First Day Essay

My head teacher had me write an essay for a GEPIK book to be made this next year about teaching in Korea. I, naturally, forgot and ended up writing it the same day she needed it. It was supposed to be two pages and of teaching in Korea. Not sure I fulfilled the requirements, as it's three pages and about my very first impression of Korea. From leaving America and the excitement and anxiety of traveling to a foreign country for the purpose of living there. I went a little overboard, but I think I didn't realize how much I had to say about what I've done and am still doing here. I've definitely made it a lifestyle, and am only now really rocking it. It's only taken a year. Anyways, traveling back in time now to 2009...

A year ago, in March of 2009, I left a frigid winter in Wisconsin for a job in Korea. I had just graduated in that December, in one of the coldest and worst job markets since the Great Depression, and thus had found a teaching job abroad as my one and only option.

Waiting for the all the paperwork to be filed and re-filed was the worst part of it all. Multiple tanks of gas were paid with my parent’s credit card, my nights were spent on friends couches, and meals were sparse, usually Ramen. It seemed the only change since I’d graduated was my lack of classes. Ergo, I very, very much yearned for a greater change. Well, actually I just yearned for a purpose. Without classes to distract me, my looming future grew daunting and the only out was Korea.

I came over with the typical traveling youth gear, a huge hiking pack, a rolling suitcase, another small backpack on my front and a huge hippie purse filled with my airplane ride essentials. Eighteen hours total of traveling added to my two day lay-over for my missed flight, I was understandably exhausted, then nervous, then relieved when I saw a smiling Korean face hold up a welcome card with my name on it. I hobbled over to her, greeted her with all of my energy and then realized I’d just met the first person who would influence my life here in Korea. Her name was Jiny, and she was just as anxious and nervous as me to meet someone new and entirely different from anyone else she knows.

Her English was good but quiet and short. I had heard from a friend that most Koreans were intimidated to speak with native speakers, thus I understood her a little and was a bit relieved to be able to rest my brain for the hour bus ride to Suwon. We arrived near a towering Homeplus super store, a movie theater and shopping strip. I had to laugh at how similar the store fronts looked with any store in America. Home is where the shopping is perhaps? We retrieved my luggage, and my new co-teacher assisted me with my bags on the uneven pavement. We needed to walk a block to meet the head teacher with her car.

Sweating and evermore exhausted I met the second most influential person in my stay here in Korea. Her name was Mrs. Lee and she was exactly what I had imagined as a Korean teacher. Shorter, slim, smiley, she radiated goodwill from every centimeter of her being. She drove Jiny and I to what would be my home for the next two years, a small one bedroom apartment located at the top floor of a new seven story complex. I found the bed the best and most welcoming of all of it.

The next day Jiny picked me up in her Kia SUV and drove me the five blocks to a school I never would have found on my own. Entering the school yard I felt something like a déjà vu, like there was a place and purpose that had waited for me to come. I watched the little black heads that peppered the playground and outdoor stairwell, and felt a twinge of nervousness for my first day.

We entered the school and the first thing I was told was to buy indoor shoes. There were cabinets in every entranceway for the superman like change from indoor being to outdoor being and vice versa, and I was expected to participate in this transformation as soon as possible. For today though, I could keep my outdoor being and suffer no consequences.

Next we met the Principle and Vice Principle. I entered the main office unknowing of who was in there, but immediately felt anxiety when I realized this was my first impression on the Vice Principle, the Superintendent, and fellow teachers. It felt like the world stopped as I walked in. All of the black colored eyes focused on the unique, foreign creature with big, hazel eyes. The hazel eyes stared back and tried to take in the overwhelming feeling of being so very new and so very different. They managed for a second, but diverted, overcome with nerves, to the ground and other inanimate items. Hellos were made, and warmth was felt, but still I was glad to be brought to the English lab and shown my own private desk and computer.

The last and most impressing people of my stay here in Korea were introduced to me that first day as well, and the second day, and the third day, and fourth and fifth. The children I would teach for the next year and then some, gawked and stared and giggled and chimed shy (and sometimes not shy) Hellos to the new foreign teacher observing their classes from the back of the room. Walking down the hall I generated a ruckus I can only imagine as equal to that of a movie star. Some students feeling emboldened by my presence and their friends’ rang out a fond “Hello!”, while other younger students felt a bit more shy and just whispered amongst themselves, “Oh! Waygookin!” (Foreigner!) (That term and “Annyeonghaseyo” were my first two Korean phrases actually and have served me very well since.)

Thus, my first week, month, semester was simply me meeting and getting to know my students, fellow teachers and school. I learned how to teach in a constructive manner, how to control my language and use simple terms to convey my meaning, how to have fun in the classroom but to also keep it controlled and productive, and of course how to live and work with Korea. I would like to write about every little aspect of my stay here, but I feel it would easily become a book. Instead, let me just say that my time here has been one of the best of my life, and that I have been extremely lucky with my placement. I have a co-teacher that I can talk with and who listens to my suggestions, not to mention also helps me with every little problem I have, whether it be a cell phone bill, broken heater or assisting me with planning my weekend. Then there are the students and their unconditional love and happiness that radiate, much like Mrs. Lee’s charm, from every centimeter of their being. They are so happy to be with me, to learn English and to try to use it with me that I cannot help but feel a sense of purpose and happiness in that purpose everyday.

I should say that during my stay here I have heard of less fortunate stories, of people who have felt stuck and motionless in their job here, with co-teachers much less open and understanding than mine. I think that certainly, there is a form of bad luck in that and therefore a sense of uncontrollable suffocation, but I also think that a lot of what makes your stay here is you. If you have a positive outlook on things and people and life, then your stay here, however daunting and anxiety filled, can also be one of your fondest memories. Like the pastor who doubles as a crossing guard in the mornings said to me with all truth and hope, “Enjoy your stay here in Korea.” Something enlightening in that statement for me was the idea of choice. Since then, even on the toughest, loneliest days, I remember that this is so much more than what I could be doing, and that I can either enjoy it or suffer it, but either way it is my choice. I have chosen the former and feel that with every smiling child, every screaming English song, every speed or guessing game and with every conversation with Korean and foreigner. My best advice for the new GEPIK teacher is to be open, be understanding and to be excited about the year ahead of you because it will be a good year if you want it to be. Again, it’s all up to you and how you chose to enjoy it.