Last night, our hagwon held its annual (I think) Christmas dinner party at a samgyeopsal (galbi, I think) restaurant. It was definitely a really nice place; there was plenty of food, and in good form, the school provided unlimited Chilsung cider, Coca-Cola, maekju, and soju. The departing teachers (one of our Korean English teachers, one of the secretaries, and two bus drivers are leaving) got to give goodbye speeches, and the newbies (three Korean English teachers, one new secretary, a new math teacher, and our school president's younger brother, who is apparently coming on as a bus driver and general administrator) gave "introduction" speeches. Then the president, director, and head teacher gave speeches, as well as anyone else who was so inclined (this did not include me). The drinks flowed, assigned seating was (at least partially) ignored, and fun times were had by...most. It would have been a lot nicer if they hadn't been using the same tongs to handle the raw meat and put the cooked meat on my plate. Or putting the raw and the cooked meat so close together on the table grills that they were touching. Needless to say, I didn't each much of the meat - but there was plenty of (safer) food to be had, so I definitely got my fill. Plus, I don't think any of my coworkers got sick, so I guess it turned out all right in the end.
The foreign head teacher gave a short speech and ended with the exhortation for the Korean English teachers and the foreign teachers to be closer in the coming year. As if on cue, at the end of the night our company president handed my boss an envelope of cash for all of us to go to noraebang (a.k.a. karaoke) together after dinner. At which point five of the Korean teachers produced some excuse to not stick around and promptly split. All nine foreign teachers, the three new Korean teachers, our boss, and two other Korean teachers wound up going to a huge noraebang room and ordering a bunch of alcohol. Husband promptly split (he hates noraebang), and I followed about 45 minutes later. (I waited until my boss, who has a sick two-year-old at home, left.) I think the rest of the group dispersed about an hour after that.
While I understand that the thought is very generous, I am not sure why it doesn't occur to our company president that we might already have plans for a Saturday night, especially the one before Christmas. Then again, I know I should be grateful - most of the other hagwon teachers in town are amazed that we get a Christmas dinner at all.
Still, I wish it came with awareness of food safety and hygiene.
Our school administration works very hard to try to make sure that all of the teachers (foreign and Korean) mingle and mesh well. Some things work better than others, and some people mesh better than others, but we as foreign teachers are often not quite sure what to make of it. Korea (very similar to Japan) has a huge gift-giving culture, so pretty much any holiday is an excuse to give gifts to family, friends, coworkers, and crushes. There are some really interesting "holidays" to illustrate this point. For example, we all know Valentine's Day as a Hallmark holiday back home to give flowers, chocolates, and other goodies.
In Japan and Korea, Valentine's Day is a holiday for women to give men chocolates, but they created a companion holiday on March 14 - "White Day" - for men to return the favor and buy chocolates for women. Korea, however, took it a step further and invented "Black Day" for single people to eat noodles with jjajang (Chinese black sauce).
And then there's Pepero Day, which is celebrated on November 11 by giving everyone you know boxes of Pepero sticks. Pepero (a copy of the Japanese "Pocky" sticks) are long, thin crackers (hence why they are given on the date 11/11) that are dipped in chocolate and sold in boxes of about 20 or so. They are deceptively innocuous - their small size and thin layer of chocolate eliminates any guilt you may feel about eating sweets, until you realize that you've consumed four boxes in one sitting (true story!). The only purpose whatsoever that this "holiday" serves is to give people way more cookies than anyone should ever eat, and to increase sales for Lotte, the Korean mega-corporation that makes them (and probably invented the holiday in the first place).
Teacher, what?
One thing that our school does (and I'm pretty sure we're the only school in the city that does this) is collect money for major life events of staff members. Every time someone gets married or has a death in the family, money is collected from everyone at the school (teachers, secretaries, and bus drivers alike) and presented to that person. They request W30,000 (about $30) from each Korean staff member, and W15,000 from each foreign teacher. I guess they charge us half because we are strangers in a strange land, but they still want to include us in the collection to make us all more cohesive. However, this year we had (I think) four weddings and one funeral, which totaled to about $150 between US. The flip side of this is that we are always welcome to attend and eat at the buffet in the wedding hall for free (and all of us almost always do), but it can still get irritating at times, because we usually would rather be excluded and just hold onto the cash. Not only that, but the Koreans usually find it strange that we would want to attend, and they don't understand that we see it as getting our money's worth.
Another thing that we do, that seems like a good idea on principle, is have a birthday collection. Every other month, we each contribute W10,000 to the birthday fund, which is used to buy a cake once a month and give W20,000 as birthday money for everyone enjoying a birthday that month. Unfortunately, this isn't always put into practice flawlessly. For example, one of my coworkers didn't even get any of her birthday cake, because the cake was brought in right before she had to go to class, and everyone else ate the whole thing before she got back. (Because of this, I now make sure to cut her a slice and put it on her desk before the others devour it all.) Husband got a birthday cake but no birthday money (and June was our first month, so we didn't even know we were supposed to get birthday money until several months later). I brought it up last month to the Korean teacher who is in charge of birthdays, and she assured me that she would give both of us our money on my birthday...and then she forgot to give me my birthday money, too. I had to ask again at the end of the month to get it. On top of that, because the kinder birthday party was held on my birthday, I didn't get a birthday cake - we just ate the kinder cake.
Some of this may seem like splitting hairs, but when we all put in money every month, I feel like it's important that everyone should get what they are (supposedly) entitled to.
And then there was the Chuseok gift. Every year for Chuseok (the Korean Thanksgiving), the school president and director present us all with W100,000 gift certificates to Lotte stores (which includes a series of fast food restaurants, department stores, and grocery stores). In return, it has become tradition for all of the teachers to contribute W25,000 to purchase a really nice gift for them. Again, it seems nice on principle, but most of us just balked at the pointlessness of it - why not just subtract our expected contribution and give us the difference? Better yet, why not scrap it all and call it even?
A lot of this goes back to cultural clash, I think - while those of us from North America take pride in being frugal, Koreans make a show of being generous with gifts and expensive food - anything less, and you are seen as cheap, which is a huge no-no here. Whenever our school provides food for dinners or luncheons for special occasions, we are constantly reminded of how expensive the food is, which feels really weird to us. Obviously, we understand that it is culturally expected here, but to be confronted very matter-of-factly with something considered extremely rude back home makes it feel very awkward, and hollow.
To be fair, though, we all have our own holiday rituals that we perform without even thinking every year: Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas dinners, obligatory Christmas gifts for extended cousins and coworkers, and the annual Christmas letter that hsa to be worded just right and goes out to everyone in your ever-growing address book. The holidays have become a time when we make sure that everyone who gave us a gift gets one in return and that everyone gets a politically-correct "Happy Holidays" card (since "Merry Christmas" is now considered passe and, by some, bigoted).
Oh, the joys. Personally, I am just grateful to be celebrating the season with a group of coworkers that has become my family away from home.
In other news, our contract extension addendum is sitting on our coffee table as I type this. We are scheduled to meet with our school director before class tomorrow to sign it, which will extend our contract to January 29, 2014. In the meantime, we will be making tentative plans for our post-teaching travels. Suggestions are welcome and encouraged.
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