the Seminar
Have you ever wanted to become one with the wall paper behind you? To just disappear into the background so fluidly that no one would notice? Maybe, everyone was trying so hard not to notice you that you just felt like it was happening anyway. That is how I felt today.
It all started with Tony Jeong.
Tony was my old boss in Toronto, and he taught me a valuable lesson about loyalty. See, Tony would do anything for me, and he never let me down when I asked him for something. And I never let him down either. I also tried to be that way with all of the staff at the school the Tony owned (I was the director). Things went the way they would and I left the school on good terms. So Tony calls me up a few weeks ago and asks me to participate in a couple of marketing seminars here in Korea with some new agent he signed on. I figure; "I'm here" and I think "he's not"... why shouldn't I help out? Never dream of refusing, not in a million years.
So, it's Wednesday and I take the KTX (Korea train X) to Seoul early in the morning. I've done a few of these marketing deals in the past; a crowd of skeptical parents who want to send their children to Canada to study English or a crowd of youngish ex-ESL students-come-entrepreneurs who are interested in making money off of parents who want to send their children to Canada to study English. I tag along, stand up and tell a few jokes about Toronto, state a few good things about my school and sit down. Piece of cake... piece of cake...
Made it into Seoul Station at 11:43, 2.5 hours on the high speed train from Busan, Seoul is always raining and I always leave behind blue skies and sunshine in Busan. I meet Andy in the station, he is a very well organized and efficient man who resembles Jet lee and speaks fluent and enthusiastic English. We get into a mini-van; myself in the shotgun seat and Andy in the back, and off we go. The minivan contains two women and a driver who where later introduced as regional managers. They weren't as enthusiastic as Andy. Actually, I believe I had 5 or 6 seconds of eye contact with each over the next 5 hours.
12:00 noon, on the road in Seoul and I hate the traffic. We spend the next hour driving at a snail's pace through downtown Seoul. It is raining and there is nothing interesting to see out the windows. 1:00pm - we arrive at the school where the seminars is to be held, we got lost and backtracked for 20 minutes to make a u-turn... left turns aren't popular in Korea. After much waiting the seminar begins in a fair sized classroom with about 20 people. Most seem to be students of the school who were cajoled into attending by their teachers, the rest are the moms.
Andy plays an promotional video for my old school in Toronto, and then I am on... I walk up to the front of the class and say hi....
I've been teaching elementary kids for the last two years, I don't like to be misunderstood nor be disregared by a group whom I am addressing.
Sometime after the "hi"and before the "My name is.." I realize that none of them understand a damn word I am saying. I know this for a fact, I have finely honed instincts especially calibrated for Koreans, that indicate to me whether my words, each one as I go, are understand... none are.
Let us just say I was brief...I even made fun of some of the students in the video they had just watched....
only Andy laughed.
So, poor Andy carried on after and delivered a rousing seminar about Canada and studying and something or other. The whole thing was in Korean and I understood very little. This led me to really understand how little I know about the Korean language after all the time I've been here. I did hear the word "student" (Hak Sang) about 20,000 times however. I also heard my own name on a several occasions and looked up just in time to meet the whole room's gaze. After Andy's presentation, the students in the room were offered a chance to have their English level checked by yours truly. About a dozen students miled around for around 20 minutes after this offer was made. I was set up in the corner of the room at one side of a desk with an empty chair ready on the other side, like a palm reader, or a carnie working some deadbeat booth, no one seemed interested ...
...and I found myself trying to blend in with the wall paper
It all started with Tony Jeong.
Tony was my old boss in Toronto, and he taught me a valuable lesson about loyalty. See, Tony would do anything for me, and he never let me down when I asked him for something. And I never let him down either. I also tried to be that way with all of the staff at the school the Tony owned (I was the director). Things went the way they would and I left the school on good terms. So Tony calls me up a few weeks ago and asks me to participate in a couple of marketing seminars here in Korea with some new agent he signed on. I figure; "I'm here" and I think "he's not"... why shouldn't I help out? Never dream of refusing, not in a million years.
So, it's Wednesday and I take the KTX (Korea train X) to Seoul early in the morning. I've done a few of these marketing deals in the past; a crowd of skeptical parents who want to send their children to Canada to study English or a crowd of youngish ex-ESL students-come-entrepreneurs who are interested in making money off of parents who want to send their children to Canada to study English. I tag along, stand up and tell a few jokes about Toronto, state a few good things about my school and sit down. Piece of cake... piece of cake...
Made it into Seoul Station at 11:43, 2.5 hours on the high speed train from Busan, Seoul is always raining and I always leave behind blue skies and sunshine in Busan. I meet Andy in the station, he is a very well organized and efficient man who resembles Jet lee and speaks fluent and enthusiastic English. We get into a mini-van; myself in the shotgun seat and Andy in the back, and off we go. The minivan contains two women and a driver who where later introduced as regional managers. They weren't as enthusiastic as Andy. Actually, I believe I had 5 or 6 seconds of eye contact with each over the next 5 hours.
12:00 noon, on the road in Seoul and I hate the traffic. We spend the next hour driving at a snail's pace through downtown Seoul. It is raining and there is nothing interesting to see out the windows. 1:00pm - we arrive at the school where the seminars is to be held, we got lost and backtracked for 20 minutes to make a u-turn... left turns aren't popular in Korea. After much waiting the seminar begins in a fair sized classroom with about 20 people. Most seem to be students of the school who were cajoled into attending by their teachers, the rest are the moms.
Andy plays an promotional video for my old school in Toronto, and then I am on... I walk up to the front of the class and say hi....
I've been teaching elementary kids for the last two years, I don't like to be misunderstood nor be disregared by a group whom I am addressing.
Sometime after the "hi"and before the "My name is.." I realize that none of them understand a damn word I am saying. I know this for a fact, I have finely honed instincts especially calibrated for Koreans, that indicate to me whether my words, each one as I go, are understand... none are.
Let us just say I was brief...I even made fun of some of the students in the video they had just watched....
only Andy laughed.
So, poor Andy carried on after and delivered a rousing seminar about Canada and studying and something or other. The whole thing was in Korean and I understood very little. This led me to really understand how little I know about the Korean language after all the time I've been here. I did hear the word "student" (Hak Sang) about 20,000 times however. I also heard my own name on a several occasions and looked up just in time to meet the whole room's gaze. After Andy's presentation, the students in the room were offered a chance to have their English level checked by yours truly. About a dozen students miled around for around 20 minutes after this offer was made. I was set up in the corner of the room at one side of a desk with an empty chair ready on the other side, like a palm reader, or a carnie working some deadbeat booth, no one seemed interested ...
...and I found myself trying to blend in with the wall paper
posted by segovia at 7:32 AM
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