People who Do That Kind of Thing
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Living in Korea
In among all of the questions surrounding those who come to a country like Korea to teach, there is one which is rarely mentioned: the underlying independence of attitude and spirit which separates Euro-American foreigners from those with whom they must work, and how it affects their relationships with them.
Anyone reading here regularly will know that I have been out of the UK for a long time. As I sit here writing this, actually at my work desk at the elementary school, I am just coming up to the renewal of my E-2 (teaching) visa for the sixth consecutive year – an event which will mark the beginning of my seventh year here in South Korea. But how much longer I might stay here is always an academic question; there often seem to be many things which threaten to make you throw a huff and storm out. Between less-than-perfect relationships with Korean co-workers and a generally tenuous foreigner foothold in a land where traditionally they were rather isolationist and inward-looking, it's always hard to predict whether you'll just lose your cool one day and get a job somewhere else, or get thrown out because you lost your rag completely and let fly.
Generally, East Asians value harmony at a social level, and so try not to cause each other offence; the way they address each other reflects the way in which this desire has long since seeped into and infused the very languages themselves. But this stands often in stark contrast to the rugged (and perhaps ultimately fatalistic) attitude of the Westerner, and there is something about this which has to be said, which perhaps the local people here don't realise . . .
. . . and it goes something like this: If I were an engineer, for example, I would be here on an essentially temporary basis, working for a company which sponsors me and basically doing what they want and pay me to do; there is little or no volition of my own which would bring me here. I would probably have to come here because refusing to do so might lose me my job rather sharpish – and generally speaking, engineers who are sent out here are quite well paid. I would come out here because I had to, expecting to leave again maybe sooner rather than later, but with no requirement or intention for long-term stay.
This stands in contrast with someone like myself, who essentially took a gamble that paid off. I left the UK not knowing how anything would work out, in fact (when I flew out to Taiwan) not even knowing if there was a job there at all. But behind it all was my determination to make a decision and keep it. Nobody forced me to leave home and nobody is (or has been) forcing me to stay here; I am free to go anywhere I want within reason, but it's my choice. This means, however, that there has to be a certain toughness of attitude, you must be determined to be an individual, and this attitude sets you apart from those with whom you must work here, something which (in more senses than one) they have difficulty understanding and appreciating – to them, it's all part of the "foreigner nuisance".
This is especially problematic in Korea because of the lamentable tendency to look inwards and consider all of the country's ills as deriving ultimately from the acts of foreigners. While this cannot be denied in some cases – for example, the Japanese occupation which only ended with World War II, and then the involvement of China and Russia in the Korean War, and much earlier, conflicts with Japan such as the Imjin War – it is ultimately misguided because it prevents the Koreans from accepting the necessary blameworthiness for their own errors, and from taking a more mature historical and geopolitical attitude in their daily affairs. This attitude towards foreigners prevents them from taking proper responsibility for a range of actions and decisions, but it also sours relationships because it absolves them from forming realistic relationships based upon understanding.
What makes me think about this at this precise moment in time is a series of experiences which have been taking place since I arrived here. One tends to get nagged for social faux pas such as the over-use of the word "crazy" in daily conversation, despite repeatedly pointing out that where I come from, the word seems almost meaningless, so I just got chewed out for this again. Then there is the tendency to just expect the foreigners to "magically" know things that they are "supposed" to know, despite the fact that such information really needs to be passed on within a reasonable time frame, and ideally in the right surroundings (i.e. not when we are dashing about between lessons, when we are one hundred per cent. guaranteed to forget anything we are told). There seems to be no acknowledgement of the simple fact that the foreigners are not Koreans, arrive here perhaps with no knowledge whatsoever of the language, social rules etc. and actually need to be educated in these things – not to mention being trained for doing any job in a Korean social environment. For some reason, these things are not considered important, until something bad happens and the "blame game" begins.
You would think that in an ideal world, people would discuss things regularly to foster mutual understanding and to make sure that things are – as much as possible – all done properly and on time. But no. Discussions of any kind with foreigners are shunned. Lack of linguistic ability (i.e. speaking English) undoubtedly makes it difficult for many of those involved, but socially, most foreigners in Korea are not members of the "group" and even within a company which employs them, they are not trusted. So they are usually slow to find out important information relating to what they have to do and often anything important never reaches them until it is too late.
Foreigners will tend to find themselves in conflict with Koreans because of their ingrained independence, yet it is precisely this quality which makes them desirable as employees in contexts such as teaching, where they may often be in complete isolation and require more than a little fortitude and resolution to see them through. On the other hand, this means that they may (like myself) end up being rather taciturn, and so communication is blunted yet again, as the Koreans take offence at the perceived unsociability of the newcomer (and this is precisely what has happened to me since I arrived here), and thereafter refuse to talk themselves.
Worse, some foreigners will find themselves in situations in which there is almost no discussion of anything and they are repeatedly expected to just "do as they are told" by Koreans who actually do not want or desire any contact with them at all. It has transpired that quite a number of the local foreigners have to be peripatetic teachers, i.e. rather like a glorified mobile tutor, they have to travel between a number of places each week and interact with large numbers of Korean staff who tend to be rather brusque and curt with them, which hardly helps them to understand what they have to do. So they become rather dispirited and after a while, when the question inevitably comes up in casual conversation: "Do you think you would stay for a second year if they asked you to?" – the answer increasingly seems to be "no".
In my own case, having spent all of my previous time in the private environment, I am finding that working in a state school is not as relaxed or as free as working in a hagwon, where I actually was able to choose my own textbooks, make my own plans etc., and this is constantly rankling against my natural sensibilities. Individuality infuses everything that I do and gives me the psychological power to continue in circumstances where – at an earlier time – I would otherwise have simply given up and gone home. But this brings me constantly into conflict with others who do not see things in the same way, and so my existence here can be a tense one. I think it is this which will ultimately determine how long I can or should stay here, as I also have sensibilities which can be offended, often for reasons which the Koreans might find unusual or bizarre.
But I am an individual, a product of an education system which (in stated intent, at least) is designed precisely to foster independent, self-starting individuals and not people whose prime aim in life is harmony and consensus at the expense of what might be termed personal progress; in the mind of someone like myself, the desire to find oneself a comfortable long-term job in a large company could only lead to effeteness and stagnation, but this is what many people out here want in life. So these are the kinds of people who surround me (the Koreans, that is), whereas I would go to the IP and meet many foreigners – primarily the engineers rather than the teachers – who are much more self-starting and mobile, and looking forward to challenges, and it is indeed a great contrast to behold.
So I am sitting here now, realising perhaps that this is essentially another civil service job (when I had sworn that the previous two were quite enough), and feeling that this environment is rather stagnant and that I probably will not be able to do the kind of heroic, go-out-and-get-it stuff that the hagwon environment allowed me to do which stretched me and led me to acquire new skills and meet people I admired and whose opinions I respected.
And I am wondering how long it will last . . .
Andrew.
Tags: elementary, foreigner, hagwon, Korea, school, South Korea, teaching
