Solan Elementary School: A Biased Review (Part 1)

This is the last post I will make about my previous job, at an elementary school in Bucheon, near Songnae Station.

OK, second-to-last.

I worked there for 51 weeks, from September of 2011 to August of 2012.

I will admit, I am a bit biased about the place, but this is merely my personal experience. While the other teachers were initially polite (to my face, at least), the biggest issues were a lack of direction, lack of support, lack of oversight, and general passive-aggressiveness.

I must admit that the following is my viewpoint alone; however, perhaps it could be informative for future job-seekers.

—

But first…a quick preview of my review:

DO NOT WORK HERE. YOUR COWORKERS WILL BE LAZY, CLUELESS MORONS WHO TREAT YOU LIKE DOG SHIT. THEY WILL FAIL TO PROVIDE YOU WITH A MATTRESS OR FURNITURE. THEY WILL FAIL TO BE COURTEOUS, POLITE, OR ACCOMMODATING. THEY WILL FAIL TO FILE YOUR TAXES.  YOUR OVERTIME HOURS WILL BE MANDATORY. YOU WILL BE FORCED TO WORK TEN TIMES AS HARD AS EVERYONE ELSE, WHICH THEY WILL JUSTIFY AS BEING A PART OF YOUR “HIGH SALARY.” THEN, THEY WILL HARP ON YOU FOR NOT BEING PERFECT.

I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS SCHOOL.

Anyways, on to my story.

—

I began my work with high expectations. I was leaving my first school, a hagwon (private academy). This hagwon had an extremely strict curriculum; every class was broken down into components that had to be covered, with little room for improvisation or differentiation. It was focused on making money and keeping parents happy, rather than teaching or worrying about the high instructor turnover rate.

I was excited. At this new school, I could develop my skills, learn something, be a real teacher for a change.

I was ready for, I needed a change. However, it was less of a change than I hoped, and the pendulum swang quickly to the other side of crazy.

At the interview, I learned about the class schedule and school structure.

Our school was structured thusly:

• The after-school program, from 1:00-5:00, with a ten-minute break every hour. This four-hour span consisted of two classes with two hours each. You would either teach two ‘level’ classes, or a level class and ‘bonus class’ of your choosing. The time frame for these classes were later changed from 2:00-6:00.
• Morning classes (I taught 2nd, 4th, and 6th grade). The second graders needed a complete curriculum whereas the others had books.
• Kindergarten (once a week on average).
• A ‘camp’ (occasionally on Wednesday mornings). Different classes would come to the after-school area. Always different classes, so you could make the same lesson for all of them. This was a recruitment tool for our after-scool program.

On average, we would have two or three mornings free, which were usually spent planning lessons. There was also a Korean secretary and a Korean teacher in the after-school program. The secretary was named In-Young, the teacher was called Hera, a name I have since come to despise.

—

When I first applied, there were two positions: one beginning in September and one in October. I wanted to start in October so I could have some down time and visit friends and family. At this point, I had spent over a year without any vacations, and only one sick day (which I spent in the hospital).

The interview was uneventful. I didn’t know which bus to take, so I ended up taking the subway, which made my trip almost twice as long. At the subway station, the manager, Sunhwa, met me. Despite being a five-minute walk away from the station, she picked me up in her car. Maybe she wanted to impress me. After a brief tour, I was offered the job, which I accepted. They had many different games and materials, and the after-school area looked clean and well-structured.

I thought, wow, they really seem to care about the children here. I hope I can do a good job and teach these kids!

(I am totally sincere and serious in this statement. I wanted to do a good job, because the school seemed so quaint and seemed to really want the students to learn. I did not want to do a bad job. I did not want there to be so much crazy drama.)

Again, how wrong I was. About everything.

—

Now, what about those after-school classes, you might ask? What to do with those four hours of time?

The answer is complicated, and I’ll get to that eventually. But first, some other tidbits in my contract:

• Checking my contract, there was a single line dedicated to the entire after-school program, under “Duties.”
  “To co-teacher with Korean teacher(s) in regular classes and to conduct/lead extra-curricular activities, after school programs, and/or school camps.”
• Note how there is no mention of coteachers in the after-school program.

Also, another portion of the contract concerned the furnishings in my apartment. The “sample inventory of the appliances and furniture provided by the Employer,” consisted of the following:

• Telephone
• Refrigerator
• Washing Machine
• Television
• Electric fan
• Electric iron
• Bed
• Sofa
• Vacuum cleaner
• Microwave
• Gas cooker
• Electric rice cooker or toaster
• Kitchen table
• Wardrobe
• Desk
• Chair

Actually included in the apartment were:

• Two tables
• Two chairs
• A TV STAND
• A microwave
• A fan
• A refrigerator
• A washing machine

Notice how certain things are missing. Notice how there is no TV, no vacuum, and – most importantly – NO BED. I already had a bed, which was sitting in my friend’s apartment waiting for me. Sleeping on a mat on the floor slowly became less and less sustainable, until I requested a truck to move it, which they granted. This came after approximately three months of sleeping on the floor in my mattress-free apartment.

—

Speaking of which…

Initially, the manager had promised to hire a truck in order to pick up all my stuff from my previous apartment. After I signed my contract, the truck driver (apparently a friend/relative) injured his back at the last moment. “Oohhh, sorryyyy,” Sunhwa simply stated. I had signed the contract already; I was locked in, and I had to take care of moving my own crap.

