Winter Camp for Parents

Christmas Eve in Korea marks the end of the second semester for Korean elementary school children.  This means that Korean students will have the next six weeks without regular classes.  One would think that this would also mean that the teachers have the next six weeks off, as it is in the U.S.  However, this is not the case.  EPIK teachers are required to be at school from 8:30-4:30 (regular work hours) during the entirety of winter vacation, minus the ten business days that we are allotted for our own vacation.  During this time many teachers must participate in winter camps.  These winter camps vary hugely from school to school on the curriculum, grades levels of the students, number of days and hours etc.  Some teachers may have four classes a day for three weeks straight, while others may have only one week of two or three classes a day.  Many teachers end up at other schools helping out other foreign teachers with their winter camps.

During the winter vacation I heard many horror stories about so many different aspects of winter camp.  Many teachers were not given any curriculum or even guidelines to go by when creating winter camp lesson plans.  This makes it very difficult to make weeks worth of lessons with absolutely no idea of what to teach or what level of materials to use.  I heard lots of complaints from teachers about their schools telling them on Wednesday, for example, that they needed to turn in all of their detailed lesson plans that Friday.  They worked all night long for a few days to get those plans ready and turned in on time.  One teacher worked on 20 lessons for the first week of his camp only to go to school on Monday and have his co-teacher tell him that the Office of Education didn't accept his lesson plans, and that she spent all weekend changing them.  His school did not give him any materials, curriculum or ideas for winter camp.  Therefore he planned lessons that he thought would be fun and actually wanted to teach.  He felt like his co-teacher thought he was a bad teacher and really guilty that she spent all that time changing the lessons.

When I was informed of what my winter camp would entail I felt like I had it pretty easy compared to many others.  I was only required to participate in one week of winter camp teaching three classes a day.  One of my co-teachers would be there teaching 3rd and 4th grades while I taught 5th and 6th.  We would switch off grades each day.  My other co-teacher would be in the room in case I needed something translated.  I was really excited that I had it so easy until my co-teacher came into class one day with a worried look on her face.  She told me that she had talked to the Vice Principal and that he said we had to do a second week of winter camp.  The second week would only consist of two classes: one class of 3rd and 4th graders that didn't get into the first winter camp (we only allowed 20 students per class), and one class of the parents of the students.  That's right.  The parents.  I was so intimidated by this.  I had never before taught ESL to adults and had never heard of any other foreign English teacher having to teach parents.  I figured it would just be awkward, that they would just sit there silently because they were embarrassed and very low level.  My co-teacher who would be there to translate for me also thought this was going to be a really weird situation, which did not make me feel any better.  

I dreaded the second week of winter camp all throughout the first and put off making any lesson plans for the parents' class so it didn't seem so real.  But eventually time was running out and I had to face the fact that parents' class was actually going to happen and that I would (hopefully) live through it.  I prepared an introductory lesson so I could gauge the levels of the students in order to create subsequent lessons.  After my class of young'ns on Monday I began to get ultra nervous.  I was under the impression that the parents' class would start at 9:50 and was getting my hopes up because by 10:00 no one had showed up.  To my dismay, by about 10:05 the students began arriving.  I said, "Good morning," to each as they walked into class and sat silently.  When there were eight women students seated in front of me I was given the go-ahead to begin class.  I began with an introductory powerpoint with pictures of my family, interests and favorites.  I was pleasantly surprised to get lots of giggles and tons of questions about my life back home and here in Korea afterwards.  As I continued on with the lesson the women opened up more and more.  Although their level was pretty low they still tried hard to communicate as much as possible.  They would say English words they knew and then say stuff in Korean and my co-teacher would translate.  One of the greatest things was that the women thought I was hilarious.  I acted like my silly self while teaching and they loved that.  They loved that I tried to say some words in Korean and laughed when I sang and danced.  The lesson ended up being incredibly fun because the women all had a great sense of humor and were eager to learn English.  I couldn't believe that I was actually excited to plan the lesson for the next day.

On Tuesday I taught the women a "pop song" as most Koreans love to sing.  This day we sung "I Have a Dream" by ABBA.  It's funny how much Koreans love the musical "Mamma Mia."  Many women know the tune to lots of "Mamma Mia" songs and may know some of the words to the chorus or make up their own words.  I also love to sing and have become pretty open about singing in front of people.  I would guess that back home people would be way less into singing songs in class and probably a lot more shy to let people hear their voice.  Each day I taught another song: on Wednesday, "Let it Be" by the Beatles; Thursday, "Mamma Mia" by Abba; and Friday, "I'll Be There" by Jackson 5.

