Two hours later solely due to my own efforts, I found myself in John Valentine’s office, out of breath and suffering from shin splints. I had subsequently gotten lost in underground Seoul so badly that I began to think of myself as the human gopher, constantly popping up from a tunnel to get my bearings and going down again. All the while I was pummeled and bruised by the relentless pedestrian traffic

I immediately saw John’s resemblance to a Mafia Don. He had this town wired. He whizzed around the room on his office chair answering phones and making deals. When language schools, or ‘hogwans’, needed teachers, they called him. When teachers needed work, they came to him just as I had done. He appeared to have a finger in every English teaching pie in the city. But there the resemblance ended. Not tough at all, he was very friendly with bright blue eyes and yellow hair. He didn’t need any teachers at his school, but within minutes of waving me to a seat and making a couple of calls a Mr. Kim in a dark suit and white socks came into the room.

Mr. Kim had a hogwan called the Munwha out in Chamshil, a neighbourhood he assured me easily reached by subway and he needed a teacher to start immediately. I know now that that is a danger signal. If a school needs a teacher immediately that means their previous teacher had skipped out on them (done a runner), usually because of horrendous teaching conditions or because they’d found a better job. Hogwan managers have been known in such situations to pull foreigners off the streets to come in and teach classes. Anyone with a pulse would do. Failing that they’ll even go to the yogwans like the Inn Dae Won on recruiting drives.

But being new at the game I thought I had simply lucked out, was at the right place at the right time. Mr. Kim assured me that they had state-of-the-art language lab facilities, a complete curriculum based on books of their own design and a staff of four other native English speakers. I fell all over myself trying to make a good impression in this, my first big break in a new country, and it seemed to work. Mr. Kim invited me out to the Munwha early on Monday morning to see the place. Seven-thirty seemed pretty early for a tour but he assured me that was the best time to see the school. I left in a flurry of combination handshakes and bows.

On Monday morning (after an experience on the subway that made finding John Valentine seem a stroll through the park, and after discovering that to reach the Munwha by 7:30 I had to wake up at 5:30 and face a cold shower in the dark) I was far less enthusiastic as I limped up the final flight of stairs to the Munwha and found myself on a small landing facing a large coffee machine. These machines are everywhere in Korea and for 150 or 200 won will produce a range of hot and cold drinks (many of them “traditional Korean” drinks). In the future, two or three “milkuh coppee” became my standard breakfast. That much caffeine, sugar and acid on an empty stomach induced just that manic state so essential to get through those brutal six thirty A.M English conversation classes.

Milkuh coppee is, of course, milk coffee. Any English word can be easily Koreanized by simply changing the “f” to “p”, barking out the syllables in a rapid burst and if the word ends in a consonant adding “uh”. Milk becomes “mil-kuh!”.

The lobby of the Munhwa was empty except for a large man sitting comfortably in the corner of a couch. The hat, dark suit, and cigarette dangling from his hand, smoke trickling to the ceiling immediately labeled him in my mind as “The Enforcer.” I imagined him to be the muscle of the operation. The guy who broke the legs of any student not pulling his weight, who paid off immigration and I guess unlocked the doors, since he was always there before me. I nodded to him on that first morning and he just barely, almost imperceptibly, tilted his cigarette back at me. It was the only sign of life I ever saw. The cigarette was always there, always trickling smoke, the ash just about to fall but I never saw him take a drag, never saw him light a new one, never saw him move.

The door banged open behind me and an even more bizarre sight greeted me. His name was Mark, an English teacher from the States perhaps thirty five years old. There was nothing remarkable about his appearance. It was the body slung over his shoulders that caught my attention. He held out his free hand (the one not holding the body in place) and shook mine.

“Hi. I’m Mark,” he said. “And this is my daughter.” He turned around and showed me the face of a young girl sound asleep. “Her school doesn’t open till 9:00 so I have to take her with me here. I teach my 7:30-8:30 and then take her to school.”

He grinned at me as if expecting some argument or comment, but I shrugged and let it pass. I was getting used to this country.

“Excuse me,” he said and in a smooth motion tossed his daughter over his shoulder and laid her down on the couch, one strand of hair falling lightly across the knee of the Enforcer. He didn’t blink and I applauded the performance on the inside.

Mark took me outside to the stairwell and pumped some 100 won coins, or baek wons, into the coffee machine. We both cupped our hands around the paper cups (each half-filled) to absorb some of the coffee’s heat, and his story tumbled out in his odd lilting voice. He had married a Filipina, the mother of the sleeping girl on the couch. According to Mark, her family ran drugs out of Hawaii. They had the usual Filipino love of gun and knifeplay and a series of events had convinced Mark to split, taking the daughter with him. He obtained a divorce and custody of the girl. He was now hiding from his wife’s family, who had vowed to either kill him or have him arrested for kidnapping. He had a brother in the American armed forces stationed in Korea and he funneled his wages through his brother’s bank accounts so he couldn’t be traced.

By this time, a few students had begun to arrive. They all looked curiously at me and disappeared into the lobby of the school. They seemed friendly enough. It was past seven thirty now, but no one seemed in much of a hurry. I dug into my pockets and fed the coffee machine with my own baek wons, which a short time ago had been Canadian dollars from my rapidly diminishing fund. We finished our coffee leisurely before Mark decided it was time to move. He went back into the lobby, hoisted his daughter to his shoulder and marched off down the hall to a classroom. I followed him and with some astonishment saw him kick several wooden chairs together to form a rough bench and lay his daughter down on that.

Mr. Kim suddenly rushed in and grabbed me by the arm. “Good morning. Thank you for coming. Come with me.” He pulled me down the hall, opened a door, propelled me through it with a curt, “Your class”, and closed the door behind him as he left. I found myself in a small very cold room, facing seven terrified Koreans. They sat at a long table that occupied most of the room. The cold had prevented anyone from removing their coats. Most were shivering and none were talking (in any language). I did the only reasonable thing. I said “Excuse me,” and bolted.

 

 

 

Tags: Inn Dae Won, John Valentine, Korea, Korea - First Days Teaching English, Mafia Don