Due to these circumstances, I had half a week to move everything out of my apartment. I gave away most of my furniture, and put my other stuff into various rolling suitcases. I took several trips to my new apartment per day, lugging all of my junk in these suitcases. Combined with waking up early and still working at my previous job, this led to a physical breakdown. I became weak, nauseous, physically ill, constant upset stomache. Soon after the move, Sunhwa requested that I start half a week earlier than expected, as the previous instructor was leaving a bit earlier. I had been hoping to recover for those days, but instead, I went to the school as a good worker bee should.

Thus, sick as a dog, I trudged into work, was given my books, and was told to teach. I sat at my desk uncomfortably, feeling sick to my stomach. When I said how I was feeling, I was informed that ‘it was OK if I had to run to the bathroom to throw up.’ No offer to take a sick day, just a bland statement of fact.

—

The first few weeks, my apartment was a mess.

I noticed myself getting stuffy and sneezing a lot. I panicked, and bought an air purifier, as I have a slight dust allergy.

This didn’t help.

My apartment looked clean. Then, I decided to clean my bathroom. The floor was covered in tiny flecks of white stuff, presumably mold.

I guess Hera didn’t really want to clean that thoroughly.

—

Another apartment issue was the lack of gas.

P, the teacher before me, had apparently never payed his gas bill. Thus, when i arrived, the gas line had been severed by the gas company. I informed Hera about this. She looked annoyed at being taken away from her dramas. After a quick phone call, she told me that reconnecting the line would cost about forty dollars.

Looking like a parent who just caught their kid drawing on a wall, she stated, “Do you really need this gas in your apartment?”

“Yes, I want to cook,” I told her.

“Well it costs forty dollars,” she said, “and the school can pay for it. We just want to make sure that you really need this.” She looked at me, irritated and looking like a recent lobotomy patient. It was clear that she did not want to spend this money on me.

Bowing to the pressure, I deferred. I bought one of these bad boys for eighteen bucks.

I never understood this reluctance to pay. It wasn’t even coming out of Hera’s salary, or Sunhwa’s paycheck, or anything of the sort. Maybe they were hesitant to ask our notoriously stingy principal for the money.

—

My first coworker was a nice, talkative guy. Let’s call him J. We got along well and he was able to enlighten me a bit about the procedures, rules, schedule, and general class formula. Without him, I would have been lost. We often hung out after work as well, which was great for a guy who was in a new town with few friends.

J was the instructor quitting in October. I was curious about this. Upon completion of a public-school contract, you are awarded ‘severance pay’ equivalent to one full month’s wage; quitting early would negate this bonus, and J was quitting a mere two months shy of a big payout.

When asked, he said that there were no problems with the school; he just wanted a change and a less demanding job. I could relate. Think about it: four hours of unstructured classes, with students who can barely speak Korean, let alone English. In the morning, ‘regular’ classes, they were not even separated by levels, meaning that there could be a nearly-fluent student next to a student who didn’t even know their ABCs.

Fortunately, the morning classes had materials that would be readily found online. The after-school classes, however, were a whole different story.

—

My first morning class, I felt a lump in my stomache. I had met the co-teacher, an older, more experienced lady who mostly worked in middle schools, but I still didn’t know much about teaching in public schools.

Also, I didn’t have a copy of the book.

Hera saw that I looked nervous and gave me some sage advice. “Ghost, are you going to prepare something for them? Some game?” (sic)

This is the sum total of advice she gave me during my year at the school. Other than showing me the schedule and my books, I was informed of nothing else regarding the school structure, students, schedule, methodology, or anything, really. I was on my own, in every sense of the word.

—

After the first ‘regular’ morning class, Sunhwa and Hera met with me. They were surprised that I was taking a backseat to the coteacher, despite the fact that the coteacher and I already had a meeting and agreed on what to do – I would do the warm-up at the beginning and game at the end, and she would do the regular lesson.

This is what we agreed on in the meeting. However, Sunhwa and Hera were not happy about this setup, despite being present at the aforementioned meeting.

Maybe they didn’t understand all the English, but pretended that they knew what we were talking about.

Actually, that’s probably what happened.

I told them (as I had told her) that I wanted to get more used to the public school environment and that I would gradually be taking control over more of the classroom responsibilities.

To paraphrase, they basically told me that, “You know, we are paying you a lot of money. A lot more than the Korean teachers, so you should work for more hours and work harder.”

I promised them that I would be taking a more active role in the regular, morning classes. And I did.

—

Speaking of Hera.

Hera never taught morning classes or the camps. She taught on average two hours of after-school classes per day, sometimes four, sometimes none, and had the same two classes every week. This meant that she had only two classes to prepare for every week. She also made the attendance sheets for the classes at the beginning of the term, which were often done last-minute, and generally oversaw the program.

That was the sole limit of her responsibilities.

Thus, Hera spent most of her morning time reading Korean celebrity news, watching dramas, and shopping online. Sometimes, she would lean back and glance at our computer to make sure we were doing work, or peek at our computers if we left the office; as such, I began deleting my cookies and history every time I left my computer.

