Sudden Changes

A few months ago, the South Korean Board of Education had decided - and related through GEPIK (Gyeonggi English Program of Korea) - that due to budget cuts, they will cease to hire any new people before March 2012. This means that everyone who already has a contract can finish, but renewing with public schools will be a problem Korea-wide until they say otherwise. No one seems to know when they're going to have enough money to hire again; the March 2012 date is tentative and mainly there to stem any further questions.

What does this mean for me personally? Well, my contract is over this coming September 26. My E-2 visa expires October 27, and my corresponding Alien Registration Card expires on the same date. This means that either I find a job here before that time, so a new school will help me acquire a new visa or I'm going back to either the U.S.A. or preparing to go to another country. I decided that I want to stay here for another year, because I have more to learn about teaching, there is more to see in this country and I don't want to immediately leave some of the new friends I've met here.

So the past two weeks have been a mildly feverish rush of contacting recruiters and applying for jobs that way. Two days ago, I had made a list, and realized that I had actually contacted and applied with up to twelve recruiters. They all initially responded to receive my resume and photo, but many of them stopped after that, and around four stayed. I ended up half applying with EPIK, and then talking to a few other people about private academies. Because I am not Korean American, some places were off limits to me - this is because some parents really want a teacher at their academy that they can talk to, and my lack of Korean would be a barrier to that. Other places only want men or white people, sometimes their criteria can be very specific. I even heard that there are sometimes age requirements.

As with choosing between countries when teaching abroad, transitioning between jobs means choosing the ideal setting for me to live in. By now I had tired of the country life and want actual cities with convenience stores nearby, so I looked at my options for large cities. I've already explore a good part of Ansan and Siheung, even though the move to those two places would be easy, so I wanted something new. Seoul is too prestigious, and not being Korean American or having more experience teaching, this city is mainly closed off to me anyway. Incheon might have sounded interesting, but I know more people down south now, so that's where I opted to go. I applied in Suwon, Daejeon, Busan and Daegu. Next is the realization that because my contract ends September 26 - terrible timing! - just after most public schools are done hiring, I would have to take the place of someone who changed their minds, or just go for a private academy.

Private academies are completely different from public schools. The hours are from afternoon to night instead of morning, there are fewer vacation days and shorter breaks, and your supervisors get much more control over your teaching methods and style. I'm hoping the last one won't get me into trouble, because I had to change many things as is even when I was teaching in public school. There's a lot more paperwork to be done, in terms of others' evaluations of you and then your evaluations of the students and having to comment on students' posts on internet sites. I expect to have seven more teaching hours each week. While in public schools, they expect you to create your own curriculum, academies give you a curriculum and you follow that. I also heard that the academy sometimes either doesn't follow the contract or interprets it in such a way that they make it hard for an employee to leave or fine them so much that they ended up with only 20% of their total income.

As a result, whenever I was offered a place to work, I have to research it across a few sites for a good while before concluding whether that place has a bad reputation and whether the posters' complaints have any grounding to them. In fact, I'm still doing that, and one of the methods that people often says works is to call the school directly and ask to speak with one of their English teachers to see whether they are happy there. Either way, I'm expected to move out of my apartment by September 26, so I've begun packing. And the beat goes on.

South Korean Fashion

This time, I distinguished between North and South Korea because I haven't had a chance to visit North Korea, and also I hear that the Kim Jong Il personality cult doesn't allow for much freedom of expression, so I assume this would be true in terms of fashion, as well. The two countries are getting farther apart culturally the longer they remain separated, so despite all attempts at conversation, they will now have to deal with a new invisible barrier between them.

Nevertheless, Seoul is one of the fashion capitals of the world, not far after Paris and New York City. Of course, the leaders of the fashion industry are the pop stars and actors who dominate the small screen, and sometimes even the big screen. My personal favorites among them are 4minute, 2PM, Big Bang, Girls' Generation, and Taeyang. While there are individual artists, they generally start out performing with other people until their names are better known. G-Dragon and Hyuna are two good examples.

Starting with the hair, almost everyone here has bangs. They just don't like to show their foreheads and like to try to emphasize their eyes. With the face, large eyes with the crease in the eyelids are favored, paired with a small to medium sized nose, and everyone loves a pair of luscious lips. Skin wise, Koreans like their complexions very pale, so they avoid the sun unless they are farmers, fishermen, or other types of laborers. Like with other countries, this is more of a class issue. However, Korean women have a kind of cream that they put on their faces, with other makeup, daily to make sure their skin is light enough to be fashionable. They aim for a healthy looking complexion that ideally glows.

