SMOE to cut 700 native teacher jobs in 2012

read a brief summary here.

Now I know some people are already saying that the jig is up. Korea has opted out of English. The esl community here will be dead soon. No more cushy high paying, low responsibility public school positions with optional sobriety! (.......well the last one is accurate). Seoul city went on the hiring spree to end all hiring sprees last year, hiring a Native English Teacher (NET) for every elementary, middle and high school in the city. That's over 1200 people. Most of these people are fresh of the boat uni grads who have nothing but their BA in Criminology which apparently is enough to teach English in Korea with absolutely no job training in their home country or in Korea (note, THAT failure is solely the responsibility of the Seoul Ministry of Education (SMOE) and not the fault of the 23 year old who applied for an available job, was hired, showed up on Sunday and was told to "go teach" on Monday). They have now decided to scale that number back. However, it's a small adjustment that really does makes sense given the cost of hiring so many people and bringing them over.

First, out of 22,000 E2 visa holders plus all the F visa holders there will be 700 less jobs, and I wonder how many hagwons will expand/open to fill the void? The fact is that the market will NOT become "flooded" with esl teachers. What will happen is that people will start to lose jobs for which they are thoroughly unqualified. I mean, the example 23 year old with a Criminology degree shows up in Seoul on a flight paid for by the Korean government. They get free accommodation in a world class city, a generous (relative to Korean standards) salary and 5 official weeks vacation (which does not include all the random days off, test days etc. where most teachers either play on facebook all day or else don't have to show up at all) and more if they can opt out (and want to opt out) or winter and summer camps. Now I know stories range from school to school and some teachers work long hours and don't have as many random days, but the fact remains that it is a relative gravy train for someone who's use is highly debatable in the first place. If some of these people want to stay in Korea, they will have to get TOEFL's (not online) and get hagwon jobs or else get relevant qualifications to teach (which you CAN do in Korea if you wish). These jobs are still readily available, but more and more you will actually have to show some ability or qualification to do the job. The simple truth is that if you don't know what a verb is you aren't qualified to teach anything but Phonetics to a pre-schooler.

Second, there's the turnover rate among NET's meaning that of the 550 that are staying in Seoul would be close to the number that would be renewing anyway. It also brings the number in line with other major Korea cities. For example (these number have not been fact checked so feel free to do so if they're way off) Daegu has about 300 NET's with a population of around 3 million. Busan has about 350 with a population of around 4.5 million. Seoul City (minus Incheon, Suwon etc.) has a population of around 10 million. In that sense 550 seems a reasonable number, especially if some will work in more than one school as has been suggested.

Also, hiring some 23 year old with a Criminology degree to teach English at a public school is... well dumb. For hagwon's I'd argue that a BA and a TEOFL/TEFL/CELTA is probably enough, but public school teaching is different, or at least it should be. Could you imagine what would happen in the US, Canada, Ireland etc. if the government decided everyone had to learn French and proceeded to hire a bunch of 23-35 year olds with no relevant education just because they happened to be from France, Quebec or West Africa? Now I am a big believer in the idea that a native speaker is essential when learning another language. Many Korean english teachers still say stuff like "You are from Canada, how about there?" However, 1200+ in Seoul alone seems excessive.

I also think many esl teachers have done this to themselves. I can't tell you how many times I've heard Koreans complain about their native teacher. Stories ranging from "he comes in hung over and stinking of booze every day" to "we called her at two and she had gone home with some random GI after being out til six on a Wednesday and was in some hotel across town." You have been hired to do a job. If you want to backpack Asia, boozing and getting up at noon, do that. Don't take a job and show up and act like an idiot and then get upset when you don't keep your desireable, well financed job. Also, the arguement that Koreans do it too doesn't fly as if a Korean shows up late with a story like that then they will be fired immediately and although coming in hungover is acceptable sometimes (much moreso than in the west), stinking of booze and talking about "how shittered" you got last night isn't and you don't hear the Koreans doing that. I know this isn't everybody that comes over, and I know many 23 year olds show up and do a great job but there are simply too many who treat their year(s) here as a holiday. Perhaps a measure that will weed out the idiots and get people who actually want to do the job they were hired to do (which includes MANY that are here now) isn't a bad thing at all.