During actual after-school classes, she would frequently leave her students unattended and stroll the hallway, looking into the two foreign teachers’ classrooms to make sure everything was running smoothly.

At the time, I thought she was the manager. Sunhwa was totally absent from the program. Truth be told, Hera should have been the manager as she actually had the time to do things properly, albeit without the motivation or responsibility to do so.

It should also be noted that Hera had a ‘teaching certificate’ from Harvard Summer Session in LA, which, as my former coworker M (who currently works in a university) has told me, is basically “a class where they give everyone a certificate, even people who fell asleep.” The classes she taught at Solan utilized minimal English, and her English ability decreased throughout my time at Solan. By the time I left, she could barely make a coherent sentence.

M speculated that she simply spent most of the program in LA’s Koreatown, doing everything online, merely printing out the certification.

After working with her for a long time, I can believe that.

I was waiting for feedback from Hera regarding my classes (as I assumed she was the manager), but she wasn’t giving any because it wasn’t her job. Thus, I thought I was doing a good job, with no complaints.

Suffice to say, Hera never was reviewed, never was evaluated, and never had the risk of losing her job. The principal never watched her class to see if he would renew her contract. She had a totally stable job with a decent income for less than ten hours of teaching per week.

—

In-Young was the secretary, and by contrast, was very astute and diligent. She spoke less English than Hera, and spent a similar amount of time sleeping at her desk/watching dramas/shopping.

However, In-Young had a good work ethic. While we were in our morning classes, she would often endeavor to clean out the classrooms, take out garbages, or generally make the after-school area a bit cleaner. I only talked with her once or twice, but she seemed very kind and supportive, and had a good overall disposition. She didn’t have a whole lot of work to do, but she did her job properly and went above and beyond in some cases.

—

Sunhwa was, allegedly, the manager of the program. When I began working there, she taught second grade, but she also became the regular Korean coteacher in the morning classes. After school she would stay in her office and ‘do work,’ claiming she had grades to complete and materials to prepare. I only saw her on occasion, when she came to our program to get us to sign for our overtime hours (which were frequently wrong).

During my first term, Sunhwa would often drop by my highest level class. I just assumed that she wanted to learn English, and wasn’t aware that I was being evaluated. Apparently she liked what she saw (I was teaching that class similar to how I taught at my hagwon, as these students were actually high-level enough to understand me), and she eventually stopped coming.

Sunhwa would always show up to explain things. For instance, she would come down and talk about changes with the coteacher, or school events, or whatnot. J said that she was quite two-faced, which I never saw until my last month.

Due to her general absence from our wing of the school, I wasn’t even aware that she was the manager of the program for several months.

—

After a few weeks, J quit and a week later, M joined our group. I was glad, because things were awkward without J. I had noticed a distinct silence and unease in our office, whereby none of the Koreans (Hera and In-Young) would talk to the foreigners. In hindsight, perhaps they were distrustful or disliked us.

I found this ‘cold shoulder’ odd. After J left, it became worse; for instance, when we finished work and walked back to the bus stop together, In-Young and Hera would talk in Korean, totally ignoring my presence.

Suffice to say, it made me feel extremely uncomfortable.

M had worked in a middle school for the past three years, and suffice to say was similarly unprepared for the long hours and massive amount of work involved. His school lost funding quite suddenly, though, so he found his way to Solan.

On his first day, he said that, as the four of us were working together, we should go out and get dinner or something. You know, get to know each other, break the ice, etc.

Hera had a shocked look, as though she just soiled her pants. “Uh…er…(twitch)….yeah, alright.”

It was obvious to both of us that she did not want to get to know us, and she did not want to talk with or hang out with us outside of work. M mentioned, and I agree, that this is totally different from Korean work culture. Little did I know, this simple exchange would set the tone for the next eleven months.

—

J had quit, after working only ten months out of a twelve-month contract, and the other teacher, P, had quit after working there for four years. According to J, P had truly loved the school. Normally two teachers quitting within months of each other should have raised some warning signs, but J told me many good things about the place.

In time, I learned that he was merely trying to get a good recommendation out of Hera and Sunhwa.

Around the time when M started work (October), I met P at a bar in Itaewon, randomly, and he also had nothing negative to say about the place. P claimed that he left a note for me explaining nice places to go and stuff to do in the area, but apparently Hera threw it out while cleaning my apartment, before I moved in.

I never got a chance to talk to him about Solan after our chance encounter. Sadly, P passed away after being struck with a vehicle shortly after our meeting. M found out and informed Hera about it.

Despite working with P for four years, Hera didn’t seem upset about his death.

—

M and I had similar difficulties. The high amount of work. The lack of time in which to do that work. With four hours of free class, we had both been starting to show some movies during classtime. Our after-school program had a system of fifteen ‘levels,’ but there was also an elective class with a different theme every term. For instance, there could be a class on superheroes or something of the sort, and movies were played most prominently in this class, as there were no books, materials, or a set curriculum involved.

Hera and Sunhwa met with M and told him that, ‘We are paying you a lot of money to develop lessons and want you to try harder.’ I.e., don’t show movies.

For some reason, they never told me this. I was teaching the ‘special’ class, which I had (foolishly) decided was going to be based on poetry. The students were out of control, and I was medicating them with Mr. Bean. We were both doing similar things, but for some reason, M was getting all the criticism while I was not being talked to whatsoever.

