Abducted by the Landlord

A few days ago I came home to find our landlord (probably in his late 60's) shoveling out the apartment parking lot with his wife. As with most of our run-ins, he spoke in very rapid Korean for a good 2 minutes. He can't speak a word of English, not even "hello." My approach is always to nod and say 네 ("nay" which is like saying "yes" or an affirmation) until I caught the words 오리 ("ouri" meaning "we") and 가치 ("ga-chi" which means together). Oh no. I tried to catch where, when, or what he was trying to tell me. He motioned to his mouth, which I took to be eating, then he smiled, nodded, and waved me upstairs. I fled upstairs with the assumption that sometime we bay get together for dinner.

OK.

Scott was home before me and had a similar experience. About 15 minutes later our landlord knocks on our door and launches into the same speech as before. after 5 minutes we realized he had no intention of leaving. He made a driving motion with his hands, and waved us out the door.

We aren't completely hopeless at Korean, but when it comes at us so rapidly in a random scenario we have very little to latch on to. Between the two of us, these are the words (the English translation) that we had figured out:

apartment
English language speaking
room 201
two students
private academy (hagwon)
high school
mother (room 201 mother)
Gilju Elementary school
Gilju Elementary school teacher (I gathered he was referring to me there)
we will go to Andong hospital together
my car
nearby
today

We did get into his car, not knowing what else to do. I felt like a detective fed random clues without a big picture. All we knew definitively was that we were going to Andong hospital, but we didn't know why. I had a few theories, based on the current evidence:

A. The mother of two high school students were formerly students at Gilju Elementary school.

B. Someone who speaks English moved into room 201, but they were now in the hospital and needed someone to talk to.

C. Since we've been sick all week, the tennents of room 201 feel we need to go to the hospital. Perhaps they found out because one of their students said their English teacher (me) at the Gilju camp was sneezing and having trouble speaking.

D. Let's see how far we can take to foreign tenants before they start freaking out.

After a few failed phone calls to get assistance, I finally got ahold of Taebun and handed the phone over to our landlord just as we pulled up in front of the pharmacy next to the big Andong Hospital. Ahah! We missed the words "nearby" the hospital and "pharmacy" in the midst of his fast talking.

The landlord talked to Taebun for awhile then handed the phone back, and even Taebun is confused. He says "remember I told you about the two high school students living in room 201?" No. He must have forgotten that one. What are two high school kids doing living alone in our building anyway? "The ones that want to speak English with you." He left that out too. "I don't really know, but I think this is an arranged meeting to start English lessons. Their mother works at this pharmacy." Oh dear. "You know, talking is fine, but you can't take any money." That I did know, because any outside work or tutoring is a violation of our contract. So that makes this whole situation a bit difficult.

When the landlord was mentioning the Gilju Elementary teacher, he was referring to Taebun and not me, because apparently he thought this whole thing was pre-planned and discussed. But when the mother of the two high school students sits down with us and tells us that she is the one who wants English tutoring, and 3 days a week, I realized that this isn't just a Korean to English translation mix-up, this is also a lack of Korean communication.

All the while at the pharmacy when this was being worked out with the mother, our landlord sat silently in a chair, arms crossed, leaning back and looking down at us from his upturned head; much akin to a mafia don. He did, after all, take us to a small location far from home to meet with a drug dealer (pharmacist). It all started to feel like shady English dealing under the table.

So we were stuck in the arranged meeting, which already assumed our acceptance and was for the sole purpose of arranging the dates and times. It was clear we couldn't go home until a bargain was made and phone numbers were exchanged. We told her we couldn't accept any of her money, but if she wanted to meet up with us once or twice a week to practice English conversation over a cup of coffee then that would be OK. We can be her English friends, not her English tutors. At least we postponed it until after we get back from America in March, so we'll see how it goes.

My Schedule

Now might be a good time to talk a bit more about my schedule lately.

A few of the things I mention are in an article Bonnie (another fellow teacher and friend) and I wrote for Andong in the EPIK Newsletter. You can find it here (click on "Gyeongbuk" and Scroll down to "Andong Teacher's Give Back"):
http://epik.go.kr/boardnews/detail.epik?num=11
Unfortunately, they forgot to put Bonnie's name on the article, so it only has my name listed. She wrote the first part about the teacher's class, and I wrote about Korean class and martial arts.

Outside of school, which I'm at from 8:40-4:40, I have acquired a very active schedule in the evenings. Here is the breakdown:

Hapkido: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.