On the last day of class one of the moms walks into class with a really large bag filled with unknown items.  She starts removing each item from the bag: a glass cylinder of water, a steel brief case-looking box, a small machine, and some cups.  As I'm watching her it becomes more and more apparent that what she has is a small espresso machine!  She opens up the little brief-case thing and she's got a bunch of little, plastic, sealed cups, each with a different type of espresso.  I go over to look and all the information regarding the espresso is written in German with her notes translating in Korean.  The Koreans inform me that she is a barista.  Apparently anyone who can make real coffee is a "barista" in Korea.  We each pick out which type of espresso we want.  I am the only one that chooses actual espresso while the Koreans all choose some type of creamy, sweet coffee drink.  Koreans love sweet.  I just found it hilarious that she would go to all of this work to bring in an espresso machine and make everyone drinks for a 50 minute long class.  To me his image is so incredibly Korean and awesome.

To top off a really good week the ladies invited me to go out to dinner and to the noraebang (Karaoke room) on Friday night.  The restaurant they chose was a really nice "Western" restaurant just up the road called "White Castle."  I found the name quite funny as it really actually was a "white castle."  I ate a tenderloin steak and all the Koreans picked "Korean style bulgogi steak."  The dinner was a total mixture of Western and Korean food.  Pretty tasty.  When we were about to leave, one of the women began to unclip her large fur bow, handed it to me and said "real mink."  My co-teacher said she wanted to give it to me as a gift and that it was real fur.  My co-teacher clipped it into my hair and all the women gasped saying, "Ahhh very beautiful!!"  With all the fur that I've acquired while here I hope PETA doesn't assassinate me while getting off the plane when I go home.  Next we went to the noraebang and at first sang all the songs that we learned in class.  It was good that the Koreans could practice their English in a real-life setting (Yes, the noraebang is a typical Korean setting).  For the next hour and a half we all took turns singing popular Western and Korean songs, singing, dancing and laughing.  

The whole week with the women turned out to be a blast.  Getting to know them and becoming friends has many perks.  They want to take me to Costco, which is really far away from my house and a huge hassle to get to.  It's also nice to get on the good side of parents, as this comes back to the administration at my school.  Getting on the good side of the VP and principal at your school can have many benefits, as it is in Korean society.  Because my principal likes me he let me go home at one o'clock every day during winter camp and during my desk warming days.

Now, done with winter camps, I'm off to the warm beaches of the Philippines for 17 days!  Should be a really good time.  If I have a chance while there I will write a blog post, otherwise I'll write ya soon!   

100 Ways To Spend ₩₩₩ in Korea

Key:
$1 USD = 1,121 Korean won
(It's easier if you just look at the won and take off 3 zeros to convert it to dollars)

Arguably the most alluring reason to come to Korea and teach English is the pay.  Whether you teach in a hagwon (private academy) or for EPIK you will be getting a pretty good deal in the dolla dolla bills department.  With just a four-year college degree you are eligible to apply for a teaching position in Korea.  As a public school teacher one has the potential to earn from about 1.8 million won to 2.7 million won depending on the area of Korea where she is teaching and her credentials.  I personally make 2.1 million won which translates to about $1,800 USD.  Because I took an online teaching course before I came I was bumped up on the pay scale.  Before you say that $1,800 isn't that much money, the benefits of teaching in Korea as opposed to many other countries are quite substantial.  First of all our school pays our rent.  All we have to take care of is the utilities, internet and cell phone bills.  This is quite nice depending on the apartment your school hooked you up with.  My apartment is pretty modest but it's enough for me.  I would guess that it saves me from paying around 400,000 won a month.  The cost of living here is cheaper in many aspects of day to day life than it is back in the States.  Before deciding to come to Korea I had read, and people had told me first-hand that it is easy to save money while living here.  Admittedly, I decided to come to Korea because I figured I would be able to save the most money in order to pay off student loans.

Okay, Mom, stop reading now.

Before I left for Korea I had planned on saving around $12,000 dollars and knocking my student loan debt down to about half of what I started out with a year before.  Sounds too good to be true, right? Right.  Turns out we do make a lot of money as teachers and it would be possible to save this amount if one was very frugal, but it's hard to live like that when you're in another country living a "once in a lifetime" experience.  I want to enjoy my time here as much as possible because it is very likely that once I leave in about 7 months I may never come back to the good ol' ROK.  So what's a girl to do?  If you know me I think you know the answer to that.

As I read and heard from people before me, "It's easy to save money in Korea."  Well, I am going to give you the other end of the spending spectrum and tell you about how "It's easy to spend money in Korea" as the title implies, although I lied about it being 100 ways.  It just sounded catchier than "6".