This has happened before in the esl industry. In the 70's Japan was the place to go. You a functioning alcoholic with some education? Come live in Tokyo and be a teacher! Then the Japanese stopped and did some evaluations. The fact is that jobs in Japanese public schools are still readily available, but most people in them have a BA and an education degree, or an MA, or at least an English major. They also can lose their jobs if they under-perform as they have to pay their own way over and only get reinbursed if they finish their contract successfully. While I think Japan has gone too far the other way (it has been said that Japan speaks to the world through translators) certainly places like Singapore or Hong Kong seem to have found a happy balance. Teaching at a Hong Kong private school involves a real interview, and only people with education degrees or MA's in linguistics, education, TOEFL etc. are usually interviewed.

At the end of the day, very few people will notice the difference. EPIK may follow suit and drop some people, the economy isn't what it used to be, but I do think that hagwon work will fill the void. The real losers in that situation are the kids who can't afford private lessons at academies, although I don't know how much 2 hours a week saying "hello, where are you from?" with a westerner is going to teach them, at least it's something. I also think that Korea will (or should) follow the Hong Kong example. A smaller number of qualified teachers making a decent salary rather than cheap (relative to what HK teachers make) white people hired by the dozen. As to people in Korea now, many universities offer course based MA's in TOEFL, linguistics or even Asian studies (at least you'll be writing papers and studying a second language) in English. Do one. It's usually a year to 18 months (24-36 part time) and when you are finished you will have real qualifications. Most MA's here transfer to your own country either as an MA or as course credit towards one. Otherwise education degrees take a year in most western countries.

Finally, it wasn't that long ago that my fictional 23 year old with a Criminology degree could get a job teaching English at a UNIVERSITY. I mean, in Canada you can't even be a TA at a uni unless you are an MA student. Imagine signing up at your university for a French class and having a teacher with a Criminology degree walk in and not know the answer to your simple grammar questions... I'd want a refund. Well now that is increasingly rare in Korea and no one seems to be surprised, although it wasn't that long ago that the same objections were raised about weeding out Uni profs with no relevant experience, saying that it would raise the cost of English education in post secondary institutions. I think public schools are following suit.

So what it comes down to is this: you have a BA and maybe a TOEFL. You will be working hagwons.
You have an MA, and education degree or some other relevant qualifications. You can work public schools.

OR-

Next month some new policy will take effect with the government and everything I have just written will be irrelevant.

working on a Saturday

well in my contract it says that I must work 3 Saturdays in a year.... not bad at all and I can't really complain as it's 1030-1 and it's watching my students give presentations. It's a great way to gauge how well they are doing and it's over early.

What I was a little annoyed about is that we only found out on Wednesday, and then through our coteacher who asked if we were going to the lunch after the presentation. What presentation? What lunch? Our boss insisted that she had told us but as all three of us had no idea my guess is that she had talked about presentations (which we actually thought was for their public school) and assumed we just knew the rest. I was supposed to go to a wedding for my old coworker Sally but I'm not sure I'll be making that now, which is also frustrating as I said I'd be there. I'll probably just bolt after the reception and see what I can do.

Being how good the school has been so far and that this is the first real issue I've had I've just decided to let it go. My boss is great and I think with the new semester starting Dec 2nd my guess is it just slipped her mind. What can you do right?