—

Sunhwa also asked me to teach the kindergarten class. M had been teaching it, but Sunhwa said that they didn’t ‘like what he was doing’ and wanted me to teach it instead. ‘But,’ she entreated, ‘don’t tell M or he might feel bad.’ I was very hesitant, as the lack of free time and excess of work was making me nauseous again. She sensed my hesitation. ‘But you’ll be making more money!’ she brightly claimed.

This excuse was repeated many times, frequently directed at the lack of good books, materials, or a solid curriculum. Just ‘we’re paying you, so deal with it.’ Make all your own materials, develop the whole curriculum, work harder and harder.

Of course, just relaxing and not teaching kindergarteners for an hour is worth more than twenty bucks to me.

—

By the end of December, I was ready for my two-week vacation. I found a good flight back to the US on a Friday night, and was able to help a friend of a friend take her dog home to boot. Sunhwa let me leave an hour early, so I would be sure to make my flight in time (which was good, since dog-related issues meant I made it to my gate with twenty minutes to spare).

I was very happy that they allowed me to do this. I didn’t know at the time, but it was the last favor they would grant me.

—

Even though they did this nice thing for me, there were still many issues. The uneven treatment that M was receiving. The overall lack of a syllabus, the lack of a structure to the program, the lack of communication, the lack of assistance, despite Hera’s abundant free time.

The manager, Sunhwa, was also a regular teacher, which meant that she was rarely in our program; instead, she would be preparing her own classes. She periodically stopped by in order to give us our overtime pay, or to (very occasionally) monitor our classes.

Thus, it fell to Hera to be the de facto manager. Hera would occasionally wander the halls, peeking in our classrooms and watching, only intervening if things were completely out of control.

She had a perpetual scowl/stinkeye.

I assumed that she was going to give me feedback at some point, but this never happened, because it simply wasn’t supposed to be her job.

Managerless, with a scowling coworker, with a shaky chain of command, unsure of what exactly to do, I was running out of ideas. Most of the games in the storage room were designed for 4-8 players, and were useless with classes that, on average, had more than twelve. I was doing well enough with the morning classes, thanks to a few choice teaching websites (thanks, Waygook.org), but after-school was a continuous struggle to find/create material and keep the students in line.

These are the issues I was facing at the time. At the time, I didn’t realize that there were so many problems, or that they were so large; only in hindsight are they apparent.

Overall, the biggest problem was the lack of communication; I was receiving absolutely no feedback or assistance in my classes. Hera, by contrast, only had to prepare for two classes every week (she taught the same two classes every day, and thus, only had to prepare once), whereas I had twelve or thirteen different classes on my plate. She was teaching for ten hours a week, whereas I had close to thirty. Ten hours and two different classes a week, versus thirty hours and fifteen different classes per week, but it was fine and dandy because I “was being paid more than a Korean.”

Things came to a boil eventually. But at this point in our tale, it was merely a simmer. I was happy to go home, to see my family, friends, and dog for the first time in over a year.

Nothing serious or dramatic transpired at this job during the first three months. This whole post is merely a primer, and an introduction, to my experience, which will come to a colossal conclusion in our next segment.

Solan Elementary School: A Biased Review (Part 3)

I wasn’t planning on a Part Three. However, I felt like I should actually give a review and a follow-up.

Looking back, it was all story, mostly negative, and very little actual review. Sorry, sometimes I get carried away.

Of course, there are positives and negatives everywhere, and even though I’m somewhat a pessimist, I can appreciate the positives. Solan was not totally bad.

Let me first begin with an epilogue.

—

I never heard from Hera, Sunhwa, or the secretary again.

I did add H on Facebook. I haven’t talked to her much, but she sends me a message from time to time. She left after her year was up, and is still in Korea, studying Korean.

M got a university gig in the countryside south of Seoul. He, his wife, and his daughter have a good, peaceful life down there.

J moved to Japan for a year (for more “international exposure”), but didn’t like his new manager there, either. He’s back in Korea, and coincidentally got a public school job a few stops away from me.

A few months later, I check my Kakao Messenger, and Hera and Sunhwa had added me. I blocked them.

Recently, I came across this online.

I’m pretty sure this is Solan.

This has all of the correct information about Solan, down to the location, benefits, time, etc. Everything adds up. I like how they added the disclaimer, that you need to run the class by yourself – this is a bit more honest than what I was led to believe.

Initially, they had a system where they provided one apartment for one teacher (an E-2, or ‘working-visa teacher’), and hired another teacher who owned their own apartment (an F-2, or ‘permanent resident’ visa). This changed after H was hired, probably because F-visa teachers are pretty hard to find.

In their system, both of these teachers were supposed to be male, up until M quit. Maybe I would have been renewed if I had a vagina.

As you can see, now they are looking for females. Because myself, J, P, and M all left early, and most of us complained about the program / tried to change things, the problem with their program MUST be that men simply aren’t compatible, right?

Not the unfriendly coworkers, the massive amounts of work, the mandatory overtime, the lack of help, the poor materials, the crappy books?

Must just be those penises, causing the problems.

Also note the starting time, June 11th. I left my job at the end of August.

This means that my replacement, like P, J, M, and myself, is quitting Solan before her contract ends. By almost two months.

