Did You Know?

The world is an ever-changing place. It's only going to change faster.



Watching this makes me feel a little small. Just a drop of water flowing over a waterfall. People need to start looking at things globally. People have never been as connected as we are now. Or Now. Or....... Now. One part that really caught my eye and that I've heard discussed a little here in South Korea is that about the number of English speakers in Asian countries.

The video mentioned that

"China will soon become the largest English speaking country in the world."

I have no doubt this will be true sooner than most tend to believe. In South Korea, many people already think that foreign English teachers (like me) are at the peak of there demand and will begin to trail off in the next decade or so. This is not because we are doing a bad job (I believe that most, likely do a decent job). The kids who began learning English through the required classes in school and their after school classes in Hagwons. Hagwons are private school programs like my school that specialize in different subjects. My school does English only. There are others for swimming, math, singing, piano, science, and any other thing you can think of to specialize in. Back to my point though. The kids who have been learning English since the programs scaled up massively since the late 1990s are beginning to go out into the workforce as English teachers themselves. As more native Koreans that can teach English come into the population there will be less demand for foreigners. We are expensive and more of a hassle to have around simply because of needing to get settled in, flights, living costs, and salary.

In the whole, I'm only talking about how the English language adoption will be affecting the foreign teaching population. How does this effect go beyond into the greater world market? We don't know. That's kind of the point that this video is trying to make about how you handle assumptions in regards to the future.

My opinion on the future of English and communication in general isn't crazy. Basically, over the past few thousand years the number of languages has diminished down to what is somewhere around 7000 (as of 2005). Over the next 20 years this number is expected to shrink rapidly. We are now just speeding up consolidation. I think it will eventually come down to what I consider the 'power languages' or those that control some form of world market. English, Chinese, Spanish, German, Russian, and Hindi are my picks to be in this list. In the past countries were separated heavily because of their language. The French spoke French, Italians spoke Italian, Germans spoke German, etc. The US in my opinion has been a glimpse of the future to come where the melting pot will be the norm for the world. There won't be countries in the future, there will just be corporations and people.

McDonalds is one of the largest land owners in the world. Walmart is up there too. Borders will simply be junctions for transportation. Customs will be a thing of the past. The entire tax system will have to be redone for every country because of the internet (which purchases on the internet are still very very very very very very much in their infancy). However, the tax systems will begin to become a thing of the past as well. Governments are little more than corporations themselves these days. We pay taxes for services they provide. They are no different than your cable company. They are just more diversified. In the US we get to have a big election for a new CEO every 4 years. This is not really anything new though. Governments were always built upon this same foundation. We only idealized that rights, liberties, and laws were something that only a government could give us. Again however, you cable company gives you the same things with different names; User agreements, terms of service, sign the contract on the dotted line. Politics is nothing more than marketing.

I think I may have run into a different topic all together here.
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Power Windows with Red Green

St. Patrick's Day

Celebrating a holiday in a different country is definitely one of the more interesting things I've been a part of. First things first; there aren't exactly many Irish people in South Korea. We also celebrated it a little early here. We took in the holiday last Saturday, the 14th. There was a parade and celebration set from around 11am to 5pm here in a place called Hyehwa (sounds like "Hey-wa"). It's about a 25 minute subway ride away. There's a kind of Pioneer Square-like area just outside the subway station where everybody gathered. Me and a couple other foreigners met up at an apartment and had a few bottles of Champagne before we left for Hyehwa to get ourselves in the celebrating state of mind. We ended up getting to Hyehwa just after noon. We missed the parade apparently. It wasn't very big. Mostly a bunch of foreigners marching around a couple blocks for about 20 minutes with beers raised is what I was told. However, we did get there just in time for a surprisingly good performance from a Korean U2 cover band. They did play an original or two, but there is nothing like hearing somebody belt out those classic tracks. They played a very extended version of Sunday Bloody Sunday. They sounded pretty good for the most part. The singer definitely still added a very Korean style to it. Guitars and bass where dead on though. If I didn't see who was up there it could have been The Edge for all I knew. There were about a thousand people form what I could figure. I would say 90% foreigners and the rest Koreans. It was nice that they joined in too. Free Guinness and plenty of fun.

We basically froze our butts off for the next few hours until we decided that it was time to head inside for more celebrating. I had some fried chicken and we all had a few more drinks before heading out. A note about fried chicken here. It tastes really good. Just remember that they don't waste much. One of the pieces I started munching turned out to be the chicken leg. Claw still attached. I realized this when I bit into the end that was the claw. As long as it's fried, it's still good to me.


