Unemployment, bitterness and the Japanese language

I get antsy really quick. I have about a 17 minute sit in quiet silence capacity. Any amount of time greater than that and I start fidgeting and devising ways to annoy those around me.

If I'm working this isn't a problem since I'm usually talking, explaining something or trying to coax a small Korean child out of the cupboard they just crawled into. But this unemployment thing blows. Sarah's apartment lacks both internet access and television which means the entire apartment is eerily quiet once she leaves to go to work. So I'm left with my boredom.

I've been reading tons and I started studying Japanese and I've been going to the gym regularly. Still, these thing kill only so much time. Japanese, especially is frustrating and I can only take 2o minute bouts at it before I want to throw my book in the trash (three alphabets?! WHY?!?).

I have been getting a lot of errands done. I got my tickets home (November 20th can't come soon enough). I've been getting my pension and banking stuff squared away. I've been looking at Japan jobs online and getting references and applications in. But again, I'd rather be working.

Having this much free time in a country that I'm slowly starting to hate is not a good thing. Though I settled everything with my boss and got most of what I was owed, I am still really bitter over the whole thing and it has stained Korea for me. I am frustrated by little things that I used to laugh at or chalk up to cultural difference. It's harder to let things go and I am literally counting the days til I'm home. I've never done that while I've been abroad before.

But things aren't all that bleak here. I have a few weddings to attend in the next 4 weeks and there are still things that I want to see in Korea. Plus, I have a good chance of getting a part time, two week gig, next week which would help immensely.

We'll see how the next few weeks pan out.

OH MY GOD!!!

I just heard a story from Adam regarding what else has been going on in my school. Our new head teacher, Una, apparently was teaching one of the kindergarten classes. During the class she got so upset that she shoved a desk. The desk hit a student, Anna, who started bawling. Una then MADE THE CLASS PROMISE NOT TO TELL ANYONE WHAT HAPPENED!

The next day, Anna's grandfather shows up at the school demanding to know what the fuck had happened and why his granddaughter came home with A BROKEN FOOT!!!! Mrs Lee, in all her wisdom, starts yelling at the headroom teacher who had no idea what had happened. Finally she asked the rest of the kindergarten class and they told her that Una made them promise not to tell anyone.

And her punishment? Her punishment for breaking a students foot in anger and making the class that witnessed it keep quiet about it??

A warning.

I take a day off and I'm fired.

I hate this country and can't wait to get home.

New issues

Long story short, my director promised to pay backpay and 30 days severance. I went to collect and before that she asked for the utilities money (which I agreed to pay) and a refund for what she has paid into my pension fund. I was confused by this since she has not ever mentioned our school having a pension plan. Basically you pay 4.5% of your salary each month and your director matches this. At the end of your contract you go to the office, turn in your documents and they transfer the money (around $2000 by the end of an average contract) into your bank account back home.

So my director is asking for $325 that she has paid since August. I was really confused by this and I called the Pension office. They looked up my account and told me a.) there was zero dollars in the fund and that b.) I was only registered in August (I've been here since January). I told my director this and she called them. She said that they said that there is a computer problem and it will be fixed by Monday. And she insisted that the $325 in the account is rightfully hers. I told her the pension is for the workers and that it should go to me. She says that since I haven't been paying money into the account than the money belongs to her. I told her that I had never heard of the account before, how could I pay into it?!?!

Then she says that we were asked by our old supervisor months ago to join the plan but we declined (why would we decline free money?). I tell her that is completely untrue. Then she says that since the pension isn't mentioned in your contract she doesn't have to pay it. I tell her Korean law says everyone must be in the pension plan (I've called the office twice to confirm this). THEN she says well it was my responsibility to sign up for the plan and I was supposed to talk to my recruiter about it (my recruiter who has absolutely no affiliation with the Pension office).

She is clearly lying and the Pension office assured me that she has broken the law (again) by not registering me or paying into the account. I go Monday to the Pension office to figure this out and hopefully I can make her make the pension payments retroactively. Either way, I'm demanding my money and so are my coworkers. We are going to fucking destroy this school.

Vietnam and Cambodia

The first week of October was Chuseok an important Korean holiday that I'm told is kinda like Thanksgiving but with more ancestral worship than pilgrims and indians.

Tuesday, Thursday and Friday were days off and my school was closed the Wednesday between which left only a Monday of work to ruin a possible 11 days of vacation. I wanted this day off and asked my director and was denied. I took the day off anyway which eventually ended up costing me my job (see above).

My coworkers Adam and Michelle and Sarah and I left on Saturday for Seoul. We flew out that night and arrived early Sunday morning in Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh, if you dig the communist name). We checked into the hotel and found that even at 2am shops, bars and restaurants were still open. Tourism is a huge industry there and it showed. We had dinner and a few delicious Vietnamese beers and then headed for bed.

The next day I resisted the urge to yell "Good Morning Vietnam!" every five minutes and we went on a private tour of the Mekong Delta. The Saigon river has a bunch of little islands that make up the delta and we spent the afternoon touring around on a boat and hopping from island to island. We had a strange/delicious lunch and Michelle fed watermelon to a waterbuffalo. We rowed boats down small jungle tributaries and to a small shop where they make coconut candies and traditional Vietnamese alcohol. One bottle of alcohol had a cobra inside with a scorpion in it's mouth. It was crazy. And the alcohol itself was disgusting. We eventually made our way back to our hotel and ate and drank till bed.