—

Now, on the the actual review.

Pros:

Solan has pretty good students. It is a great place if you want to learn lesson planning, if you have a lot of free time, or if you want teaching experience. The job always pays on time, and you get a lot of overtime. Surprisingly, they even paid my full severance, and repaid the $900 key money I put down on the apartment.

Cons:

Lazy, rude coworkers. The rules and job responsibilities are subject to change, totally on a whim and without any warnings or explanations. Students are mostly good, but the bad ones are not punished. The curriculum is not fun for the students, and is opposed to change. No assistance is provided in the classroom, and the books are cheap, poor quality, and outdated, with few games or supplementary materials provided. Ludicrous amounts of work, and no time is provided during the day in which to do it. Several items from the contract were not provided, most glaringly a bed, couch, and TV.

Bottom Line:

Do you want a social life? Do you want a stress-free, worryless year in Korea? Do you want helpful coworkers, who want the students to learn, and who talk to you like a human being?

If so, do not get this job.

Do you enjoy hard work? Also, working by yourself? Do you have a lot of teaching materials? Are you a professional teacher who does not need any free time?

If so, you might want to get this job.

If you do apply, be sure to ask who is working there. Ask for the names of the manager and coworkers. Ask them to contact a previous employee. Contact me, I can tell you a bit more about the place.

Sunhwa’s contract might have finished. (Every five years, public school teachers can be moved to a different school.) Our stingy but kind principal has left, and a new principal of unsure temperament has taken the reins. Hera will undoubtedly still be there, and her English ability will probably be slightly above the students at this point. The nameless secretary, Hera’s partner-in-crime, will likely still be there as well.

—

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It’s Official: Facebook Sucks Now

Ladies and gentlemen, friends, readers. It’s official.

Facebook sucks.

I suppose it has been building up to this moment for a while now. Facebook has most likely sucked for several months, but myself being a somewhat reactive, ignorant person, I only noticed it recently. You may recall a similar piece I wrote about why email providers suck, in which I briefly mentioned Facebook. Lately, I’ve realized that it’s the whole damn website.

Let me explain more thoroughly.

—

In my previous post, I mentioned the overabundance of spammers on Facebook nowadays. Phony accounts are being made every few minutes, and then they post many spamming links in a vain attempt to hawk shoes, purses, or whatever crap suckas will buy.

To summarize, I talked about my administration position in a certain Facebook group, with several thousand members. Anyone used to be free to join this group, but it became clogged with spammers, who would post multiple links, pictures, or messages about various products.

Now, the group is invite-only, with about fifteen people currently trying to get in. Most (if not all) of them are spammers.

Despite multiple complaints and people reporting spam, Facebook has taken neither quick nor decisive action against these accounts; rather, the moderators (if they exist) seem to be ignoring the issue. Perhaps they are getting money from these spammers, or it costs them too much money to fight them.

Costs too much money? Wait, doesn’t this company make a fortune? I’ll get to that in a moment.

—

In the golden age of Facebook, everyone had to use their real names. In these mythical years, everyone was exactly who they said they were, with no spammers, and the advertisements were tactful and out-of-the-way (similar to Google’s ads).

Now, the spam and advertisements have become obtrusive.

Behold!

This is from my iPod. Instead of having ads at the top or bottom, they push them right into the news feed.

Dear Facebook,

This is not news.

This is a corporate page, which I care nothing about. None of my friends like this page, so why should I? Visa is merely a company that I use daily, as a by-product of being alive. It’s similar to milk or bread or something, and you sure don’t see me liking those things on Facebook.

I am pissed. I should not have to scroll through two or three ads just to see my friend’s posts.

Sincerely,

The Ghost

—

Not only have the spam, “sponsored” ads, and spammers taken over, but the actual quality of service has declined. I posted on my Facebook wall recently, and this is what I said.

Dear Facebook,

I just wanted you to know that your photo uploader sucks. It took me over an hour to post a hundred pictures. If I selected more than five pictures at a time, the uploader would freeze and only upload a few of them.Even if I selected fewer than five, sometimes it would STILL glitch.The pictures that DID get uploaded arrived in my album in the wrong order, meaning that I had to tediously re-organize them. Often, my new pictures showed up at the BEGINNING of the album, rather than the END, despite being uploaded later.All told, this is extremely tiresome. Looking at my album now, there are a few duplicate images, which I cannot delete whatsoever. I’m getting quite sick of this sloppiness..

 Now, here are some comments I received:

• M: i heard myspace is better
• Ghost: For uploading a photo? I think tattoos would be faster…
• D: I was gonna write something about Facebook being free….but then I saw you say “I think tattoos would be faster…” and I peed my pants laughing. Loved this!
• A: And that is with super fast Korean internet…imagine how I’m suffering in this 3rd world country where our internet is powered by a drunken hamster running in a rusty, square exercise wheel!!!

—

No one seems to care. It’s either seen as a joke or a fact of life.

Without question, however, Facebook’s photo uploader has become worse in every measurable aspect.

In the glory days, you could upload many, many photos (I seem to recall uploading fifty at once on one occasion). While they were uploading, you would be directed to a new page, where you could type in comments and see the photos as they were being uploaded.

Now?

