Coming to Korea: Part 3
BY JL COPELAND
Alright?
2026. Another year spins by.
Time moves so fast these days I feel like that Nazi at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade who selects the wrong Holy Grail.
In the morning, when I’m picking chia seeds from between my teeth in the mirror, it would not surprise me if my wrinkles deepened, white hair flowed from my head (I wish) and then I turned into a skeleton and exploded.
Some ancient crusader whispers, ‘He chose… poorly.’
Yeah man, story of my life.
Anyway. I thought I’d better finish off this series on coming to Korea before you all get distracted by your TikToking and Instagrambles and forget where we were with it.
If you’re new to this sh*tshow, here are parts one and two.
I was stumped as to what music to attach to this post. Then this one popped into my head. It has the most tenuous of links to the choices we make in life, for richer or poorer, but what the hell, you’re here for something different, right?
Enjoy a bit of Frank Sidebottom:
In the last edition of Coming to Korea:
Low on both funds and future prospects, our hero, JL, travelled to Korea to spend a year teaching little kids English / the finer points of hangman and I-spy.
Now he was back in the UK to pursue his legal career.
To avoid this final part of the story spiralling into a novella-sized slog, I’ll focus only on my working life.
Snippets of the rest of my time in the Land of the Morning Chaos (and before) will be salted into later posts (like a sprinkling of dandruff from Santa’s scalp).
I came back from Korea in 2006 with about four thousand pounds.
Four grand.
I’d never had so much money in my life. I felt like Ritchie Rich. For about one week. Unfortunately, having only four grand in your account with England prices you’re more like Brodie Broke.
It’s even worse when you’re subsequently unemployed for three months and have a girlfriend with pricey predilections.
That four grand went ‘poof.’
Soon, I remembered how poor I really was.
Finally, a job came.
It was at a firm of personal injury solicitors in Manchester. My experiences there inspired my short story, One in a Million, your free gift for signing up to these merry missives (yeah for you, no-win, but thankfully no-fee).
Just like in the story, the job ranged from depressing to dismal.
Even the pay was dispiriting.
Most nights when I clocked off, I’d walk out of the firm and cross the road to Tesco (a UK Walmart equivalent). Not for something to drown my sorrows with, but to clock on for stacking shelves until 11 PM.
As I restocked another row of baked beans, I wondered, ‘Where was all this filthy moolah a career in law had promised?’
I performed well, was promoted to head of my team (at the law firm, not Tesco; I never did get the hang of replenishing the deli counter).
But I didn’t have the confidence for the next step up: the training contract required to become a fully fledged lawyer. And our blood-hungry boss liked confidence.
Even though I’d done well at law school, had completed a dozen internships, and was the next obvious candidate at the firm for a TC, I just couldn’t put myself forward.
In pretty much every job or situation I have found myself in, I’ve struggled with imposter syndrome. I’ve psychoanalysed myself, and I think it comes from a fear of failure (and the subsequent bollocking that failure often results in).
Yeah, I am a coward.
Unfortunately for me, law school graduates are a rather self-assured bunch.
I had to watch as underling after underling bullshitted their way into training contracts.
I, on the other hand, continued to interview the Mr Clumsies of the world about their unfortunate encounters with raised paving slabs and special sauce slips in Maccy Ds.
After nine months, I’d had enough of whacky whiplash witterings and, above all, the dry, airless grind of the office environment.
My thoughts ran along the lines of, ‘Even if someday I do get a training contract, I can’t do this for the next forty years; someone please shoot me, now.’
I also missed teaching. And Korea.
But I couldn’t build a career out of Hangman and I-spy and showing random sh*t to students.
Then I remembered those dudes with the university jobs I’d met (see part two of this series). They’d had low teaching hours and a shed-load of vacation.
Thinking about the 8:30AM to 11 PM shift I had the next day, that seemed like frigging fairyland.
I hit the Googling. I’d need an MA and two years’ experience at public schools to apply for a uni job in Korea.
Doable.
I quit my job.
My parents were aghast.
I returned to uni.
I got my MA in English teaching.
I also met my wife during my MA, but that’s a story for another time.
I returned to Korea.
For two years, I taught at a girl’s high school in Daegu, to develop my teaching skills and move away from the pissed-up pedagogy of my past. You can’t just go straight from Fishy Phonics Three to faculty.
I felt out of place (Korean public school teachers are a serious bunch), but I kept my hooter spotless and had a great time.
I started a band club for the students. Two of my bands played underground clubs in the city, and another played at a music festival.
Imagine School of Rock set in Korea, but with Ned Schneebly rather than Jack Black as the protagonist. No, I don’t think that would make for a very fun movie either, so let’s skip ahead.