How to spend money in Korea:

1. Drinking.  I would say that drinking is a favorite past time of both Koreans and foreigners in Korea alike.  On a weekend night in Daegu there isn't much to do besides ditch outta town or go downtown.  If one chooses either of these his night may very well consist of moderate to heavy drinking.  Unless one decides to camp outside of GoGo Vinyl all night, which serves 3,000 won "extra strong alcohol" drinks in a bag that look like adult Capri Suns, drinking can make a significant dent in one's wallet.  I can't say that most people spend more money on alcohol here than they do back home but I can say that I have seen my friends drop some cash.  One can also choose to go the soju and Korean beer route but after a full night of this one may find himself in the gutter-literally.
2. Western food.  Non-Korean food here is priced about the same as it is back home and sometimes can be even more expensive.  If one chooses to eat Western food, which my friends and I do pretty often, she can expect to spend around 10,000 won a dish.  Since I eat Korean food everyday for lunch I usually prefer to eat something else for dinner.  Unless of course it's kimchi pancakes which I could eat for every meal.  Korean food is pretty cheap and you can get a meal for around 4-5,000 won but, although it is delicious, I can only eat so much.  To give you an example, a medium pizza at Papa John's is about 23,000 won.  
3. Travel.  It's only natural while living abroad to want to travel while you have the opportunity.  In Korea the public transportation system can get you anywhere in the country.  This makes traveling to more entertaining cities than the one you already live in very easy, and pretty expensive.  In the last 5 months that I've been here I would guess that I've traveled to Seoul five times.  At 41,000 won each way on the KTX (high-speed train) this gets pricey.  Of course you could take the bus at 26,000 won each way but you will end up spending a few more hours in transit.  When you will only be there for less than 12 hours it's sometimes not worth it to take the bus or slow train!  Also, many people were placed in more rural areas of Korea where there is very little to do.  I have friends that make frequent trips to Daegu and other big cities for the weekend.  Finally, having important people in other cities makes you forget about the money that you spend getting there and back.
4. Shopping.  Daegu has a lot of really good shopping, at least for women.  As it is known as "the fashion capital" to Koreans there is naturally much money to be spent.  The price range varies from really cheap to really expensive depending on where you shop.  You can choose to browse through a local boutique with cheaper Korean-made clothing or head to Busan to visit the largest department store in the world, Shinsegae Centum City which is crammed with floor after floor of brand name and designer stuff.  The first few months of living in Daegu I was overwhelmed with joy at the vast shopping possibilities.  Therefore I went at least a few times a week.  Since then my addiction has subsided a bit but is not back down to where it was in the States.  I'm gonna have to donate a bunch of clothes before I leave Korea because they definitely won't fit in my bags.
5. Music Fests.  Since I have been in Korea I have attended two music festivals at about 88,000 won a pop.  The first, Global Gathering, was an electronic music festival held in Seoul in October.  The second, SEMF, was an awesome concert held at a classy hotel in Seoul over New Years Eve.  Both nights were an outrageously fun but pretty expensive with the tickets and the trains to and from Seoul, although we did save on drinks!  Holler!  Definitely worth it in my book.
6. Reoccurring health issues.  I know some people who have had to go to the "hospital" many times since they've been here.  Although we do have insurance through our schools, it doesn't cover everything.  Koreans tend to go visit the doctor much more frequently than Americans, maybe because it is cheaper, and this means that if you go once, you will probably be back.  When someone goes to the "hospital" the doctor gets a certain amount of money per person that they see.  The cost is subsidized by the government so the patient doesn't have to pay all of it.  Because the doctor is making more money the more patients he sees, sometimes it is in his/her interest for the patient to keep coming back.  This is definitely not the case in most situations but I have spent more money than I wanted at the doctor's since I've been here.  The Korean health care system is explained here for anyone who cares. I find it quite interesting. 

Now I will give you the one-and-only definite way that you WILL save money in Korea.

1. Partying at Club Frog in Daegu on a Wednesday night.  Hold your breath....Club Frog in downtown Daegu is FREE!  No, I'm not just saying there's no cover.  The drinks are free too.  So are the lockers to put your shit in.  If you order a cocktail (they have a list of 10 or so to choose from) you can have free drinks all night.  And this is not even just for ladies; men drink for free too.  Don't ask me why cause I have no idea.  I don't promise that this will be going on for much longer, as I don't see how this is even possible.  Not shittin ya.

Saving money:  Korean beer and drink-in-a-bag

Okay, so I've made it sound like I haven't saved any money in Korea but I totally have.  I've got a few grand in the bank so far but I am going to the Philippines for three weeks comin' up here really soon.  I am doing fine and paying off my student loans as they come.  Don't worry.

I really just think that Korean money is so easy to spend because it looks like Monopoly money.