Last time, the maximum I could upload was five. FIVE. AT A TIME. These photos were uploaded in seemingly random order, meaning I had to rearrange my whole album afterwards.

A pop-up window is supposed to appear, allowing you to make comments on each photo as they are added, similar to the way the photo uploader used to work. In practice, however, this never happens. The pop-up window does literally ‘pop’ onto my browser, but then it vanishes the second I move my mouse.

Most egregiously, Facebook photos absolutely DO NOT work on mobile.

You know mobile, right? The operating system that people can use at anytime, that is rapidly taking over desktop? Yeah, the Facebook application sucks at that.

I recently tried to show my students some pictures of the Seoul Motor show.

I got some good shots.

Every time I opened Facebook, the picture viewer would not work. The thumbnails (or previews) would not load, and if I tried to click on a photo, the application would freeze or shut down.

This happened with both Android and IOS.

—

Why is this? You might ask.

I thought about this, too. Facebook has turned into Myspace, full of spam and fake accounts.

What happened? Can’t there be a social networking site that…well, works on the net? One where the owners don’t get greedy and try to make it a nice place for everyone, free from distraction and annoyance?

The best answer I can come up with: it went public.

Investors. Demanding more money, not a better product. More revenue streams, less research, less policing of spammers, more overall gross income.

Sucks. Google Plus, here I come….

Students Talk About Brands!

On Friday in class, students were talking about brands.

Specifically, electronics brands.

Specifically, these brands.

Actually, this has happened a few times. Let me talk about the first time.

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The first time this conversation happened was a few weeks ago. In the higher-level listening classes, the students are learning how to debate, as well as to listen and take notes. While our class is not technically about debate, I do let the kids express their opinions from time to time, as it is good practice for actual debate classes.

At one point, I commented on how my Apple iPod touch is constantly losing battery power.

Now this may come as a shock you, but students in Korea are taught from an early age that Korea is the best country in the world, and that Samsung is the best company in the world.

Realize, of course, that if you replace “Korea” with “North Korea” and “Samsung” with “Kim Jong-Un,” the situation is remarkable similar to North Korea.

I’ll get to these similarities in another post.

Anyways, these students immediately jumped into “Apple is bad, defend Samsung!” mode.

Defending Korea = Defending Samsung, apparently.

The students ragged about Apple, about how Samsung can make better products, about how Samsung is resurgent and Apple is in decline.

I will admit, Samsung does make some totally decent TVs and phones and whatnot. I don’t want to sound like an Apple ‘fanboy,’ although I own a Macbook and the aforementioned iPod touch. I used to have the original U2 iPod, but it broke after a few years, and that turned me off somewhat. By contrast, my previous Macbook lasted over five years and worked fine, before I spilled water on it. So I guess I prefer Macs, although I try to avoid those overly pricey peripherals.

That’s another story, I guess. Suffice to say I like their products and lack of viruses.

Anywho, the students were in a furor over the court settlement. You know, the one where Samsung was forced to pay a billion dollars to Apple. It was unfair, they protested. Apple stole Samsung’s technology, too! Why aren’t they both wrong??

I didn’t want to get into a big argument. I had one with my girlfriend once, when she complained that “Apple copied from HTC, too.” What these students don’t realize is, that in my opinion it’s not about brand loyalty. Stealing ideas from anyone just seems wrong to me; it’s an ethical thing.

Other blogs have discussed the massive similarities between their products, the Apple version of which always, and I do mean always, came out well before the Samsung model. A friend, B, who used to work at LG knew all about this. In his own words, “There are emails. Samsung copied from Apple, and LG copied from Samsung.”

Snap.

What’s the point of arguing with these kids? Every point I could make was rebutted, with prejudice. My students simply repeated the same points over and over again, that Apple was bad, that Apple was being a bully, that Samsung was better. The ONLY thing I agreed with was the fact that Apple is now failing to be innovative without Steve Jobs.

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I told them that Apple was alright. Then, just to piss them off, I stated that my favorite electronics company was Sony.

This is actually true. My family owned an old Sony tube TV, and apart from the speakers blowing out, it worked fine for two decades. At one point, there was a power surge, which fried my TV, VCR, Xbox, and a few other things. (Fortunately, nothing too expensive.)

The only survivors? A lava lamp, and my PS2.

I own a Sony camera. I previously owned a different model, which worked fine for over two years, despite being dropped onto hard concrete a few times. I recently upgraded and gave Mom my old camera. Most of the pictures on my blog were taken with the new camera, or my iPod Touch. I also have Sony headphones, which are awesome. Also, I enjoy PS3’s free network.

Predictably, the students immediately went off. You see, in Korea most students are trained from birth to hate Japan, for various reasons and because of various issues. Again,time for all that nonsense in another post.

The students had some valid points, I guess, if their points actually related to the quality of Sony’s products. They said that Sony sucked, that its products weren’t selling and that the company was hemorrhaging money. Almost gleefully, they talked about Sony’s demise, and (I imagine) were looking forward to the day when Samsung becomes the dominant high-end electronics maker in Asia.

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Of course, monetary troubles does not mean that a company is bad, or even has bad products. A combination of events from flooding in Thailand to the tsunami and Fukushima disasters in Japan have led to and exacerbated problems for the troubled company.