The next day we left for Siem Reap, a city in Cambodia and the site of Ankor Wat, the largest religious structure in the world (take that pyramids!). We got in that night and met a great taxi driver who ended up being our guide and driver the whole time we were there. The hotel we found was made up of small bungalows along the river and it was beautiful. We went out for a buffet/dinner show that featured traditional Cambodian dancing, which, as far as I can tell is comprised of a beautiful cambodian woman making complicated hand gestures while a man dances around her pretending to be a monkey. The show was cool and the food (like it was the entire trip) was amazing.

The next day we drove to Ankor Wat and spent the entire day touring 4 different temples, including the gigantic temple of Ankor Wat itself. They were indescribable. Each were surrounded by jungle and every surface of the temples hand intricate hand carved pictures telling the stories and myths of the Hindu and Buddhist religions. Each temple was different regarding how they were laid out or where they were. There are dozens of temples in the area and we saw the biggest four, including one in the middle of the jungle that was used for filming the movie Tomb Raider. That temple was actually my favorite since it had enormous trees that were rooted and grew through much of the temple. It was beautiful. The large temple of Ankor Wat was also very impressive if only for how huge it was. We climbed to the top of the main tower in the temple and had a pretty impressive view of the entire valley.

After the temple we drove to another temple and found a dozen or so monkeys sitting by the side of the road. We spent half an hour feeding them bananas and watching them chase each other around. We left and rode elephants (!) to the top of a nearby mountain and climbed the temple on top just before sunset. It was amazing.

We spent the next day shopping and Adam (despite problems country wide concerning Visa cards) bought a diamond ring and proposed to Michelle. His choice of doing this in the dusty Cambodian bazaar was perhaps strange, but Michelle accepted and spent the rest of the trip staring at her finger. That night we flew back to Saigon.

Once back in Vietnam, we had three more days which we spent touring the city, visiting temples and parks, eating lots of food and shopping. We bought so much stuff that we had to buy two more bags to get everything home. I bought a bunch of cheap DVDs and had a suit made for $90. We visited the war remnants museum and museum of the tunnels used by guerrillas during the war which was cool but claustrophobic. The last night we went to the main park for the moon festival which was in full swing. We wandered around with a thousands of people in the park blowing noisemakers and playing with the kids.

We left Friday night and got to Seoul early Saturday and headed back to Busan. We had all day Sunday to decompress after our trip. And Monday morning, I got fired.

Was it worth it? I'd do it again in a second.

Um...Fired?

It's been almost two months since I've posted last. Lots happened but I just couldn't be bothered to write any of it down. This week though gave me lots to write about, and the extra time in which to do it.

Monday was pretty shitty. The Padres lost the division series, North Korea started blowing shit up and I got fired. I had just gotten back from my week long vacation in Vietnam and Cambodia (See blog below) and I went to work on Monday and was promptly told that I was fired. Yeah. Six weeks ago I told my boss I was not going to be here the Monday of Chusok (think Korean Thanksgiving, where tues-fri are days off). Having taken no days off in 8 months of working here and giving written notice 6 weeks before the day off I figured that I would be shown some consideration. I got none and was given back the notice without even being spoken to by Mrs Lee. Having already made flight and hotel reservations I was not about to miss our trip so I left, fully knowing that Mrs Lee would be pissed and that I may get fired. But weighed against a whole week of vacation with my girlfriend and friends I didn't care. I have hated the ever increasing schedule, watching other teachers come and go and being constantly ignored by my director when I come to address problems.

So I went on vacation and had a wonderful time. Monday morning I was asked to meet with our new head teacher Una (who's been here all of two weeks) and it was her, and not Mrs. Lee, that told me that I was being fired and that I was expected to be out of my apartment by the end of the day. She berated me for missing a single day of work calling me irresponsible and childish for my handling of the situation. She was also dismissive when I claimed (rightly, I've been researching all day) that it is illegal to dismiss me without 30 days notice. She said that I should just do as the director says and leave immediately. I told her that I was finished talking to her about it and would talk to Mrs Lee in person.

I did and explained that I was happy to be fired and no longer wished to work for LCI. I asked for one week to move out (I'm going to be living at Sarah's apartment) and asked for a formal letter of release that proves that I was fired without notice. I got both and I took the letter to the labor office to make a formal complaint. They called my director and told her flat out that she was breaking the law and that she owed me 30 days pay. The next day I went to speak to Mrs. Lee and I explained that if I am given my back pay and the 30 days wages I'll withdraw my complaint and quietly walk away. She asked for 24 hours to consider it and it seemed like she was willing to pay. We'll see.

Meanwhile, the other four teachers at my school are scared shitless that this will happen to them, and two of them who just started say they are going to quit since the director seems deceitful/batshit-crazy. Adam and Michelle are two months from completing their contract and if they are not given their return airfare home by the end of the week they'll walk too. So firing me could cost the school it's entire foreign staff.

So that's how my tenure in Korea ends. Sarah is here till November 20th and I will be staying here with her until then. There are still a few things I want to see in Korea and I have two weddings to go to in the next month so I'll be busy (though I won't be teaching 9 classes a day anymore). I'll try to be better about posting. Talk to you later.