6 Goals for Living and Teaching in South Korea

A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.

George Moore, 1916

If you’re tuning in after my previous post, you’ll be relieved to hear that Mr. FedEx did eventually arrive and my contract successfully made its way to Korea. If you’re not, then you probably don’t care.

Anywho, as moving day drawers ever closer, my daily range of emotions seem to fluctuate wildy between excitement and despair. Trying to ignore the majority of the internet’s opinions, I am feeling increasingly happy with my decision.

How did I decide on this teaching job?

I was fortunate enough to be in a position of having a choice of offers, and so I had to weigh up the pros and cons of each and essentially prioritise them (the delights of which I’m saving for a separate post). It might sound silly, but up until now I hadn’t explicitly thought about what on earth I wanted to achieve from this experience. Properly like.

What I did know is that I want to use my time productively. A year isn’t all that long – just think, when was the last time you cleaned out that top drawer? Yes, and that was well over a year ago.

It’s easy to believe that by getting up and leaving your old life behind, whisking off on exotic travels, you’ll somehow solve all of your problems and become that person you’ve been meaning to for a while now.

But it doesn’t work like that, and after the excitement and new stimulus wear away, the old you emerges along with the same little problems you carried with you before. You have to consciously strive to make changes – unless you’re David Bowie, in which case you’re already awesome so there’s no need.

So I sat at my desk and scribbled down a list of goals for the year. With the help of a lot of window gazing and pen gnawing, this is what I came up with:

 

My Goals for a Year in Korea

Develop as a teacher

Especially skills required to teach younger children. My experience so far has mostly been with adults, so some changes are in order I think. Maybe less “let’s all write a long letter using reported speech” and more “let’s all dance like lunatics”.

Learn Korean

All of it. Or more realistically, just to be continually advancing in it and actively trying to learn more.

One of the things I enjoyed most about living in Peru was that there wasn’t a day that would go by without learning something new in Spanish. I know Korean will be much trickier so it’s going to take some discipline. It’s not the kind of language you hear wafting about and just pick up.

Journal

Partly why I started this blog is so that I can keep family and friends in the loop, but partly so I have something to remember the experience from. (And also, I’ll be able to look back at this post and laugh at my naive ambition).

I’d like to take more photos, videos, and notes of all the quirky cultural differences. In Peru it was all about the potatoes, but in Korea I’ll be keeping in step with the locals and their futuristic technology.

Be curious

Chase after new experiences and accept as many invitations as possible (within reason). Just because I’ll be in a foreign country, doesn’t mean they will land in my lap. Of course it makes the process easier, but it’s not an excuse to stop keeping your eyes open and being aware.

It’s always easier to regret things that you didn’t do over the ones that you did.

lead a Healthy lifestyle

Fewer hangovers; longer Saturdays. I’m not 21 anymore and although there may be a vibrant drinking culture of fresh-out-of-college expats in Korea, I’ve pretty much been there and done it. I’ll dip my toe in every now and then of course – I mean obviously I have to try soju! (But probably not with my feet).

Save money

This is perhaps first on the list for many people coming to Korea to teach, but for me it probably comes after all of the above.

That’s not to say finishing the year with some savings would be the worst thing in the world, but if a unique opportunity presents itself that requires a little spendage, I will probably chose crazy adventure over paying off a smidgen of my student loan. Why not eh? I’m not going to be in Korea forever (quoted on my headstone in some cemetery in Seoul). Also, being from the UK, my sizeable loan is allowed to sit happily in the corner, growing ever steadily alongside it’s close friends inflation and dust.

 

On the face of it, these goals may all sound fairly wishy-washy, and if this was a performance-enhancing exercise at my old job in the Big Smoke none of them would fly. But it’s not, and not knowing exactly how Korean life will play out, I’m leaving the details for later.

When I moved to Peru for 18 months, I didn’t know what to expect. I knew life would be challenging at times, but I thought going into it simply with an open and flexible outlook I would make it out alive. And that I did.

But I learned that travel is not some magical self-discovery contract whereby you spend a year swinging around in the Amazon and leave having reached enlightenment and gained a shiny new you. You still have to define what you want. And you can do that working a 9-5 in the city or hitchhiking through the Himalayas.

Just make sure you stick them on a blog, so you’re publicly shamed if you fail.