I tried to explain about how these affected the company. They continued to argue that Sony was old, outdated, (paradoxically) stole technology, and should have better AS (after service) for broken goods.

Assuming, of course, that Sony goods weren’t built to last, which they are.

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Fast-forward to Friday.

The students commented on my headphones, until they found out that they were made by Sony. My students gave no reasons for disliking Sony. They just kept saying that “Japan was bad,” repeating this mantra over and over again, and totally dismissing anything else.

“But why?” I asked. “They make great products.”

My students stated that Sony cameras are bad, with no supporting evidence. I countered by saying that I owned a Sony camera for over two years, dropping it multiple times on concrete, and it still works today.

Silence.

Then, “but hey teacher, didn’t Japan attack Pearl Harbor?”

*snap*

Of course, playing on my Americanism. However, I wasn’t alive then. In fact, most of the Japanese people who made that decision aren’t even alive today. So why should I care? It would be akin to me hating England for kicking out some ancestors, or France for kicking out some ancestors, or Germany for Hitler.

Japan changed its ways somewhat, but those old hatreds remain.

The Second Korean War?

Hello, dear readers.

Lately, I have been flooded with messages and emails asking how I am doing. (It’s more like a trickle, but compared to the usual it’s a flood. Also, it sounds more dramatic that way.)

Old friends, parents, family. All asking, are you worried about North Korea?

Short answer: no.

No, I am not. Remember, I have been here for almost three years. I arrived just after the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan, and was present in Korea during the bombing of Yeonpyeong Island and the death of Kim Jong-Il.

Some pundits were concerned, but ultimately nothing came out of any of these events. (Although his demise was one of the few times that my former coworkers at my public school job deigned to talk to me.) In fact, most Koreans I’ve talked to seem to not care about these provocations, and rather, view them as North Korea just ‘making more noise’ in an attempt to get help.

Yes, current times are tense. North Korea recently cut a security hotline through the DMZ, as well as a few other hotlines (such as one for the Red Cross, paradoxically). Their leader, Kim Jong-Un, has been issuing rants almost daily, and recently created a plan to attack US cities and military bases, as well as a scheme to conquer South Korea in three days.

Apparently he also loves Apple.

North Korea has recently upped their rhetoric by announcing plans to restart a nuclear weapons program and, just recently, banned South Korean workers from entering the Kaesong Industrial Complex.

And now, they say that a state of war exists with South Korea!

Shit, all of that looks terrifying. But what does it all mean?

No really, what does it all mean?? It’s almost as confusing as a double rainbow.

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First, I’d like to examine the mentalities of both North Korea (the DPRK) and South Korea (the ROK), from what I can gather.

Author’s note: This is mostly speculative opinion based on personal observation! Take it for what you will.

Consider this: both sides do not want just peace. They want reunification, total reunification, reunification of land, culture, economy, government, military, and people. Anyone who has taken the DMZ tour, as I have, is well aware of the propaganda from both sides, include a South Korean ‘movie’ which, appealing to emotions, ends with ‘Koreans everywhere want unification,’ or some other nonsense.

Both sides demand reunification on their own terms. Have you ever heard that one about unstoppable forces meeting immovable objects?

Yes, THAT analogy. Thanks to: http://thefilmist.wordpress.com

Batman references aside, anyone who was alive and remembers the early 1990s (being around four, I sadly do not) can tell you about the pure economic chaos that occurred when rich West Germany and poor Easy Germany came together.

Now consider this: if North Korea switched to a democracy, and peacefully reconciled with the South, who would win?

In the short run, both economies would collapse. The South Korean regime would struggle to painfully reintegrate and rebuild the North.

How about the long run?

This answer is painfully obvious when you consider how North Korean defectors are treated in South Korea. If case you abhor clicking on things, I’ll sum it up for you.

They’re looked down on.

With a thick, obvious accent, many are fired from menial jobs. Unemployment is high, as is mistrust; defectors are commonly believed to be thieves, uncultured, stupid, and generally untrustworthy.

Imagine the Koreas reunited, today.

Entrepreneurs and businessmen from the ROK, well-versed in capitalism, would flood into the North. Many Koreans I’ve talked to dream of one day owning their own little shop or restaurant (as do many Americans, I suppose), and what better place to start one than in an area with zero competition?

North Koreans, like rural South Koreans, will simply be used for their cheap labor, will make almost no money, and will generally become slaves to different masters. Although at least they probably wouldn’t starve.

The elite in North Korea, by contrast, would lose everything. All of their power and control was based upon plundering natural and human resources, building their military, counterfeiting money, growing drugs, etc. If reunification happened, the new government wouldn’t allow these practices to continue, of course, not to mention the possibility of a trial or exile.

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So, what does North Korea do in this situation? They are painfully poor, but their leaders stubbornly cling to power. Rather than giving up their military and nuclear ambitions in exchange for aid – both of which are viewed as their only bargaining chips against an ‘imperialist’ *eye roll* invasion, they have opted to ‘double down’ in the hope that they can drive their perceived aggressors to the bargaining table.

What about all of the links, and all of the scary stuff I posted at the beginning? Well, believe it or not, the DPRK has done all of these things before. Of course, the normal news media cannot focus on a single important issue for more than a fraction of a second. Even when they do, the news always strives to sensationalize everything, often ignoring facts in the process.

