It’s not always inevitable that Dokdo will come up as a foreign English teacher in Korea. Unless you’re assigning your students newspaper articles to read and they happen to choose one regarding relations between Korea and Japan, or they happen to have particularly right-wing parents who want to use their children to promote Dokdo...
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This is the first time I’ve seen anything like corporal punishment in Korea. I witnessed my old boss grab students by the ears, but generally this was done without malice and only if students had really been misbehaving, e.g. hitting others, making others cry with insults. Nevertheless, my current employer is taking things to...
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First off, I should point out my situation is unique. The majority of English teachers are hired prior to departure and able to secure their Korean working visas in their respective home countries. I, on the other hand, received a 90-day tourist visa on arrival and hand delivered my E2 paperwork to an employer...
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Happy Tuesday everyone. I’m sorting things out in Uljin and making plans for my Philippines trip. I’ve said it before, but it’s weird just how not weird it is to be back in a foreign place where I lived and worked for over a year. It doesn’t feel like I never left, because I...
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There’s something I really haven’t understood in all my travels. Let me set the stage. I’m in Ao Nang, Thailand, walking along a street comprised of the same tacky t-shirt shops, restaurants, tailors, massage parlors, and pubs. I’m wearing my Korean “the foreigner is coming/leaving” shirt with my Nakhon Si Thammarat Buddha pendant. I’m...
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The Boryeong Mud Festival is being held on the west coast until July 24th. I had the chance to take off work early Friday, hop a bus to Pohang, and meet up with a crazy group of people to bus it over to the infamous party. Check it out.
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It’s the 4th of July today, an American holiday celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Rather, the draft of the Declaration was signed on July 2nd, but the parchment which now sits on display in Washington DC is the transcribed copy we now consider the cornerstone of American history. In any case,...
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I throw my opinion into the ongoing debate for incoming English teachers: public schools or privates (hagwons)? Most of the time, it’s a no-brainer: public schools for better vacations, stability, and sick days. But there are some reasons why you might want to risk a hagwon.
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…at least in terms of teaching English as a foreign language. In fact, I have (thankfully) not yet tried to devour any of my students, no matter how many invitations they seem to give me. When you’re teaching and want to provoke certain answers, sometimes you just choose questions so ludicrous that students have...
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When I first stepped off the bus that Saturday afternoon last August, I found myself in a small little Korean town, one that I could see from end to end. Nothing too complicated, no big surprises. The biggest noises were from protestors’ loudspeakers outside the nuclear power plant… but they haven’t showed themselves in...
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