The next part of the adventure was more food and drinks. After spending a few minutes trying to decide on where to get dinner. We settled on a restaurant that seemed to have good food. None of us had ever been there before and I don't recall the name of it but we assumed it would be good food because of the sign on the door which aptly said "Good Food." How can you possibly turn that down? So we walked down the stairs because it was under the building. As soon as we looked around inside we realized it might be a little expensive and that they probably didn't serve many foreigners. It was very elegant looking. Small little separated rooms that had their floors actually built to hover about 2 feet above the main floor so that could plant grass underneath. This I assume gives it a sort of natural air conditioning for your rear. After first refusing us (which gave us that "we don't serve foreigners" feeling) the manager at the desk relented and led us to a table in the back. It was a very nice little space. Brick walls on all sides. They brought us a menu which had no pictures and was completely in Korean. Yay! The manager kept walking by our table ever couple minutes for a little while talking on his phone. I got that feeling that he was calling somebody and freaking out like "what do I do with these people now?" But as it turns out, he was trying to find somebody who knew English so that we could get our order translated. He finally got a hold of somebody and handed the phone over and we put in our order for pork and beer. The food was good but not amazing. They brought the pork out and some grills for our table. we slapped the pork on the grill and enjoyed ourselves for the next hour.

The day finally finished around 8:30pm when I promptly crashed onto my bed and fell asleep.

Teaching Beginnings

The Student Becomes The Teacher.

It seems like forever that I've been moving from one school to the next. I like to look at my journey as one of being on a board balancing on a stump. It has two ends: student and teacher. I began on the far student side. Take your cues, do your homework, listen and learn. Over time I've moved further and further over, inch by inch. Now I've finally landed on the opposite side with the board hitting the ground and all weight transfered.

I've now been teaching on my own for 4 days. Every day has been an adventure for sure. I'm still getting into my groove. But I feel the kids are learning and having fun. I'm a little worried at this point that I will slip into trying to just take an easy route instead of being creative with how and what I teach them. I can tell it will be easy to do.

Some kids are absolutely perfect students. They are attentive, smart, do their work, and always seem to have a smile on their faces. But like everything in life, with the best come the worst. Oh how I love their evil counterparts. I hate disciplining, but sometimes it has to be done if a kid is going to learn. How else is a kid supposed to understand not to run into a table and hit a corner than doing just that. It's a Pavlov's dog approach. And I've found it works over time. Brutal but I'll be damned if I don't love it.

My fellow teachers, foreign and Korean, are all fantastic. I can say that I believe it will be a pleasure to work with them all for however long that is. I can't even begin how much I owe them in just the first two weeks. They've all been very adamant about going out of their ways to include me in everything. They take me around and show me places I need to know (and others I should avoid). Of course, they've helped me with my teaching. I'm afraid I'm starting to annoy them with all the questions. If I am, they certainly aren't showing it. They simply tell me they were there for their first couple weeks to and completely understand. Understanding is very much underrated.

All Moved In (Almost)

I've been here for about two weeks now. It's gone unbelievably fast.

My actual apartment is quite nice. The teacher who lived here last left me in good shape. He left plenty of odds and ends that will save me time and headaches later on. I much appreciate the kitchen items he left. I have a good collection of bowls, utensils, cups, knives, etc. Heck, I even have a toaster! The whole place is furnished. I have a washer/dryer, microwave, tv (about 20 inches), bed with and excellent headboard, and desk. Luckily my bathroom is nice too. The shower is enclosed so that everything doesn't get wet. Although the floor does still get pretty well soaked everywhere.

I dig the heated floors too. Yes, heated floors. I don't have circulated heat. But the floor heats the place up quite well as long as I keep it clear. It took me a few days to learn this. I have been taking my time unpacking and as such, the first few days I had most everything sprawled out over the floor. This kept the heat from getting into the air. My luggage was nice and toasty but the rest of the apartment was near the point of seeing frost while breathing. But cold won't be much of an issue much longer. Spring should be heating things up in the next couple of weeks. It is supposed to snow this week though. I'm keeping my stocking cap close.

New Apartment

I move into my new place on Wednesday after I get done with work. I expect I'll have my own internet connection and cable tv (YAAAY!) immediately. I'm having a very positive experience so far. Food is a little daunting and spicy but very tasty. My neck is loving me right now because I finally got around to buying a pillow.