We are officially more than halfway through our contracts (in our eighth month) and starting to consider what we will do next. Right before we came there was an incident in which a Canadian teaching English in Korea sexually assaulted some of his students before fleeing the country and hopping around Asia. He was finally caught in Thailand a few months into our stay here (late 2007). As a result, the visa requirements have been significantly tightened (see this page for a full explanation):
Under the new law, applicants for a new E2 visa or an extension have to submit their criminal background certificate and medical report. In addition, applicants are required to appear for a personal interview at the nearest Korean embassy or consulate in their home countries, with some exceptions such as, for example, mission location unreasonably distant from applicant's location. (Criminal-check records are also required for C4 visa candidates who plan to work in English language camps here for less than 90 days.)
In their initial application package, prospective teachers must fill out a short, unofficial health statement regarding infectious diseases, drug use, and psychological problems. Then, within three months after arriving here, the official medical data must be provided to the immigration office, as part of the application for residence registration. The medical exam to be conducted by government-approved public and general hospitals includes tests for narcotics use and HIV/AIDS, the ministry explained.
The academic-credentials check has also been toughened. The original degree, along with a copy of it, must be submitted. The original will be returned after the credentials are authenticated. The copy must be verified by the Korean consulate in applicants' home countries or the Korean Council for University Education (www.kcue.or.kr).
I understand the rationale for the HIV/AIDS/narcotics tests and the criminal background check. These are pretty standard requirements for visas and I already had to go through them for a student visa to Chile. But the personal interview is a pain and the academic credentials are actually more stringent than described here. Not only do they verify the authenticity of the documents, but they also insist that all names be identical on all forms. This is probably never going to pose a problem for me but if Jay, for instance, has Marrone, Jason Gutiérrez on his passport and Jason Marrone (or even Jason Gutierrez Marrone, without an accent, depending on just how picky the Korean worker is) on his diploma, he could be denied a visa.
Theoretically, as we already have an E2 visa, we are considered relatively safe and will be allowed a bit more leniency and perhaps a waived interview if we apply for another E2 in the future. But the new laws come hand in hand with a president (Lee Myung-Bak, elected late '07 and currently in office) who wants to abolish the private academy (hagwon) system, plus a surge of distrust of foreigners thanks to that perverted pedophile that was molesting their students. (To be fair, the general distrust is understandable). Basically, it looks like the private schools will be struggling to survive, so they will be putting even more stress on their teachers to turn profits, and it looks like the public schools are starting to exhibit the same poor behavior that made hagwons so infamous and on the whole disreputable in the first place.
In short, we're revising our plan to come back to Korea after our contract finishes. Our dream of living in Jeju and biking around the island on the weekend faded into a nightmare of bureaucracy and xenophobia. Jay's currently researching opportunities in Vietnam and Taiwan, while I'm pushing for consideration of China or Thailand as well. But, despite the difficulties our school is causing us and the rest of the teachers right now, we still want to teach some more. This is a good sign, right?
Before we start searching for a new contract, we have a glorious trip through Latin America to plan, a wedding to attend (Keith and Lisa's), and a much-needed Thanksgiving at home. Not in that order, of course.
On a rather un-related note, I had a very interesting little discussion in class on Tuesday evening, when Jerry, one of my most enthusiastic older students (he's maybe 13?). I had them write a short dialogue based on a picture and then read them in class. Right before he wrote his, he prefaced it with, "This is a sex-appeal story".
I was very confused and ready to stop him, but he's a very well-behaved student and the story did not become inappropriate at any time (person A said person C was a liar, person B corroborated the story, and they planned to murder person C together), so I let the "sex-appeal" comment slide. Later though, perhaps picking up on my initial reaction, he asked, "Teacher, sex-appeal... it made Romeo and Juliet, right?"
I faltered for a minute, weighing my options and the potential parent-fury before responding, "well, attraction was part of it, but I wouldn't say that sex-appeal caused their death..."
He nodded, but was still confused, so he followed up with, "Teacher, what is sex-appeal?"
Me: "Well, it's... where did you learn that word?"
Jerry: "We have it in Korean too."
Mentally, I considered whether it would be best to simply explain it in as age-appropriate a manner as possible, or to volley the question to Joe, our manager and another teacher of this particular class. Eventually, I picked up a highlighter from my basket and said, "well, if I wanted to sell you this highlighter, I could say, 'Hey! Buy this!' or I could find a really pretty woman and have HER say 'Hey! Buy this!' [insert commercial-style hair flip here].... and that's sex appeal." I was proud of myself for, in my opinion, satisfying my role as an educator without breaking that oh-so-awkward barrier into the sex-talk which all Americans are trained to fear and avoid at all costs. Go me.
I was preparing to continue the lesson when he replied, "But... who made 'Romeo and Juliet'?"
"Oh god. Shakespeare. SSSHHaaaakespearrrre." I then elaborated with hand motions to emphasize "Sex appeal" on one side and "Shakespeare" on the other side, "very different."
We then quickly proceeded on with the lesson before anyone could ask, in that case, for a clarification on sex appeal. It turns out that, given the way Korean is spoken, there is no real SH sound before an 'a', the sound to approximate 'a' in Shakespeare is pronounced as a cross between "ay" and "eh", and 'r' and 'l' are not mutually distinguishable. Hence, Shakespeare is easily changed to sex appeal. Oy vey. At least I amused the other teachers. And hey, maybe in five or so years, when Jerry learns what sex-appeal means, he will remember my age-appropriate attempt at an explanation and think "Ha! That teacher was awesome!" Maybe.
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