In terms of body types, most Koreans are very skinny, especially compared to Americans. Women are generally just skinny unless they were born with a bigger body type, which they would be continuously ridiculed for throughout their childhoods. Men have skinny, slim - which really muscular - or business, which is kind of a Buddha body type lite. Unless they are athletes or labor workers, no one generally exercises. They drive wherever they go, there are taxis around, and when they're not working twelve hours a day or having fun singing, drinking or at some event, they just kind of sit. There's the television and lots of video games to occupy them. Video games seem to be an activity that people of all ages partake in here.

A few days ago, a few of my teachers were poking at my shins and asking me why they are so hard. I didn't understand the question, so I poked them back and sure enough, their shins are really soft. Like there's bone, and then soft flesh. I told them that I have dry skin, yes, but also that my legs are made of muscle from walking everywhere and so often. And biking, as well. They oohed and aahed. This was particularly funny to me, because I am not fit. I am very skinny, yes, but I can develop more strength in my core and glutes. The fact that they literally have no muscle unless they are labor workers puzzle me, because they still do the things normal people do, like carry groceries, wash dishes, clean the floors, etc. How can a person not develop muscle from managing a house daily?

And even their houses are very fashionable. Things are put away, clutter is always discouraged - because they believe that a cluttered desk or room is evidence of the owner's cluttered mind. Interesting connection, right? So you would never find clothes strewn all over a Korean floor.

Since I'm Chinese American, I can fit into most of this clothing, and have been earning enough money, that I can afford to experiment a little bit here and there with everything. For the women, their tops are very loose - nothing like the tight tank tops that Americans sometimes wear. While tight tank tops are sold here, they are considered undershirts or kind of street trashy wear. Revealing cleavage is very much frowned upon. Because Asian women have a different body build, almost all the bras here fit breast sizes AA to B, maybe rarely a C. Oh, and I love Korean panties. I'm not sure what kind of fabric they use, but it's very smooth and deal with sweat and wetness exceedingly well. Part of this must have to do with the great technology and temperate climate they have here. Skinny jeans and short shorts are very common here. The women here have no problem revealing their legs. In the winter, long black panty hose is also favored. There are many styles of socks, including these fuzzy socks that are comfortable and good for winter. There's almost an infinite number of styles for shoes, more than half of them high heels taller than two and a half inches.

Young Korean men sport tight pants as well, though this is no longer true once he enters either the army - military draft is mandatory here - or goes into the work force. Men, as usual, don't have as many fashion choices as women do, but here they seem to have more comfortable athletic pants options, as well as many more styles of sneakers. I've been told that the men's underwear are also very smooth, absorbent and comfortable. There's this booklet at every mall for tips on how to pair the right colors and patterns between collared shirts and ties. They generally pair vests and sweaters with white collared shirts for business wear, and there's the general tshirt and jeans or athletic wear for other days. There are more styles of tshirts or long sleeve shirts than I've seen in America.

Now, Nobody I've seen from other countries can accessorize like a Korean, and I mean that in the most magazine girlish voice possible. For women, there are a good number of hair ornaments, from elastics to head bands, to clips. There's also earrings for those with holes in their earlobes, though holes elsewhere like noses and the tips of one's ears are generally reserved for performers or rebellious youth. There's of course a good number of necklaces and pendants to go with the plainer shirts or dresses. Men sometimes wear earrings and necklaces too. Both genders can wear rings on their fingers, ranging from plastic to karat gold. Styles of belts are many, but if people wear anklets, I have not seen them. There's also color contacts, glasses, the whole routine of makeup, tattoos (rarely) and nail polish. And that's just on their bodies.

Off their bodies, some of the clothing come with accessories, like suspenders, or pockets in various places where even the insides are decorated. Jackets keep them warm in colder weather, and can be worn around the waist, around the shoulders or draped over some furniture showing off. Sometimes there are arm coolers in the summer, made of some fabric that supposedly really does cool you off. There's a really impressive array of styles for purses and bags, which seem to be unisex generally. Everyone from someone who's six years old to the oldest person you see on the subway has a cell phone. On these cell phones and their purses are various charms that you can buy at almost any store in Korea. There are anime or cartoon icons, random fluffy animals, other symbols - almost anything can be found. Koreans match the colors of these charms to their phones and bags. Some phone charms have uses, like my Hello Kitty that has a memory chip inside of it for taking the subway, or a USB, or a stylus/antennae that makes using the phone itself easier.

Everything comes in fairly bright colors for the young, which seem to either go into the extremes of neon or just fade into gray and black as the people wearing them get older. The people here care a lot about their personal sense of style because they're status symbols, and also because they don't really get to express their personalities much in other areas of life.