Where all the...

... foreigners are expected to be astonishingly, irredeemably, heartbreakingly stupid.

Returned to the bank today to restore the check to my account. Forty-five minutes later, victory of a sort!* The teller called Avalon again, (at least this time I was right there, and it wasn't a huge and unpleasant surprise) and spent somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes in back-and-forth with one of the Korean teachers in the elementary campus (not even in my own office anymore, this privacy thing is really a winner) and with me. Most of it was them trying to convince me I really didn't want to put the check back in. Some minutes were spent talking to other bank people, and a great many were spent frowning at the screen and tapping away, as though some magical key combination would make me leave. (I can't really blame her, though. After the whole check thing and the ATM incident, I imagine they have flagged me at that bank. There will come a day when they will bar the doors if they see me coming).

The interpreter started by telling me the woman was sure I could send the check. I explained that the post office woman had not agreed. Was I sure? Well, she had definitely refused to send it and written down the words, "banned item" for me, just to be clear, so yes. Pretty sure. Did I know the interpreter had an American husband to whom she had sent money successfully through the post before? No, and congratulations to you both, but I was still sure I did not want to continue carrying around a functional cashier's check, redeemable at Citibank. I wanted the money back in my account. I understand accounts, I understand money that stays in them. This was truly All I Wanted. I was warned  that there would be a pretty serious penalty for undoing the check. Was I totally sure I didn't want to go back to the post office and try again? In the end, I got to pay $22 to unwrite the thing.

From the exchange, it eventually came out that it is not illegal to post a money order. It is illegal to send a check through the mail without an envelope. I spent ten minutes getting told by the post office that my check was a banned item, and a further forty-five minutes today undoing it, because the post-office lady thought I was showing it to her with the intent of sending it through the mail without an envelope.


Really? Really, Korea?

*This is the traditional call of triumph in the perennially Pyrrhic war of the Individual versus The Established Bureaucracy. It is optimally accompanied by the also-traditional Three Big Finger Twirls.

This Author as a Person of Interest to Men in Fedoras

Internet, I am a suspicious character! Like anyone else, I'd like to be writing an entry with this title about how someone looking just like Indiana Jones in his heyday is remarkably interested in me on multiple levels. Sadly, I am writing because I have had a paranoia-inducing experience that leads to late-night, wide-eyed wonderings about G-Men.

As for anyone who earned money in the US last year, I spent the days leading up to the Ides of April crouched over the many lines, forms, and checklists of the taxpayer. For the first time in my young life, I owed the government more than it owed me. Yay, solvency! Unfortunately, my solvent crowns and pounds and guineas were not banking compatible with the IRS. I needed to use my American account for my American taxes (funny thing, that). Having a whopping $40 in the US and no time to move money from here to there, my dad kindly floated me the amount I needed. It was supposed to be a matter of a few days of post time to resolve the issue. My taxes were paid, in the meantime I would get a money order and mail it, for less than a wire transfer, and scant days later, everything would be peachy. For the record, I am neither a mouse nor a man, but I have a lot of sympathy for them and their plans.

First, I went to the bank, my bank, trying to get a money order, because I was not sure I could buy one at the post office. Because they are sent everywhere from the United States, I foolishly thought they would be available to send to the US in most/all places. It took a good bit of convincing that yes, I wanted a money order and no, I couldn't/didn't want to wire money, that being the normal Korean thing to do. I filled out more forms than I think I should have had to, and finally got a check-like thing that could be redeemed at Citibank in North America. Triumph.

Then, I went to the post office, where the language barrier barred me from getting anything more than frustration out of my encounter with the service woman. I wanted to be sure I got the stupid check insured, as it was quite a bit of money, so I made no bones about the fact that it was a check. I even showed it to her. She spoke very fast and then went to find another woman who took great pains to show me that it was money, or of a value above zero, and therefore could not be sent. I was naturally confused, as I had asked at the bank that this be a money order, because I wanted to send it to my father in the US. At the bank, they assured me that yes, they had given me the right thing, a money order for the sending to people. I pressed the post-office lady to tell me more, but what ended up happening was that she took further great pains to tell me that what I had was paper, not money. You may notice this neatly countered her previous statement about why she couldn't send the thing. Without more Korean, I could not hope to prevail, so I left.