After two years, I applied for half a dozen uni jobs. It was fiercely competitive, with hundreds of applicants for each position. I had four interviews and two job offers.
The job I finally got was one of the most sought after. Small classes (max 12 students per class), short hours (12 a week) and the longest vacations (over 5 months a year on full pay).
The thing that got me in?
They wanted an English teacher for their law department (the picture at the top of this post is the view from said department). They needed someone with a legal background.
I was their guy. All those years and tens of thousands of pounds weren’t spunked up the wall, after all.
I can still remember my first class. I was absolutely bricking it. I spoke way too much. I also wore a full suit. That makes me smile when I think of it now. I don’t wear a suit anymore. Or a pince-nez.
I’ve been here for sixteen years. And even though my students give my classes excellent reviews, I still struggle with imposter syndrome.
I still freeze with terror whenever a student raises their hand.
I still wonder when they’ll be a posse at the classroom door.
‘Alright, JL, the game’s up. Turn in your marker pens, you charlatan.’
But I enjoy it.
My students are great.
Because they are super-competitive in this Korea, they usually think their English level is poor (it never is).
They’re respectful, good-natured and most importantly, fun. If I do have a class that’s a little flat, the semester only lasts three and a half months, and then I welcome a new batch of bushy-arsed brethren.
At my uni, we’re also given delicious freedoms.
We have required chapters in a textbook that I use about 30% of the time, and for the rest? Well, we can pretty much teach what we like.
(Within reason, if I broke out the tai chi or advanced Hungry Hungry Hippos technique, there might be a problem).
A team role play of first-date disasters? No problem.
Take the latest episode of The Last of Us and make it into a class? Sure.
At the start of every semester, I also ask them for suggested topics. It keeps my classes fresh and stops me yakking about things that may be interesting to me but to them are as dull as a constitutional law book read by Stephen Hawking.
My title is assistant professor. No, i don’t have tenure (my employers aren’t that insane), but I can probably stay as long as I like, so no doubt I’ll be here until the cows come home.
But even after sixteen years, whenever a student calls me ‘professor,’ I giggle inside and think about what my secondary school teachers would think if they heard that.
Outside of class, the admin burden is… almost none-existent. We have two meetings a year, max. Sometimes none. I couldn’t tell you who my supervisor is, never met them. No requirement to publish either.
All my grading, admin and prep for the next semester are usually completed by the end of the first day of the vacation.
Although some day I should probably get around to tidying up my bombsite of an office:
There is one massive downside.
The pay.
One question I would sometimes get asked by interested friends back home was,
How much money can you save teaching English in South Korea?
Answer: as Korean’s would say, a rat’s tail.
At the current exchange rate, my annual salary is now below the minimum wage in the UK.
Save? Ha!
Yeah.
And no, unfortunately, Korea isn’t cheap anymore. It used to be, but now I’d guesstimate the overall cost of living is only about 10-20% cheaper than England. Some things are cheaper; others are much more expensive:
Two pounds fifty / $3.50 for a beer in a bar: Yay!
Five pounds / $7 for six apples: Yikes!
But, as my friends and family often say, ‘no wonder your salary is so low, you never bloody work!’
To be honest, the time off is the primary reason I stay at my uni. It gives me the time to write.
I used to waste my long vacations on movies and exercise and spending time with my kids.
Then, in 2016, I had an idea for a novel on winter vacation and decided to give it a shot. I hadn’t written a word of fiction (and no journals, blogs, nada) since middle school. You can read more about it in this blog post.
It’s almost TEN YEARS now since I started my ill-advised quest for literary superstardom. And no prizes for guessing what I still feel like.
Yep, an imposter. But most writers get that way sometimes, especially writers like yours truly, who are as yet unpublished.
I’ve got to get this effing novel finished, dear readers. Then maybe I’ll have the stones to introduce myself as a writer.
But as my writer friend Karmen Spiljak reminded me:
‘You don’t need permission to call yourself a writer. If you write, you belong.’
And I think that’s the same for whatever you do.
So, if, like me, you struggle with imposter syndrome, remember no one is as confident as they seem; everyone suffers with insecurities every so often.
It’s what helps us to keep our ducks in a row, to improve, and hopefully to grow.
You’re doing great.
Now let’s go smash it.
Speak soon,
JL
PS: If you have any questions about life in Korea, don’t hesitate to slip one in the comments below. I’m always delighted to hear from the people who bothered to read this crap.
PPS: And for more freebies, writing advice, salacious tales and other semi-humorous guff from a dude stuck within dribbling distance of Kim Jong Eun, you know what to do: