While Joel has cheerfully told people that he has not experienced any culture shock, I seem to be following the typical model cited by our "training videos" that our hagwon had us watch. (We call him "Frozen Man" because in two of the videos, the image of the perky, metro-sexual Korean American man freezes about three minutes in and you are stuck listening to his obnoxious voice for the rest of the 45-minute presentation.) The curve that Frozen Man showed us in the culture shock presentation showed the initial "honeymoon phase" wearing off about two or three months after moving and "culture shock," defined as constant irritation at barriers encountered in everyday life, setting in.
After my Korean co-worker helped me clear up the bank SNAFU the following week, I tried to purchase airline tickets for our September/October vacation through a Korean airline website. After about ten tries combined between Joel and I trying to buy the tickets at home online (Korean websites only work in Internet Explorer, and you have to have pop-ups enabled to install all of the extra security software, and your purchase times out if you cannot complete it in ten minutes), we went into work and requested the help of the same co-worker who books everyone's travel and helped us resolve our issues at the bank. We went through the same website and tried to buy the same tickets on her laptop, to no avail. After inputting my national ID number (why you need that to buy anything is beyond me) and my bank card information, and going through several pop-up windows to install the security software yet again, and doing it as fast as possible to avoid having my purchase time out, I came to a screen (in Korean, of course) that required me to set up some kind of PIN for online purchases. Even after doing that, my purchase was blocked; apparently, if you want to use your bank card to buy things online, you have to set up online banking separately with your bank. I was so overwhelmed by my inability to making a simple effing purchase on the effing internet when I had the money in my account for it that I nearly had a mental breakdown in front of all my coworkers. I stormed out of the office and into the bathroom and, for the second time in a month, just cried.
Side note: I found out later that many Korean websites require you to input your national ID number because they only allow native Koreans to make purchases; if your number identifies you as a foreign national, you cannot make a purchase. Back home, all you need to buy something on Amazon is an address and a credit card. WTF, Korea.
My biggest bout with "culture shock" by far was my epic battle to get information about our health insurance policy. It used to be the law here in Korea that all employers were required to enroll foreign national employees into the National Health Insurance. Legislation was passed in 2007 that allowed them to not do so if it is agreed to under contract; however, most people are not aware of this change and will still tell English teachers that their hagwons are breaking the law if they do not enroll them in the NHI. When we signed our contracts with our school, however, it specifically stated that we would be provided with insurance through a private company, so they are definitely not breaking the law. When we got our first paychecks, I saw that there was no deduction for our policy, so I asked our head teacher about it, and she explained that the school was paying the entire premium. Fine, I said, but can I have some kind of proof of coverage?
And then the struggle began.
A simple request for a health insurance card, or even just a document with a policy number, turned into a mandatory meeting for all foreign teachers where a generic memo with an explanation of the coverage limits of our policy was handed out. They explained to us what was covered (and what was not) and asked if there were any questions. I raised my hand. "Can you give us our policy number?"
The school administrator stared at me. "Why do you need that?"
"Just to have," I responded. "I want to have all of the information."
"I don't have it now, but if you need it, we can give it to you," he said.
"You don't need it," one of my co-workers explained to me. "You just bring in your receipts and they reimburse you."
They went on to explain that if we had a doctor or hospital visit, we would have to pay out of pocket. We would then bring them the receipts, and they would take care of filing the claim for us. I raised my hand again.
"Can we file the claim ourselves if we want to?"
Now I started to get some raised eyebrows. "You can if you want to," the head teacher explained, "but we can do it for you. It is easier for you this way."
I sat quietly through the rest of the meeting and turned the information over in my head. I had heard stories of hagwons lying to English teachers about providing health insurance, or dropping their coverage a few months into their contract, or simply not providing it at all, and while our school is respected and well-established, my instincts to make sure everything was "kosher" were kicking in.
After some more nagging, I finally got our group policy number, and so one morning I tried to call the company and reach someone in customer service who could speak English and verify the policy. After pressing the button indicated on the phone menu for English language service, I waited.
Customer service rep (CSR): Yoboseyo? (Hello?)
me: Ne, yoboseyo! Yeongeo haseyo? (Do you speak English?)
CSR: A little.
me: I need to speak to someone in English who can help me with my policy.
CSR: Wait please. [puts me on hold]
Different CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: Yes, do you speak English?
CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: (louder) I need to speak to someone in English!
CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: Sigh.
I hung up and messaged one of our Korean friends asking him if he would be willing to call for me. When I got his response later that day, he told me that our school was breaking the law and probably committing some kind of tax evasion. Back to square one.
 |
| WTF, Korea. |
The following week, I tried again.
Customer service rep (CSR): Yoboseyo?
me: Do you speak English?
CSR: Yes.
me: Okay, I need to speak to someone who can verify my policy.
CSR: What kind of policy?
me: Health insurance.
CSR: Okay, hold please. [puts me on hold]
Different CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: Yes, I need to verify my health insurance policy.
CSR: Do you have the policy number?
me: Yes. [I read the policy number to him.]
CSR: Okay, I will transfer you to someone in that department. [puts me on hold again]
Yet another CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: Yes, do you speak English?
CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: (louder) I need to speak to someone in English!
CSR: Yoboseyo?
me: (louder still) Hello?
CSR: [click]
I stared at the Skype window for a few minutes, then got dressed and stormed off to E-mart (about a 2-km walk) to buy chicken and a jar of curry sauce. In the checkout line I realized I didn't have my wallet...because I'd taken it out at home to pull out our health insurance policy number. It was everything I could do to not throw a fit in the store.
Equally frustrating has been trying to explain to people why these encounters make me so upset. I went from being a fully capable and independent adult in my home country to not being able to take care of simple things (like opening the kind of bank account I want) or get a simple piece of information (like details on my health insurance policy) on my own, because I don't speak the language. Some days I feel as though I have been robbed of self-sufficiency and reduced to being a child, or a petulant teenager at best. It is not helped by the Confucian and paternalistic culture here: while my employers are certainly well-meaning in offering to file my health insurance claims form me, it is all I can do to not feel patronized. They simply cannot understand a desire for privacy when it comes to my health, or my insistence on having the policy information (rather than just trusting them that it is provided), or even just wanting to be able to do things on my own.
I ultimately found my answers at the Gwangju International Center (GIC), a non-profit center staffed by volunteers that provides services for expats living in the city. They do everything from culture lectures to day-trip tours in the region to Korean language lessons. They also offer free counseling services to anyone with employment or legal disputes, or anyone who needs Korean language assistance with situations like mine. When I explained my dilemma to the coordinator (a very nice Vietnamese woman), she instantly understood. A Korean volunteer took my written questions and policy number, got on the phone, and in about 15 minutes had all the information I wanted and had been struggling to get for weeks. And yes, we do have a health insurance policy.
Ultimately, this particular story had a happy ending. But the whole thing has pushed me to think deeply about the "immigrant experience" and the debates, particularly on health and rights to privacy with regard to immigrants, that I paid so little attention to back home. I have been thinking seriously about volunteering with the GIC or another organization that serves migrant women, even with as little free time as we already have. I think it would be worth it to help others work through "culture shock" - the experiences of confronting what should be a simple task that actually just makes you go, "WTF, Korea."
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