Two years ago, I decided to pack in the graduate job search to teach English abroad. It is a well paid opportunity to travel and live your day-to-day life in a another country. I had no formal teaching qualifications, but a degree from an English-speaking country is the only prerequisite to teaching in most Eastern countries. It was either Japan or Korea for me, completely different cultures from our own but with the same creature comforts.

My English-based agent gave me the hard sell on Korea and I was sold. I received the job offer just before Christmas 2005. I emailed my CV and had a brief telephone interview; I was given the job immediately.

I arrived on the other side of the Eurasian land mass a week after the interview. I was picked up from the airport by a thick-necked Korean taxi driver-come-wrestler who couldn't speak a word of English except "Me... English... No" after each of my questions. I got dropped off at my English 'hagwon' (after-school academy) on the outskirts of Seoul and was walked to where I'd be staying by one of my housemates. If I were to go into how bad the dilapidated s**t-hole of an apartment I was to live in for the next year, it would seriously depress you. Let's just say, strange putrid odours emanated from everywhere and bloodstained sheets covered my single bed. My first day at work consisted of a teacher pointing out where the text books were, telling me my timetable would be ready the next day and that my first lesson is in 10 minutes.

I stayed there for two weeks before I packed and did, what’s commonly known as, a 'midnight run' (running away from a hagwon without telling anyone). I could do this without any legal consequences because certain documents still hadn't arrived from London, which meant my contract wasn't finalised.

I was free... but in a country that I was well and truly foreign to.

Luckily, I was introduced to an affluent Korean family who provided me room and board in exchange for English lessons for their friends’ children and their own. It was an awesome opportunity for me. The matriarch of the family taught me how to read and write Korean, as well as giving me an indispensable understanding of the culture. At the same time, I got to know an immensely generous and hospitable family.

 

While I was with the Kwon family, I found a position on the outskirts of Seoul as a public school teacher. Public school teachers are more respected than hagwon teachers and work nine-to-five. My position included training and I would be starting with two dozen other English teachers, mostly in their twenties from North America, New Zealand, Britain and Ireland. After getting trained, I became the only foreign teacher in an all boys’ middle school and a mixed elementary school. With the help of mostly excellent Korean co-teachers, I taught around six classes of thirty students a day, interchanging between schools on a weekly basis. During my time at the schools, the students treated me like John Lennon; mobbing me every time I walked the corridors. At the elementary school, I would have to prize the children off my shins before entering classrooms. An experience, I'm sure, will be nigh on impossible to replicate in the West, barring a sudden brush with fame.

The apartment provided to me was a spacious studio on the eleventh floor in a vibrant, student district of Incheon (a satellite city of Seoul) called Bupyeong. I was entertained by a small community of expats; great little bars where the owners became friends of mine; and hundreds of restaurants and greasy spoons. Coupled with my motorbike and my considerable disposable income, the quality of life I enjoyed was like nothing I would have experienced in London on a graduate salary.

Having originally planned to stay a year, I ended up staying closer to two and I am still hungry for more. My time in the Far East educated me, gave me priceless life experiences as well as friends from all over the world that I envisage keeping for a long time. It was a truly wonderful experience.

 

by Houtan Froushan