Adventures in Daegu

Today was my first day at school. I didn’t have to teach, but I did have a lot to do. First, I met the vice principal and several of the teachers, including the English teachers: Mr. Lim, Miss Baek, Miss Oh, and Miss Doh (pronounced "Eem," "Beck," "Oh," and "Doh," respectively). They were very friendly, and Miss Oh made Korean coffee for me. Turns out “Korean coffee” is the kind that comes as a mix. They don’t actually make it. Then the Vice Principal had me say a few words in front of the teachers, after which he gave me a school tour. It’s quite a big middle school – 6 or 7 hundred, I think, in grades 7, 8, and 9. Miss Oh showed me the teachers’ bathroom. All the toilets are squatters except the “handicap” toilet, which is Western style. Miss Oh explained that the previous female native teacher always used this Western toilet. When they asked her why she used a handicap toilet, she told them, “I am handicapped, because I can’t use squatters.” They told me to use the Western toilet, if that made me more comfortable, but actually that motivated me to try the squatters out—when no one else was around—and, well, it worked out ok. Enough said.


If you want to read more about my adventures, click on "read more." If you want to know what a squatter toilet is, click on "read more" and scroll to the bottom.


Next I had to have a conversation with the principal. He was very nice, but he doesn’t speak English, so the vice principal translated for us. Then I got to sit at my new desk and check out my stuff. One thing I’ll say about my immediate predecessor: he did not totally clean out his personal effects. I found cups, toilet paper, wrappers, stickers, various paraphernalia, and a mouse trap in the desk, various shampoos and soaps and a used toothbrush in the bathroom, and flour in the kitchen. Then the cutest thing happened! A young teacher, Dong Yun, crept up to my desk, put a post-it note in my lap, and ran away. The note explained that her English was bad, but she wanted to be my friend. I felt terrible, because I wanted to answer her, but didn’t know who she was; she ran away before I could see her face. I couldn’t respond to her note, and I didn’t want to put her on the spot by asking someone to point her out to me. But she eventually worked up the courage, I guess, to come talk to me. I’m so glad! I hope we can, indeed, be friends.

Around lunchtime, the vice principal, who speaks very good English, met me for lunch in the cafeteria. All the students stared at me, and a few said “hi!” I was a little embarrassed because the spicy food made my nose run, but I gamely ate everything on my plate. Mr. Lim, the principal, and the vice principal had all mentioned to me in not-so-subtle hints that they preferred native speakers who mingled with Koreans and ate Korean food, which I guess my predecessors (I am the third native teacher at this school) did not. So, I ate it all. My family would be shocked to see me.

After lunch, Miss Baek took me to the Immigration Office in Daegu (the nearest big city) to apply for my ARC card. Miss Baek introduced herself as Rachel, but I asked if she wanted me to use her Korean name, Su Jin. She said anything is fine, so I switched to Su Jin. The passport photos I brought with me were too big, so we had to go get my picture taken at a photo studio. I guess there are no instant photo booths in Korea. However, it took awhile for the photos to develop, so we went in before lunch to order them. After lunch, when we left for Daegu, we were halfway there when Su Jin gasped and explained she had forgotten to pick up the photos. So we had to stop at an E-Mart, the local Target equivalent, to get new ones at an even more expensive photo studio. They took 40 minutes to develop, so we went shopping. Well, we were already in E-Mart! After that, we picked up the photos and drove to the Immigration Office. Well, guess what. So did every other native teacher in southern Gyeongbuk. The place was packed with a constant stream of foreign English teachers and their Korean co-teachers. The parking lot was double-parked everywhere. It turns out, many Korean parking lots are too small, so Koreans block each other in. They leave their phone numbers visible on their windshields so the owners of blocked cars can call them to come move their car when problems arise. While we were in the office, Su Jin got a call and had to leave. I held our place in line. We had to fill out some paperwork and go through two lines in a room where everyone was elbow to elbow. Finally we got our paperwork in and headed out to the car. Now Su Jin was blocked in, but the offender’s phone number card had fallen down and the number was hidden from view. Su Jin went back in the office to yell out the license plate number so the owner would come move the car, but no one responded. She tried several times, but no response. Finally she came and sat in the car with me, and just as we were wondering if we would ever get back home, a middle-aged lady came out and moved the car, allowing us to escape… into a sudden and torrential rain storm. The wind was very strong, the raindrops were huge, and visibility was terrible. The roads started flooding and passing trucks splashed our windshield with so much water, we were completely blinded for several seconds. In a moving car on a packed freeway, this is a really scary thing to have happen. After the second time, Sun Jin declared we had to pull over at the E-Mart to wait it out. So we did… and we went shopping again. This time I bought children’s books to practice Korean. After awhile, we went back out to find the skies had cleared, so we finished the drive home.

At home, we met Mr. Lim, who took us both out to dinner, and again, I ate everything put in front of me, which was a lot, since Mr. Lim likes to dictate all my food intake. Mr. Lim took me out to dinner last night, too. I am so grateful for all the kindness, but I feel awkward having them buy me so many meals, especially when I haven’t even done anything yet. What if they do all this for me and I suck at teaching?! Hopefully they won’t regret it. On to the weekend!

I'm so lazy today that I didn't bother uploading pictures, but you can't have a blog post with squat toilets in it without showing a picture for all the Westerners, so I'm just linking you: http://www.clogged-toilet.co.cc/toilet/squat-toilet3.jpg . I don't think our stalls are quite that big, though. If you're thinking the trash can is for, well, the obvious things in a female bathroom stall, you're both right and wrong. It's also for toilet paper. They don't flush that here.