It was recommended that I simply submerge the check in a letter and send the letter certified mail. Really wanting to just send the damned thing and have done with it, I wrote a (quite nice, actually) letter, bought an attractive blue envelope, and put the package together. I wasn't able to get to the post office again in the same day, so I waited and thought I'd send it today.

Here's the paranoia: someone called the school, asking about me and the money I withdrew. They tell me it was the bank, though my coworkers managed to tease me for about ten minutes that it was the government looking for me, but I am still very creeped out. The bank has my cell phone number. They do not need to call my employer about my banking activity and should not have done so. Maybe they did it for ease of communication, knowing my Korean is crap, but they just spoke to a secretary, outlined the story of it for her, and went on their way. I only found out about it because the front desk lady came in and spoke at length to my head teacher, who then asked me about it. That is neither common sense nor respect for my privacy as a client and it is extremely unnerving.

The annoyance in this to me is the whole right hand/left hand, not-knowing-what-the-other's-up-to element. I was specific at the bank about what I wanted and what I was planning to do. Assurance, assurance, huzzah, huzzah. The post office was evidently not apprised that this was supposed to be an assured and huzzah-ful affair. Apparently, per the teachers I work with, it is common knowledge that sending money through the post is forbidden. I would have thought that commonality would have somehow trickled up, down or sideways to the people at the bank. Furthermore, it's my money! It's not like I was sending a check on credit and they needed to investigate my risk factor. It is nobody's business if I want to use that money to repay my parents or buy myself a dancing hedgehog farm.

Anyway, am still irked, put out, and a bit on the paranoid side, but slightly mollified by the mental image of the dancing hedgehogs. May your days be full of respect for your personal information, and ease of navigating torturous inter-institutional waters.

Hello, Internet. I have been absent from your haunts because I have been sick. A lot. More. Plus. In addition. Also. I am now at the point that although it sounds like my lungs are trying to make a break for it, they are really just grumbling about how they could secede if they really wanted to. During this latest and greatest negotiation of systems various in the pursuit of rest for the relief from fever and its accompanying throes, I renewed my faith in the whole nationalized medicine thing, and lost my faith in bureaucratic goings-on, namely in my hagwon.

So I was sick before, and then it went away for a bit after Dr. #1, and then it came back and brought all its friends. One of its friends was a fever, which left me shivering and miserable on Easter Eve. I will not swear that there was no pity party. There may have been hats.

Easter day saw me trucking down to the 24/7 clinic where I met my boss (who very nicely came and took me to the doctor) and saw a new doctor.  He spoke very nice English, gave me a prescription for some spiffy drugs, and sent me on my way. My boss was very sympathetic and I went home as hopeful for a swift recovery as I could be. I should note here that my concept of "recovery" is the one inculcated from childhood in most Americans (I think). As most school systems seem to believe, you return to public life when you have spent 24 hours free of fever, lest you endanger said public. I thought this was common knowledge/sense, but it is apparently a Western conceit.

The following day, still feeling like death despite drugs, I phoned my boss, to double check that no, I should not come in to work. It was like suggesting that plastic sheep were running Tajikistan's puppet government in a deadly pursuit of all the world's yams. So weird it's not even wrong. When finally I made it clear that yes, the noise of a convulsing water buffalo that kept coming out of my throat, and its accompanying chartreuse eject, would prevent me from teaching effectively, I was told the process by which I could procure one day of rest.

Step one, return to the clinic. Obtain doctor's note of diagnosis. Bring said note to school. Return home.

If this already seems ridiculous to you (as it does to me, being, in fact, a legal adult employed by the school, not a student thereat), no worries, how it actually happened is even better!

I went to the clinic. I saw a different doctor this time, whose English was distinctly subpar. Eventually I whipped out my legal pad, drew a stick figure of myself and an arrow to the word "hagwon" (in Hangul) with a question mark. The doctor nodded earnestly, told me I needed a shot and meds, and tried to look in my tiny mouth to see my normal-sized throat. I tried to explain that actually, I had been there yesterday, and still had meds to take, I really just wanted a piece of paper saying "yes, sick." He waved that off and conveyed that I should finish those meds and take his new ones next. The shot would happen either way. Lacking the arguing stamina one gets from being afebrile, I may or may not have said, "Whatever, man, it's cool." and followed orders. A nurse gave me a shot in the butt and a paper to show the hagwon, I paid them four dollars, and I left, picking up my new drugs on the way out.

Upon arrival at the hagwon, I brought my paper to my boss and waited as she called the clinic to verify that indeed, they had made that fancy paper just for me, and I had not been hiding some heretofore unexplored knowledge of Korean and forgery. Satisfied on that front, she brought the thing in to show the owner. When he was satisfied, she came back to say I could go home and take my snot with me, but if they could not find someone to teach my middle class, I would still have to come back.

In the end, she did find someone, and I was well pleased that indeed, I could have one recovery day from the flu before I stuffed myself back into rooms full of the germ factories that are children. Huzzah.

It seems so bizarre that a country with such accessible and affordable healthcare has no leeway for the patient to take care of him or her self. There are only two degrees of health, according to Korean employers: death's door, and bloom-of-health. I was told that if I were so sick I was actually in the hospital, I could bring my doctor's note the following day.  Perhaps they are cracking down on wanton attempts to influence doctoral judgment, but it's just plain sense to wait until people aren't contagious before bringing them back to highly populated areas.

Anyway, I am down to only the occasional honking cry of the Enfeebled Anglo, and hope to be all the way better at life and posting things soon.

CostCo... Glorious Font of Consumerism

Although I spent the day miming,* I did have a profitable and sociable outing to Daejeon's CostCo (I wouldn't have chosen to go today, but all the people I know with memberships were going, and I don't actually know how to get there by myself, so along I went). I finally found a reasonable duvet for my bed! Up til now, I was using two really chintzy twin comforters together, but now I have one that is nice, and with it I am well pleased. Also, I have enough canned tomatoes that I need never worry about being able to make pasta sauce again. Ever. The third marvel is that they had tortillas! I have had no Mexican food available to me since my arrival, neither in restaurants nor grocery stores, and I really like tacos and quesadillas, so I am very excited. Seeing as how it was CostCo, I am now the happy owner of 40 tortillas, and plan to have something of a party.

The last, glorious piece of the puzzle is BACON. Korea doesn't do bacon. They use the same part of the pig, it's very widely available, but they don't cure it. When you are lucky enough to get to a restaurant that has bacon on the menu, real bacon, they do not cook it properly, but leave it a floppy, anemic pink color that's so stomach-turning I have just stopped ordering it. I am, however, the ecstatic owner of two pounds of actual bacon. To be cooked, properly, by yours truly. VICTORY! (There will be no party this time. This is a private sacrifice of my arteries to the heathen piggy gods).

*I have something of a cold, in the same way the ocean has something of water, and it has totally stolen my voice away.

And America is one step closer...

Being sick and working for Avalon is not a winning combination. Being sick and being in South Korea? Pretty awesome, actually.

I called my head teacher this morning, asking to see a doctor, and she told me to meet her at the school an hour early. Once there, she led me one block and around a corner to a clinic, where there was a form to fill out. A form. Like, just one. They ushered me down a hallway to a nice waiting room where I stayed for all of five minutes before seeing a doctor, which took perhaps ten minutes (and would have been even briefer if everything had not needed to be translated) as it was determined that I had no fever, so probably no bacterial infection, and I should mainline Sudafed (슈 다 펟 ) and Robitussin (or whatever it's called in Korean) and some other usually-OTC's for two days. The doctor explained that if I were still feeling bad after the two days and all the meds, I should return. I thanked him and we left, paying a whole $4.20 on the way out. Down the hall from there was the pharmacy, where we took the sheet the doctor had given me, gave it to the pharmacist, and a whopping two minutes and $3.60 later, I had meds for three days. No waiting, no consternation about coverage, just done.

I'm so impressed, it's almost okay that I have to work today.

Climbing over a rocky mountain

On Saturday, Avalon held its initiation rites for new teachers. (If I were any more sore today, I might be tempted to call it hazing, but that would just be the bitter buildup of acid in my muscles talking). At the ungodly hour of 10, those of us added last quarter and those of us new this quarter met at the school building and loaded into the bus that was to take us to our hiking destination.

Korea is a mountainous country, and it has been very lovely to see all that contoured scenery around the city.* The mountain we came to was so steep, our bus gave out and we walked the paved road up to where most people start. That paved road was nearly a sixty-degree angle (1/3 pi? Math people, help me out here), and it took us on a scenic tour of a nearby subsistence farm which chose that morning to fertilize.

