tales from Korea

This post is a little delayed as I’ve been pretty much non-stop busy since I left the orientation and went to my school for the first week. Anyway, hopefully this can convey some information that may help future SOME applicants when thinking about what the orientation may be like.

There was much speculation and rumours surfacing on the Internet in the days leading up to the start of the orientation, most distressingly reading blog posts of other SMOE hires that had been mysteriously dropped from the program just days before it began. A few of these posts stated that the reason was the applicants were dropped was due to them not being able to make the first day of the orientation – in other words, some may be late. Other reasons included SMOE may have over hired in case of last minute drop outs and when people didn’t drop out, they had to get rid of all the ‘extras’. Most of this is speculation, and if SMOE made mistakes this year with hiring maybe they won’t do the same next year. All I can say is follow the instructions that your recruiter and SMOE give you and you should be fine, the most common being get your paperwork in as early as possible.

Update:

The Seoul podcast covered an episode on this.

The midnight runner podcast also released a episode about the firings.

After the pick-up at Seoul high school I registered with my agency and jumped on the first bus, that was also to be my last communication with my agency after a period of 4-5 months previously. I guess once they tick your name off at the bus pick up point they get paid and we’re done! The bus ride in was kinda funny and at the same time a little sad – there was a distinct gap between the people who had obviously done research into both the job and Korea before they came and were well prepared for what came ahead. Other people were talking about how can they actually survive in Korea? Will they be living in a third world apartment with publicly shared bathrooms and how can they mail over toothpaste from the U.S. because Korea only sells the ‘substandard non-fluoride ‘ kind. “Oh man, CostCo will save your life in Korea, once you get a membership you never need to buy food from anywhere else”. I was a little surprised at the attitude, I guess I expected more people willing to just jump into the culture, try the local foods and supermarkets – you’re in Korea – you must try all the Korean foods out there! Anyway, we arrived at our stay for the week at SungKyunKwan University in Suwon.

My initial first impression of SMOE’s organisation was a little disappointing, the organisers who met us seemed to have insufficient knowledge about what was going on and everyone stood around looking confused. Many people got pretty frustrated and tempers were rising on the whole first day – I can’t blame them that much though as many of them were right off the plane and then onto the bus; they must have been exhausted. It didn’t help that everyone was told the orientation was on a ‘Lockdown’ for the week due to the possibility of a Swine Flu outbreak; everyone was also given thermometers to check their temperature every day. Everyone lined up to collect the keys to our rooms for the duration of our stay – there was no preset order to how people bunked together, it was literally the person you were standing beside in the queue. I ended up bunking with Joel Natley, he is definitely not your typical American and turned out to be a very interesting character altogether who I was happy to share a lot of time with over the week.

By the second day things seemed to be going better than expected, they seemed much more organised and we were given a useful printed orientation guide that pretty much answered any questions we may have had at the beginning. The lectures went well, some much more informative and interesting then others, but all in the comfort of the airy, bright lectures rooms of the university’s Chemistry science building. I think most people agreed David Deubel’s lecture was one of the best; both informative and realistic – providing sound strategies and very useful tips that I never thought of before. There were various lectures during the day but there was plentiful free time as well. The one highlight for me personally was the optional after school “Survival Korean I and II”. The teacher, Kwon Seung-Im was just a wonderful teacher and person to be around. The meticulous detail of her powerpoint slides and seemingly never ending enthusiasm made her classes both useful and interesting. On entering the room we each got a laminated A4 page, some board markers and a few pieces of tissue. A little confused at first, I soon realised what she was going to do. A very clever way of testing writing skills – she could easily see everyones attempts at writing Hangul correctly. The first class was mostly just regular greetings so I was a little bored, but she also covered many useful phrases and basic sentences that I never knew before. The second class was great; she went over the entire Korean alphabet and we practiced pronunciation and combining the sounds to form words.

The last main scheduled day, Friday, is when we had to deliver a lesson plan in groups of three. This was an experience I’d rather not blog around, but if anyone knows my feelings on group work you’ll probably know it wasn’t the most pleasant experiences of the orientation. That night, there was an awesome Tae Kwon Do demonstration by about twenty individuals. I have no idea what club they were from, but you could tell they were both highly skilled in their art as well as being good stage performers.

Here is a video of the orientation:

Overall the orientation was useful and informative, the swine flu ‘Lockdown’ was frustrating, but the measures they took understandable. I met a lot of very nice people there who I’m keeping in contact with on Facebook and via email. I hope we can share and learn from each other, and keep a good relationship for the school year.