(Above photo by Andrew, with Helen in the background and our Hapkido master on the left. Usually everyone's in uniform, but this was from a pretty laid back, small class day.)

Depending on what other things I have going on, I go from 6:45-7:45 or 8-9. It costs us 80,000 won a month (around $75). Scott and I joined up soon after our friends Andrew and Helen mentioned going about two months ago, though Andrew's knee incident put him on a month long hiatus. Hapkido is a form of martial arts that is sometimes referred to as kickboxing, developed in Korea (although they're most well known for Taekwondo). I love it, and it fills the empty hole that horseback riding filled in my weekly exercise routine. It's helping a lot more with my flexibility, which is nice after spending the second half of school cramped in a chair.


Our Hapkido studio is about a 10 minute bus ride from our home, and although we learned later there was one near my school, we wouldn't dream of switching. Not that it wouldn't be fun to spar with my students, but I would hate for a 4th grader to take me down. Plus, our Hapkido master is quite possibly one of the friendliest people in the country. He doesn't speak very much English, but it doesn't make a difference. As with most things in the country, we understand through body language, and this is the best example of that. We mimic him, and when we misunderstand a certain kick or take down move, he steps in and holds our leg or arm in the proper position, or shows us exactly which pressure point or sensitive area or the arm or leg we are aiming for. No further explanation needed. Ouch. A lot of the things that we do are in a line (rolls, flips, pad kicks, etc), so as long as we don't start, it's pretty easy to pick up on.

Poker: Wednesday, 8:30-12am.

Another hobby I picked up since I've been in Korea is poker. Ironic, considering how it's illegal for Koreans to gamble and I should choose to learn how to do it in their country. (picture taken on my phone- a bit blurry and dark)

After Hapkido we all meet up downtown and head to Andrew's apartment. He has a little side room, like a sun room with wall-sized windows, which is the perfect size for a table and chairs. We call our poker game "The Golden Pig" because we have a sparkly golden piggy bank that we all throw a 500 won coin into before each game. If anyone gets a royal flush, they win the pig. We don't have a backup plan for it when that inevitably never happens.

The usual group is Me, Scott (whose arm is pictured dealing), Andrew (on the right), Dave (on the left), and Helen (between them), although Alice and Katie come by sometimes if they don't go to their Taekwondo class. Katie is dangerous. We play with a 10,000 won buy in, winner takes all except second place, who gets their money back. Katie has never failed to get first or second whenever she comes. It's amazing. Recently we have picked up another two maybe-regulars, Miz, an Aussie from a nearby small down that scooters in to Andong, and Andre, another EPIKer from the September group with Helen. It's great to look forward to something in the middle of the week and be able to wind down and reconnect with my friends if I get too busy to see them otherwise.

Teacher's Class: Mondays at 6:15, once a month.


A big group of the EPIK teachers got together to teach a volunteer class on rotation every week, Monday and Wednesday. It turned out that so many people responded to help teach the class, that Scott and I only do it once every four weeks on Mondays. Because the classes change teachers every week, we took to using the schedule for "Survival English" on bogglesworldesl.com. It is very well planned, and we could use similar handouts and easily review the prior lessons to keep the whole class from falling into disorganized chaos.


Korean Class: Tuesday, 6:30-8:30


We tried a Korean class during the spring semester, but it wasn't a conversation class; there were about 8 Korean instructors to sit down with us and go over a textbook, but essentially no structure and a little tedious. Although it did give me practice in writing characters and their sounds, which has been invaluable. This new class has been much better suited to my personal learning style, with one instructor who talks with us. He asks us questions and we learn how to give answers based on our personal lives. What we learn is more from the impulse of the moment, which is fantastic.

Therefore, I leave every morning at 8:15 and get home at 7:45 on Monday (unless we teach the class, then 9), 9 on Tuesday, midnight on Wednesday, 5 on Thursday, and 7:45 on Friday. It's been harder for Scott, who teaches a 2 hour class after school on Wednesdays and Thursdays in addition to everything else.

In the rest of my free time I am constantly reading on my Kindle (I stopped biking so I could allocate the 20 minute walk to work each morning as reading time, in case I don't have time later on), hanging out with Scott and Po, playing some WoW here and there, or keeping up with my social life. Sometimes we'll meet up with our friends after Hapkido during the week, or since Thursday is the only day left unscheduled, we'll nominate that as a movie night (when a good English film comes through. Good meaning above 30% on Rotten Tomatoes, because we cant' be too picky).

All of it's fun and optional, of course, but sometimes I'm left feeling a little drained from it all. Monday morning always feels a little bit daunting.