and hour by hour before I could reach this point.
It’s 30 July 1996. I’m moving into my own room either tomorrow or this weekend. And on Saturday I’m getting approximately ₩700,000 [$700/R3,500] cash.
* * *
I also want to marry and have children at some point. Still, I don’t want the kind of life my friends are leading, even though I was thinking, just two months ago, that they had wonderful lives.
What I’m currently experiencing is an adventure within a relatively stable environment. I have a place to live; I have a job; I earn about R3,600 per month, and I live in a country in Northeast Asia with all the potential for discovery that keeps you busy in boring times. And, I’m not in a position where I think I’ve arrived now, that this is going to be my life for the next forty years, with the existential panic that usually goes with that.
I’m in a position where I experience a fair degree of security. But, I’m also aware that I will only be here for another eleven months, so there’s no reason for uncontrollable anxiety.
I can say: “Okay, this is my life for another eleven months. What then? England? Eastern Europe …”
Was back in Seoul for so-called training yesterday. It worked out well in the end because I was able to visit the [South African guy I met at the airport], who’s quite homesick, and not very pleased with his situation. I also met his American colleague – quite a perverse guy. He’s okay.
On Friday night, I went to SE Jazz and saw [one of the Canadian ladies] again. We talked for a while, and then she asked if it would be rude if she said she’d like to kiss me. I said: “Well, I’m not sure of the consequences …”
I also found out tonight about my new room. It’s in the same unit as the home of the owner of the school, Mrs Kim, but with an outside door and separate wash area. What I’ve seen from the outside is that it’s spacious, with a few windows.
Also went to the Immigration Office this week and had a bit of luck in the process. Because they took my passport, I couldn’t cash my traveller checks*, so I received an advance of ₩50,000 on my salary.
I don’t want to speak out of turn, but I think Korea could turn out all right.
———–
* I arrived in Korea with R400’s worth of traveller checks: R200 I got from my family for my birthday, and R200 left over from the proceeds of selling my car six months prior.
Steps to the front door of Mrs Kim’s house – Chonju, South Korea. The window on the right is part of my room.My (second) room in Chonju. The window is the one next to the front door in the previous picture.My shower-and-sink room in Chonju
Exactly a month after my last entry, and how things have changed! On Friday 28 June, we celebrated my birthday in Pretoria, and on Sunday 30 June I arrived in Seoul.
I was a bit nervous about my luggage. Pamphlets were distributed on the plane informing everyone that no cassette tapes are allowed into the country, because who knows – you might be a North Korean agent who wants to corrupt the people in the South with your Appetite for Destruction or Eddy Grant Greatest Hits tapes.
In the end, I made it through customs and passport control with all my luggage intact – including a bag full of cassette tapes. A Korean man and a guy from South Africa in a 1995 Rugby World Cup T-shirt awaited me in the arrivals hall. Walking out of the terminal building, the smell and heat and people and buildings drove home the reality – I was in a foreign country again!
After about twenty minutes’ drive through heavy traffic (almost all the cars on the road were Korean models, and no car was more than a few years old) we arrived at what seemed like an office building. On the second and third floors were a language school – like the one where I would work, and on the roof was a small room where the South African guy lived.
Two hours later, the owner of the school who had paid for my plane ticket joined us. The wife of the man who had picked me up at the airport – who was introduced to me as something that sounded like “One Gum” – served us tea, and we talked about the school, class schedules, students, and so on. Then came the instruction that I should confirm the story cooked up by the woman for whom I would work in Chonju that I am an American. This would later prove to be a bit of a thorny issue.
At about six we went to the bus terminal from where Mrs Kim – who could hardly speak a word of English – and I took a bus to Chonju. After about two hours we stopped for refreshments. She bought me a can of cold coffee and a packet of mini doughnuts. At about eleven o’clock that night we arrived in Chonju. Her son, about my age, met us at the bus station. In the car on the way to their home, he played Korean pop music and asked me if I knew the group. I assured him I didn’t.
My first night in Chonju wasn’t great. I had no idea what my situation was going to be like regarding lodgings, but I wasn’t mentally prepared to reside with a family in the same house – a few nights would have been okay, but I am here on a two-year contract! I also didn’t have the faintest idea what the average Korean family home looked like.
The house is in a narrow alley behind a steel gate. It has a small courtyard, with a few stairs leading up to the front door. After we had walked in, I was shown a small room next to the kitchen, which I could clearly see had been the son’s room until that afternoon.
After an hour or so I closed the glass sliding door behind me and sat down on the bed. It was hot, and humid. Mosquitoes discovered another exposed piece of my flesh every few minutes. The only window was about the size of a coffee table book, and I had to stand on the bed to reach it. From the outside, a flashing red neon cross advertised a church in the adjoining building.
The next day I learned through my co-teacher at the school that the room is just a temporary situation, and that I would be getting my own “room” in about two months’ time. By Tuesday, the son had emptied the closet in the room – which at least gave me a piece of personal space where I could put up a photo or two.
* * *
I started work the day after I had arrived. I work with a Korean teacher in the class, which is okay on the one hand, but it also puts me under pressure because my English has to be perfect all the time. She pays attention to every word I say.
The first week of classes went by without any major problems in the end. The children seem eager to learn. They’re also quite friendly – one class even gave me cake for my birthday.
I also had to go for a medical examination this week, which was okay until it came to the urine test … where I couldn’t squeeze out a single drop.
On Tuesday I met a Canadian guy who works at another school in the same street as I. He told me about a place called SE Jazz, close to the university, and he also explained the Korean hot water system to me (after a week of taking cold baths).
About the Jazz place – I went there on Friday with the Canadian and another guy from the US. I’m pretty sure all the Westerners in Chonju were there. Initially it felt like hangouts in Stellenbosch, but after a few beers it got significantly better. I kind of made friends with a few Canadian women. In the end, we were the last people to leave the place (just before sunrise).
Last night I went to an “open house” at my colleague’s place. Very pleasant and much more relaxing than the Jazz. The food was delicious. I reckon she spent all day behind the stove. I was very impressed.
Alley leading to the house – Chonju, South KoreaOutside commode – Chonju, South KoreaKitchen of home in Chonju, South KoreaKitchen of home in Chonju, South KoreaMy co-teacher and I at Samtur Hagwon – July 1996 – Chonju, South Korea
