Dongtan Wonderland, Hwaseong City, South Korea. Its students might not be well-behaved, its supervisors might be raving harpies, but gosh darn its foreigner teachers will look good on camera.

Those of you who followed my blog have probably noticed that I haven’t posted anything in a long time. You who are especially close to me have already heard a lot of the horror stories behind my lack of desire to commemorate this place in writing. I blog now only to warn potential future employees of Dongtan Wonderland. As you plan your trip to Korea, if you’re doing your research, good for you—my blog is probably the first hit on your search engine. My advice is DON'T COME TO THIS PLACE. I mean the caps.

Because the supervisors are in it for the money, everything natural and good in a workplace/school is prohibited and punished here: relationships with the parents of our students, having fun with students when the work is finished, organization, professionalism, communication between supervisors and subordinates, mutual respect, the quality of the education we attempt to give—hell, they tried to tell us we couldn’t leave the school on a daily basis for a quick walk or juice run (by the way, we have zero official breaks every day, so one of the few ways to stay sane is to leave the school for a breather in between teaching periods). The director and head teacher here do not care what they sacrifice, so long as the tuition comes in. And we foreigner teachers make crap pay out of that tuition for the hours we work. And those two women can make your life a living hell when they want a scapegoat. Speaking as the current scapegoat, I state that they will attack you both as an employee and as a person, insult your native culture, holler at you, call you names, interrupt you when you’re trying to explain yourself, smack the desk, threaten to fire you, make you write yourself senseless warning letters—all in an attempt to make you as docile as you, reader, are probably expecting a typical Korean student to be. When I say “typical,” I’m referring to students who run across the tables, smack me, and spit in my face.

I’m not asking too much (or anyway, I don’t think so). I just want to be appreciated and respected when I’m working my ass off for nine hours a day—at the very least, I’d like to be left alone. No more of this being written up or reamed until my ears are boxed for not understanding Head Teacher’s directions, written in very poor English. Or for not turning the lights on in a west-facing classroom on a very bright day an hour before sunset. Or for doing a textbook lesson the way the directions say. Or for contracting the swine flu in time to be quarantined for Christmas and (oh heaven help us) mandatorily miss a few days of work. So if you have the same kinds of employee standards, and if you want to have anything like a positive experience as an English teacher in Korea, feel free to contact me if you’re considering a contract with Dongtan Wonderland. You can ask me any question you like, and you’ll find out that I am not exaggerating.

Kindergarten speech contest in Seoul

Today there was a big shindig at the Sangmyung University Art Center: a speech contest involving Dongtan Wonderland and who knows how many others. The contestants were roughly 6 to 10 years old, Korean age, with the only 5-year I saw being one of my own students. Most of the students were dressed up pretty sharp as an addition to their speeches, everything from a pinstriped suit to traditional hanbok to bear and lion costumes.

The most interesting thing about the contest was that the audience never really paid attention. Granted, I and the few other native English speakers in attendance probably represented the majority of people who could even understand the speeches easily, but, coming from a theater background, it was something new for me to be in the midst of what I perceived as a complete lack of respect for the persons up on stage. As far as I remember, it was fairly quiet for the opening MC speeches and the salute to the flag, but from there on out the adults continued their high-energy conversations and ushered students in and out of the hall as they saw fit, and the kids jumped and ran around and talked all they wanted, too. One of my friends went to a wedding a couple months ago that operated the same way, but it was still surprising to see it myself.

Best thing that happened: one of our students who entered the contest was Henry, a 7-year of great intelligence and frustratingness. He has a hard time talking in anything other than a holler, and that's a problem, considering that he constantly wants to talk in class. On the other hand, he's got great conversation skills since he's inadvertently practiced speaking so darn much. For his speech, Henry had three visual aides, more than most of the other students--two hanbok outfits hung from a couple of easels and a photo board propped on a third easel--and as soon as he got onto the stage, he started ordering the two stage helpers around in loud, rapid, no-nonsense Korean until they got the things in the right places around him and the mic. I don't think that kid's afraid of anything.