Ten things Korea and I must talk about.

This topic is by the request of Lara, may she live for a thousand years. 

               I hold a great deal of affection for Korea. I can truly say that if I hadn’t have come to Korea, I’d have missed out on many wonderful friendships and experiences and I’d certainly be much more poor. Nevertheless, Korea, we must have some words regarding certain topics.

                Your taxi drivers, for one.

                The majority of Korean taxi drivers I interact with on a day to day basis are tolerable to deal with – sometimes, even a joy. (Sometimes, the offer of a Juicy Fruit on a bad day is all that is needed to turn it around.) But sometimes, sometimes…

                There are those that will do their level best to misunderstand you if you mispronounce a word in the slightest way.  There are those whose cabs have a suspicious scent and who refuse to roll down their windows. Then there are Seoul taxi drivers, who will take you to the exact place you don’t want to be, take you halfway to your destination only to pretend that they no longer know where to ferry you to and demand pay for the privilege to abandon you in the middle of nowhere, and speed so fast down the freeway that you’re debating whether you should text your friends to tell them what happened to you.

                I must also voice a complaint about the lack of proper ovens in your apartments.  I have never been much of a cook. My skills on that count amount to “let’s stick it in a frying pan and see what happens.”  But I do like to bake. Cookies, cakes, muffins, pies… These are things I like to concoct and stick in an oven until they are edible and delicious. And yet, you persist in equipping your apartments with little stovetops instead, leaving me to purchase an inadequate toaster oven.

                How am I to treat your workers and students with delicious cookies if I am only able to bake six cookies at a time, I ask you? How? Korea, I only want to make your people happy.

                Your urban planning needs work. Roads should be at least two lanes, no matter if there’s cars parked on the side or not. You need proper addresses that can be punched into a GPS in order that I have one less charge to lay against your taxi drivers and everyone’s lives can be made that much easier. A deliveryman should not have to phone me for directions to my home. My parents don’t have to – the street and the house number is all that is needed.

                Then there is the matter of your bread. Garlic bread, in particular, was never meant to be sweet. It is meant to taste of garlic and butter and salt. Yet I have learned to fear your offerings at the Paris Baguette and the school cafeteria. I know if I sample them, my hopes will only be dashed again.

                Korea, you provide for me a cheap drinking experience, but not a quality one. Soju costs a buck a bottle, beer at ten bucks a pitcher. Is it good beer? No. Not by a quarter. There is a reason why your foreigner population makes silly rhymes about ‘Hite and shite’ and ‘Cass and ass’.  There is a reason why I have gone so far as to brew my own beer. It’s a time-consuming process and the result is much more drinkable and delightful than your domestic mass-produced varieties.

                I don’t hold much love for many of the mass-produced Canadian beers. I’d sooner live off of Molson Canadian and Kokanee for the rest of my life than Max. May my father forgive me.

                ‘Maybe’ does not mean ‘no’.  I appreciate your need to save face, but ‘maybe’ actually does mean ‘maybe’. If you answer my question with a ‘maybe’, you give me false hope. Depending on the question, it’s crueller or at the very least, more annoying than giving me a simple ‘no’. ‘No’ will not offend me. ‘No’ will leave me nodding and moving on to the next thing. I give you permission – nay, my blessing! – to say ‘no’.

                Many Koreans – although, to be fair, the same charge can be laid against citizens of many nations – are all too ignorant about the rest of the world. One of my principals was amazed to learn that honey was not strictly a Korean product, but is, in fact, produced in Canada too. He didn’t try to argue against the point, which was good, but why should it have been so surprising? If they’re spending thousands upon thousands of dollars on every English teacher to come here, why should the most basic facts about Canada, America, the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, be incredible revelations to them? Growing up, I was at least expected to learn a Cliff Notes version of the history of the US and Europe. (And also, how Canada fucked up in regards to Asians and the Jews and Africans and Eastern Europeans and Natives. Or maybe BC was singular in this? I know not.)

                Advance notice is a welcome thing. As strangers in a strange land, our kind often become friends with other strangers. As friends, we often make plans with each other – to meet at a restaurant, to go watch a movie, to share a drink at a bar. Sometimes, we simply plan to enjoy our evenings alone and in peace. You can imagine, then, why we don’t particularly like being told at the last moment that actually, we have a staff dinner that we simply must attend. So please, a day of warning. Even two. It would make things so much easier and leave us so much less disgruntled. (Also, please, at these staff dinners, the occasional word in English would do much to diminish the awkwardness we feel.)

                When I venture into your stores, I am not a creature to be stalked. If I need your help, I’ll get your attention some way. If you follow my every step, I feel like in turns a circus freak or a suspected shoplifter. Just let me be. Give me some space.  The personal bubble needs to be respected.

                Lastly, there is the matter of your students. I teach high school girls. From 8:30 AM until 4:00 PM, they have regular classes. They have two afterschool periods after their cleaning time. Many, if not most of them study until 10:00 PM, until they’re finally let off. Many others must attend sessions at a hagwon. Many of them get by on six or less hours of sleep per night.  They fall asleep in my class. Can you blame them? I want to give them a love of learning and a genuine interest in English, but so many of them have been burnt out so thoroughly that it takes a herculean effort to get them to lift their heads from their arms and speak.

                They are afraid of exercising any creativity in class, for they’re so afraid that they’ll be ‘wrong’. I keep straining my brain on how to give them confidence in their own abilities and they’ll not have any of my ideas.

                This is my rant for this evening. Next week, I will rave about just the opposite, just you wait.