Korean Unification in the 21st Century

My friend Jason posted a great link from the BBC on the new Korean online channel dedicated to reunification. The network has been started as a response to the sheer number of young people who seem to simply not care about the north anymore. It argues that while the first two generations of the post-1953 division had real family links, the younger generation (say under 30) has virtually none that it knows about. It's an interesting situation and the BBC does a decent job of describing the channel. Officially there is one Korea, as both sides claim ownership of the whole nation. In Korea maps show one nation and no one uses the term "South Korea." Unofficially however, Koreans know that there is in effect two states and for younger people, the north seems a largely irrelevant issue.

I know in my own experiences talking with Korean friends it does seem like a distant issue. People whos great grandmothers were in Seoul and who's great uncles were in Kaesong (just across the border) were ripped apart during the war and never allowed to see each other again. I have one example of a friend whos grandmother and great aunt were on a shopping trip to Seoul (the family was from just outside of Pyeongyang). They went down for a week long summer vacation when the north invaded. While every detail wasn't shared with me, what happened was after the war they were in Daegu and although you had, in theory, 90 days to choose which side of the border to live on in reality you didn't. So after 90 days the border was shut and the girls never saw their older brother or parents again and have never even been able to find out what happened to them. That is just one of thousands of heartbreaking stories that come out of that generation. For people who lived through that time one can understand how reunification was seen as so important.

However, for their grandchildren they have, at most, aunts, uncles and cousins up in the north at this point, and most have less than that. They have also never met these relatives. I know I have cousins who I have never really met and who I might have trouble naming. For many of these people it's the same thing. The north is an annoyance and reunification a secondary problem. Since reunification will almost certainly occur as the north crumbles and is absorbed by the south it will be a major economic blow to the south (some estimates say it will cost $100 billion US to the south's economy). In a nation with an excess of university students and record high prices for food and housing (relative to the country, no Canadian would complain about what $600/m would get you here apartment wise) it's a borderline unwelcome blow that one friend says she hopes will happen when she is in her 50's and economically stable. Most young south Koreans are caught in a culture and generational gap where they are still expected to care for their parents financially and pay for their childrens education and housing through to their marriage and do this in a society that is rapidly westernizing and where this expectation is no longer a realistic one. The kids are obsessed with education and smart phones and the 20 and 30 somethings are adjusting to this cultural shift as best they can. With these circumstances you can understand why the north just isn't the issue it once was among anyone under 40.

Also there's the fact that for young Koreans, American movies and music, Japanese animation and European food have a far greater impact on their culture and daily lives than the north. While everyone seems to agree that unification should happen, the simple fact is that more Koreans visit the US, Japan, Taiwan and a host of SE Asian nations with far greater frequency than they do the north. In fact, I would argue that a young couple living in Gangnam, Seoul has far more in common with their counterparts in Los Angeles, Hong Kong or Tokyo than they do with their counterparts in Pyeongyang. Reunification would, at this point, bring two very alien groups together. Yes they have a common language and a shared history going back 1500 years that can not be easily dismissed, but the last 60 years have created two different realities. I mean, north Koreans don't even know what Starcraft is!

However, I'm glad that some people in the Korean government are still paying attention and want the new generation engaged, because whether it's a military coup, civilian food riots, a war or something else the north will collapse, and probably in my lifetime. Whether or not the two Koreas ever reunite is still unknown, but no matter what happens the south will bare the brunt of it and younger people need to be ready for that.

eating 족발

so after work on Friday I ran down to homeplus to grab a few essentials (tp and makkeoli) and then went for a long walk up to the base of Apsan where I often walk after work. It's about 30-40 minutes each way (depending on my pace/how far up I go) and a great walk at night. On my way back I stopped off at a few vendors to pick up some veggies and some meat. Well an old guy was selling an undisclosed meat that smelled great and was down to 7000 won from the usual 10,000 (so about $6.50 down from $9.50) so I bought it, took it home and tried some. It was chewy, really chewy.... almost rubbery. It tasted like pork I used to get in Hong Kong and it's about the most delicious thing I ate while there so I began eating it up.

It was Chokbal.

Now Korean in one of those languages where every word has more than one meaning and there is more than one word for everything, due to the influx of Chinese words in classical times, so for example "배" can mean boat, stomach, pear or behind depending on context and the hanja. Therefore I ignored the "발" as it must have more meanings than "foot".

Well it still might but I'll have to look it up later. I had picked up a piece of meat which was unmistakably a pig's hoof (Koreans don't have the same need to hide what their meat is through selective cutting, and they eat all of it). In fact, "족" is the Chinese work for foot, so the dish translates as foot foot. In fact the full name of this dish was : 서울왕족발 or Seoul King foot foot.

Ack, ewwww. Pigs feet! That's gross, that's awful that's....... well really quite delicious and actually very healthy. While I had never planned to eat pigs feet they are actually really good and I'm glad I accidentally did. While it isn't quite fried spider or silk worm larvae on the list of weird stuff I've eaten it's a fun story.

Samsung Lions are Asia Series Champions

Last night Daegu's Samsung Lions became the first Korean team (indeed first non-Japanese team) to win the Asia Series and take the title of Asian Champions. It was a close game, played against Fukuoka's Softbank Hawks (the Japanese Champions) who actually had a better record in the round robin section and so were playing with homefield advantage (the games being played in Taiwan). Fukuoka were heavy favourites but were unable to generate any real offense against Samsung and hit into two rally crushing double plays, which would be decisive.

Fukuoka actually went up 1-0 in the first off of three hits before hitting in to a double play. In the fifth Samsung racked up five runs off two great singles followed by a three run homer, a wild pitch with a man on third and some questionable defense by Fukuoka leading to the games only error. The five runs would be enough to win it, although Fukuoka would come close in the 8th loading the bases with no outs before hitting in to another double play. The inning ended with the score 5-3, which would also end up being the final score.

It's great to see the local team do so well, especially as it's rare for Daegu to take in a major sporting event/title over wealthier Seoul/Incheon based teams in the modern era. For Daegu to be the Korean and Asian Champions is a huge boost for the city and the people living here. It's also great for the development of baseball in Asia to see a non-Japanese team win the title. While Fukuoka had a better record in the round robin (they beat Samsung 9-0 in that game) and I think it'll be a few years yet before baseball in Korea or Taiwan matches the professionalism and skill of Nippon Professional Baseball (I wonder if Samsung could have won a best of seven series with Fukuoka?) it's great to see the expansion of the game and the growth of skilled players in such a short period of time (pro baseball in Korea only started in 1982, versus 1926 in Japan). In any event, with the winter sports here being soccer and basketball (yawn) I'm already ready for next April.

난 바빠 very 바빠

as the line from the newest kpop hit suggests, I've been incredibly busy this week.

To start with work is throwing extra classes my way and giving me 1 one 1's for the kids to practice for their English presentations that every elementary school does wth their grade 6's. So even though I only have a 7 hour shift these days, a break is almost unheard of. Next months schedule will also keep me busy, as I'm getting three more classes. Guess it's a good way to pass the cold december.

I've also been out virtually every night this week, and whil eit's been mostly fun/social things, I've yet to have a night to just relax at home and with Bobby coming to town and staying with me this Friday I'm in for a busy (but very fun) weekend.

No wonder November just flew by......

a weekend in Seoul

Well it was a weekend of near misses and mistakes that somehow turned in to really good luck. It sounds strange but it's true. Makes for a few more ups and downs than I'd like on a weekend trip, but it all worked out.

It started Friday. At work we had a workshop where we listened to a presentation and then each of us gave a 20 minute presentation. I had been nervous during the week but when we actually did it I had a lot of fun. I opted to go first and I think I did well. I then got to play the part of students for Mike and Kris  and I had a little too much fun doing that. The best part was that we were off by six.

I got to Seoul around midnight and opted for a cheap hotel near the station. When the guy said 40,000 I was happy, as in Daegu that gets you a decent room..... not in Seoul. The next day I went to meet a friend of mine from Taiwan, Serena (my friend from Taiwan) and her friend Carol (also Taiwanese) for coffee. It was really great to meet a few new people and I found a place in Seoul that does 500 won (45 cent) Americano refills.... a bit dangerous. After a few hours I left and went back to Insadong, got a much better hotel and did some shopping and eating. I was hoping to meet up with Bobby on Saturday night but a busy day combined with virtually no sleep had me tired so I suggested to Bobby that we meet on Sunday and he was okay with that.

The next morning I visited Jenny, Kwang ho, her sister Jin Baek and Jenny jr. and at the Korea National Museum. They were two very good friends of mine when I first came to Ulsan way back in 2008. She was my head teacher and I became friends with her husband very quickly, despite the lack of language skills (she will often do interpretations for me. In fact, I've known them for so long that she is maybe the only Korean outside of work that I will call by her English name (many Koreans take English names during their language classes in school and at work we are all supposed to use the kids English names, but outside of that environment it seems a bit silly. I admit that I usually have to ask a Korean name a few times, but I usually feel that you can't build a relationship with someone if you can't even be bothered to learn their name, unless they specifically say to use the English name, which a few do. However, in your first few weeks it's a bit of culture shock and you just use whatever name they give you to use, thus I'll call her Jenny even though I should call her Hyun sim... but I digress). Anyway, they came with their baby, who last time I saw was barely moving and is now running around and talking. She's a cool kid and seemed totally unafraid of me (which is unusual in that age range, but maybe it's just cause they live in Seoul where there are so many more waegookin). The museum itself was great and holds so many pieces of Korean history. Kwang ho is also very knowledgeable about Korean history and culture and I learned a lot.

However, I had not booked a KTX ticket back which never used to be a problem, but I guess more people are travelling and I was very worried that I wouldn't be able to get a train back, as they were all sold out online. I began to think about a bus back but then I was worried that I'd miss Bobby altogether, which would have been a real shame. I went to Seoul Station and did manage to get a ticket back. 1040 KTX to Daejeon, transfer to slow train. 90 minutes to Daegu station getting in around 130. Perfect, off to Yeonshinnae (in northwestern Seoul) to see Bobby.

Bobby was having dinner with a coworker and friend named Megan so we all went out to a gogi jip for meat and makkeoli. We hung out a few hours, found a decent makkeoli place near his house and caught up. Although it turns out that he'll be back in Daegu this coming weekend and will probably be staying at my place, so I guess we'll have lots of time to catch up then as well :P


As a city I find I like Seoul, but I'm glad I dont live there as it's just so congested (who'd have thought 15 million people in one place would seem congested?) and I find the people, well much more rude a lot of the time. As an example I had a cabbie who couldn't understand my directions to Korean National Museum (even though I had it in Hangeul and the directions drawn out) and when he started going the wrong way I asked what was up and he got really upset, like angry. I just got out and walked away as he was carrying on. Never had that in Daegu or Ulsan, ever.

But there's also stuff that I love. When I was at a table with five people who's different native languages are English, Korean and Chinese and who were all speaking in more than one language (even me) no one cared. In Daegu you start speaking anything but Korean and people stare at you, but in Seoul the white guy is speaking a bit of Korean and the Chinese girl is speaking some Korean and the Koreans and Chinese are both speaking lots of English and no one cares. The diversity with stuff like food is also amazing. Indian, Thai, Italian, German, Chinese and all right there.

In fact, I'd argue that Seoul feels so different from Busan or Daegu or Ulsan that it's like going to a different country. Those are all big Korean cities but Seoul is truly a world city. In many ways Seoul is its own city state much like Singapore to malaysia, only without the obvious border. It is its own entity with different politics, culture and even society than the rest of Korea. I'm sure the Japanese feel that way towards Tokyo or the British towards London but it's a wierd thing that I think can only exist in countries that have so called "world cities". Whatever the reason it's a cool place to visit, but I must admit to being happy to be back in Sangin :P