Our hike was not off to an auspicious start, but at least it was not raining, as had been forecast. In fact, it was sunny and toasty, at 60-some-odd degrees, and most people shucked off their outer sweatshirt layers. (Our director and vice director were dressed like we were going to church, in button-down shirts and khakis which remained pristine all the way up and down again. I think it a strong possibility that they were actually specially designed hiking robots. Robots do not sweat).

The trail wound up and around the mountain, with a few stopping points and courteously provided stretching apparati. We started on a paved road, then moved to something more resembling a dirt road, still very wide and well-packed, but without a concrete layer. Then it was up through the trees, on something that was barely discernible as a path (indeed, if I hadn't been following people, I might not have known it was there at all) and was so steep it was more like wall-walking. (I may or may not have been singing the Spiderman theme song to myself. No one will ever know!) That led us to a high ridge with a better-defined, much narrower path, that left no room for error lest we be forced to invoke the dreaded "tail over teakettle" expression. Around gnarled trees and over the rocks of the ridge's spine we clomb (IT'S A WORD!) up to the very top, where there was a little pavilion.

As we went along, our little school of climbing fish wove in and out of itself, and I got to talk to several different people. Not just my campus, but the downstairs school and the other levels, including the English Library, were represented, and it was nice to get to know names and faces.

During the ascent, the weather slowly crept in around us. At first, it was a hazy softening of the contours below, which made for nice, watercolor-like photos (which I will get from someone who took them and post). It got progressively darker and windier as we hopped down the far side like a herd of gouty goats (it was a steep, very rocky trail down). We just beat the rain to the restaurant at the bottom of the trail, and got to sit and eat duck while it spattered the windows. We bonded over our shared grodiness.

I'm quite glad we did it, actually, despite the desperate need for a shower that followed.

*Seeing, it appears, is my preferred method of interaction with mountains, or so my knees have been informing me. I lived in the Midwest for four years before coming here. For those not aware, the Midwest is flat. Compared to Korea, the Midwest is flatter than the space between stars, where at least there is quantum fluctuation.

Addendum

I think there is something important missing from what I have said about the racist issue. I received an email gently chiding me for talking about my experience with it as though it were significant in the course of human events of the same nature.

I want to be very clear: in no way do I feel I have been grossly mishandled or maltreated to the same degree as all those who have truly suffered racism (accent on the suffered). To do so would smack of an entitlement I am ashamed to have been thought to possess. I feel, however, that grading racism will give far too much power to those who practice it, too much slippery slope of, "oh, that was only a little racist"*. So I say only "racism," and do not give it a degree. I thought that describing its context would be sufficient for the reader to understand I do not count myself a martyr, but if it is not, let me clarify. I think it is thoughtlessness acted out on race lines. I do not think this is particularly conscious, simply uncaring. It is not self-aware behavior.

I, of all people, support lexical clarity, and if there is a better word for this than "racism" I will use it happily, to avoid the misconception that I think of myself as suffering as victims of institutionalized racism and hate crimes have.

In short, as my friend said, " it's saying 'huh. this happened. it is racism. that is interesting! I am able to have this reflection because at home I am super privileged.'"

*Cue jokes about midget members of the KKK. Out of your system? Good.

Springtime for...

... people who are not me.

It's March, Daejeon. Get with the program!

It snowed yesterday. I feel personally betrayed. I have certain expectations when a place calls itself South Something-other-than-Dakota. Those expectations are for weather that is better than Chicago's. Korea, you're lettin' down the team, man.

News Flash

I have awesome students, internet!

Long Blag about Work*

In work-related news, I got moved out of the office I was in and into the other one, because I no longer taught any S-level classes (the highest level I taught last term, and some of my very favorite students). The new office, rather than having nearly a balance of foreign and Korean teachers, is all Korean teachers except for Q (who also got booted) and me. They hold meetings in there pretty much every day, all in Korean, and it is very exclusionary. There is some traffic between the two rooms, but not terribly much, and I miss the casual camaraderie of my old office. I have furthermore been saddled with the only computer that can run the bell system, apparently, and the administration has resoundingly failed to line up those chiming little ducks. I have had my desk shanghaied three times during my prep time without warning, so someone could ineffectually poke at the bells. It is an annoyance which, piled on top of the fact that it appears to have done me no good at all to move to the new office, really bothers me more than it should.

