Changing Faces

The upcoming weeks will be bringing some significant changes to Elite in Cheonsang as (possibly) two of our Korean teachers will be departing, to be replaced by a couple of young Ulsanites. With the earlier departures of another Korean teacher on Halloween Day and the two Canadians that Jessica and I replaced over the summer, all of Elite's teachers will have changed within a period of five months. I wonder what these changes must be like for the students. The faces of most hagwons are always fluid as wayguk contracts last between six months and one year, and it seems that only a few foreigners renew those contracts. And I'm sure that Korean teachers also cycle through the system. It makes the whole experience very unstable, and helps explain why the students don't seem to immediately bend to the authority of their instructors (respect is a hard-won honor, as I've finally discovered). To add to the confusion this month, the make-up of three of my classes changed last week as students were sorted into different classes based on their abilities (and presumably their test scores). While it is nice to have classes that are closer together in their comprehension of English, it just so happens that essentially one of my most problematic classes was split into three and has now spread its "cancer" to two of my classes that were previously well-behaved and fun to teach. Of course, I am never made aware of these changes until the last possible moment; I only learned of one of the Korean teacher's plans until she gave me an invitation to her wedding (which is next weekend). Hopefully, everything will sort itself out in the new year.

At any rate, such major changes dictated that the entire Elite staff go out for brunch this morning (which I wasn't made aware of until yesterday afternoon; the attitude toward foreign teachers seems to be an assumption that you don't have a life of your own so if you're not at work, you are therefore available at a moment's notice for anything the director decides). It's a bit of a tradition at ours as well most hagwons that everyone goes out for a meal when a new teacher arrives or an old teacher leaves, but so far it has only been dinners at Korean barbeque joints and a king crab restaurant, which have been lovely, don't get me wrong. But this was an entirely unique experience, and well worth it. After a long van ride from literally one end of Ulsan to the other, and halfway to Busan, we ended up at a small vegetarian restaurant near a Buddhist temple, hidden away in the hills. We were seated in our own "hut" with a heated floor, as are all of the individual dining parties at this particular place. The food was brought in from the main building, which contained the kitchen, and it just kept on coming, course after course. I always wonder must it be like to work as a dishwasher in one of these places since every meal uses so many dishes. The food was divine, and some dishes were completely different from anything I've had thus far in Korea.

I neglected to bring my camera along, so to check out a couple of photos that Jessica took follow these links.