Facts:

• North Korea has cut the security line before
• North Korea has issued threats before towards the US and South Korea before (like a billion times!)
• North Korea has halted and restarted its nuclear program before
• North Korea has done all of these things before, and worse

Best fact of all (a fact which shows both people’s ignorance, as well as the media’s need for a scandal): both Koreas are ALREADY at war.

The DMZ is in place because there is no peace treaty between the DPRK and the ROK. Technically they are still at war, and technically they have been at war for the past sixty-odd years.

Dumbass media.

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Keep in mind, I said short answer.

The long answer: yes, it is likely a conflict will happen at some indeterminate point in the future.

For the reasons I mentioned above, North Korea has nothing to gain and everything to lose from reunification. Since peaceful integration is off the table (barring North Korea becoming economically equal to South Korea – which sounds like the punch line to a bad joke), martial integration seems like the only solution.

In my eyes, all it would take are the right circumstances for a war to begin:

• Perhaps the situation is so dire that the leaders and army in North Korea are going hungry, and they feel as though they have no choice.
• Perhaps some idiot does something stupid at the DMZ.
• Perhaps there is some major issue with the US-ROK alliance. (In fact, some South Koreans hate having foreigners in their country, and consider US troops as the latest in a long series of colonizers who are preventing unification. Seriously.)
• Perhaps a rising China or Russia decides to openly and fully support the DPRK
• Perhaps the DPRK’s missile technology becomes functional
• Perhaps the ROK suffers some sort of economic or social upheaval
• Perhaps zombies take over all of the other countries

In any case, when backed into a corner, facing the loss of power or the loss of country, I believe that the DPRK military will make a desperate gambit.

When, however, remains to be seen.

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The reason for the post involves Saturday. The Soldier called and informed me that I should always have my passport in case anything happened.

So, I took my backpack, and rode my bike to the bar. You know, so I can easily escape in case of a crisis.

Drunk biking aside, I told this story to my coworkers One coworker, L, immigrated to Canada from Bosnia at a young age. However, he remembers some things from his birth country, and when I told him about the situation, he commented on it.

One thing he said stuck with me.

Yeah, that’s what we thought in Bosnia, too. Everyone said ‘Nothing will happen,’ and then before you knew it the whole country was locked down.

*gulp*

The Friar

Well, The Friar has his own blog.

I recommend that, if you know me well, you follow the blog of The Friar as well. Expect his blog to continue a chronicle of Korean culture (alliteratively speaking) and be a bit more upbeat, positive, and less pessimistic retrospective, than mine.

Happy hunting.

Time and Age

Did you ever notice that the older you get, the faster time seems to go by?

This idea was mentioned in a great film called The Man From Earth. Most people do not talk or think about it very much, but it happens every day and gets worse as you get older.

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An example.

When I was in early elementary school, we used to spend a lot of time at Mom’s business with my sister and cousins. My mom and my aunt are veterinarians and own their own practice. After school, the babysitter would pick the four of us up. The main business was downstairs, and we were stuck on the second floor from the end of school (2:30) until the end of their work (6:00).

So, what would we do?

In the summer, we would either go to the local pool, the mall, or a nearby ice cream stand.

The mall seemed to take forever. It seemed like we left in the afternoon, when the sun was a shining beacon of hope for the rest of the day. It seemed like it would take two hours just to get there, and by the time we arrived, it always felt like the sun was setting. I don’t know why exactly…perhaps I am merely putting together disparate memories of divergent arrival times, or maybe it was just a mental feeling. In any case, it seemed like forever. My cousins would shop for clothes for hours, while I would go to the collectible card shop (before it closed), Spencer’s gifts, Hot Topic, EB Games (before it closed), the book store (before it closed) and the local music store (before it, too, closed), then the arcade.

It was a simple, easily repeated pattern.

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Another haunt was the local ice cream stand.

Before I begin, let me explain that the drive to the mall takes, at most, thirty minutes. Not all day.

The local ice cream stand, by contrast, was at most a fifteen minute walk.

As a young child, however, it felt like an eternity. I was far too young for unsupervised trips to the mall, so these sugary excursions predated the mall by several years.

Like, this young.

I don’t have any concrete recollections of the actual walk there, just a vague memory. We took a back road through the suburbs, through rows of homes that all looked similar. It seems like we left when the sun was shining and arrived as it was going down, similar to the mall experience, only it felt like much more work and we were much more exhausted at its conclusion.

Like I said, I only have the one memory of our trip. Again, perhaps it was an amalgamation.

We arrived. Usually ordered a slushie and headed back. To this day, I know all of the businesses along that main street, unless they’ve changed in the past two years. It was a frequent trip, and a short one, but seemed to last a lifetime.

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There was an old lady, Mrs. K, who lived at the end of the block our business was on.

Once, upon returning, I was simply too tired to go the block back home. I slept on her couch, until it was dark. At the time, we lived at the “Animal Hospital,” so it wasn’t a big problem for Mom to stay there and wait for me to get back home.

Mrs. K was a sweet lady. I always regret not visiting her more during my adolescence.

Those seemed to be simpler times, right? When you could trust strangers, when you knew everyone who lived on your block and knew if they were good folks or not.

Makes me wonder about kids these days.

Or maybe I’m just getting old.