I should note at this time, there is slightly more to that story. The assignment of classes in the new term reflects a bias for ethnicity over skill set and education (in terms of focus, not level). There is not one dumb teacher in the whole school, and in no way do I feel the people appointed are inadequate to the job, but I do believe that they were selected without regard to several factors (in at least one case, even their own preference), all outweighed by being Korean American. The school's director waited until we had two Korean American English teachers before - but for G, the most senior of us - summarily dismissing us as able to teach the highest levels. Apparently, Korean Americans are better able to do this by virtue of their Korean Americanness. Having taught one of the classes from which we were unceremoniously booted as instructors, I do not agree. I fell my skill set and areas of study more than qualify me to teach those classes, and what's more, I liked teaching those classes. To be physically dismissed from my office so that people who already speak Korean could be in the room that had been substantially English-speaking and I could sit in the Korean office where I am functionally blind, deaf, and dumb, as well as automatically shift the high-level courses to them without even the shadow of meritocratic consideration, is galling.

It is difficult to convey this in a way that does not seem to blame the Korean American teachers, but I do not mean to. They did not ask for this, and in at least one case, did not want it at all. The directorship has simply slid them into the place it thinks they should fill and thinks should be filled by them. And that's just the academic angle. There was also a special shindig just for the Korean American teachers. Not all the teachers of the levels they teach, mind you, or G would have been invited, too. Just the Korean Americans. For being themselves. I think they're both lovely people, and I do support a good ol' celebration of the special snowflake everyone is (after all, what are birthdays for?), but it is awfully hard to feel good about the place you work when you feel like your director is throwing a party for two people as if to say, "Thank God real human beings arrived, we've been stuck with these lesser races for ages."

I would be more understanding if this were clearly a question of needing bilingual fluency for a certain class, but a) that's not so, and b) one of the Korean Americans does not have that command of Korean. Mostly, this was not as bothersome as it could have been until the special snowflake thing last week. I came here intending to get the experience of being a stranger in a strange land. I expect to be treated as strange and freakish outside of work. At work, where they cycle into a new batch of foreigners every three months, I expect less bias. I wonder if I should not lower my expectations and remind myself yet again that I brought this on myself, I willingly went to a part of the world with some very definite ideas about importance based on some things I have been raised not to believe in. I don't even know if there are laws against discrimination here in the country with the most homogeneous population the world over. I am a guest of South Korea for one year, at the sufferance of Avalon. When does the imperative to self-advocate overcome the imperative to respect your host and its culture?

I would like to be a calm, composed observer of my own situation, but I am offended. Even as one part of me marvels at this first experience of racism against my own race to which I have ever been exposed, another part of me is gnashing its teeth. I have not spoken to the school about my feelings, but there is to be a meeting on Friday where I hope it will be addressed.

I have more than hope for this partly because while I have said nothing, G has not been so reserved. In fact, I got to witness another sociological phenomenon at work: privilege. G is a straight, white male from North America. He came here three quarters of a year ago and has still not learned any Korean more than "this," "that," "hello," "thank you," and "goodbye." He has no intention of changing this, and asking him about it will get you only vehemence and dismissal. Getting racisted (yeah, that's a word now. Why do you think I got a degree in linguistics?) Simply Does Not Happen To Him. He has... made that clear to the administration. I do not think the root of his content is wrong (see above), but his manner is far more abrasive than I myself would intentionally employ. I think, amateur that I am in these matters, his reaction to this and mine, especially contrasted with Q's, who has likewise been booted but is neither male nor white nor seeming to have any reaction to this at all, are a result of privilege in our home environments. Ascribing that word to my motivations makes me feel I am behaving in the worst of entitled ways, but I also find it difficult to pack up all the indignation and stuff it into the "::shrug:: This is Korea." box.

So, to sum up, the school passed over non Korea-Americans to teach the most advanced classes, including classes I taught last semester and which I enjoyed a lot. The director has spent money and time specifically on the Korean Americans in a show of appreciation for getting ready to do the same job others of us did last term (which did not merit any such show at the time). Then, they made my old office only for the teachers of those advanced classes, putting me in an office where the dominant language is Korean, and Q and I are only included when an administrative question arises.

Thoughts, Internet?


* (That's "blah" + "blog", not the independently evolved XKCD word of the same spelling)