This is from my Seoul sister, about  me and girl 4709, who I believe is my sister, and who I am searching for:

Last night, I fell asleep thinking of you… and this morning I woke up dreaming of you.

You were here to visit me. After I woke up, I went to see you, and I told you, I believe Sook Ja is your sister. I think your real name is Sook Hee, since Korean siblings usually have one common syllable in their names, that’s why you responded to the name Suki. They couldn’t change your sister’s name because she was old enough to know her name. That’s what happened to SunnyJo, they changed her name, but not her brother’s who was older than her. (I just finished reading her book.) I found my thought so logical that I tried to convince you more,  by talking about an article I read on NYT, about the boy whose name was changed by his father’s girlfriend who sent him to the orphanage. I told you they usually don’t change older children’s name, because they would rebel like that boy.  I talked non stop, and you said nothing until I finished talking. Then you asked, what are we going to do today? I said I don’t know, what do you want to do? you want to go swim? and I stayed silent.  I woke up while I was thinking of what we could do, just to realize it was only a dream.

Sometimes it’s crazy how she and I have nearly the same thoughts very close together.  All through the movie, A Brand New Life, I would hear Sook Hee and think it was my name being called, and for the first time I wondered if that was my real name.  And also last week I noticed somewhere that it is common for one name to occur often within one family.  But I’d never put it together before.  But my Seoul sister did, in this nice dream.

It’s so important, this dream.  Like everything having to do with Korea and adoption, we need hope to temper all the tragedy.  As you can see, it doesn’t have to be a lot.  Sometimes the smallest things can be the most significant.

Thank you for the dream.

Do you realize what a little, little man you are to do something so vile?  To do that on top of trying to cheat me and a dozen or more others out of money YOU and the school district promised us?

Do you realize that those blacklists exist not because you are powerful, but precisely because you are impotent and petty.

You are not the only fish in the sea, and this is not the only game in town, and I hope more people become aware of your ugly behavior and do not allow you to profit off of exploiting them.

I just got off the phone with Dan, who I met at the GEPIK orientation, and who has been my shoulder to cry on for the past few months regarding trying to do THE BEST JOB WE CAN DO under EXTREME conditions here in Korea, and he reminded me that I still have some mojo.

Earlier, as a result of my last post, some caring and conscientious reader had alerted me to some unfortunate residue from my previous struggles fighting attempted contract fraud.  It turns out that there exists in Korea a network of unscrupulous and unethical exploiters of foreigners who pass along unsubstantiated information about people they have issues with.  It’s called a blacklist, and it’s a very fascist method employed to ruin the careers of people who do not tow their company line.  It has nothing to do with skills or crimes – it is instead based upon the unsubstantiated vilification of individuals, typically innocent, due to vindictiveness, pettiness, and power mongering.  These lists, closed to the general public, deny the accused of any opportunity to vindicate themselves and are a private ring of libel and slander.  These types of lists have, since the exposure of red-baiting during the McCarthy era in the United States, been outlawed as unethical.

ADDED:

What’s really sad and disappointing is the fact that the public schools also participate in this blacklisting, in collusion with members of the group of recruiters linked to below.  It’s shameful.  And again, disappointing.

I used to read horror stories on ESL teacher forums and found them unbelievable.  But these stories are, unfortunately, very very real.

The entire situation made me question the state of civil rights and ethics in Korea.  It was truly a black day for me. I sent out a distress signal to my friends, associates, and colleagues.  Interestingly, the response from nationals and long-time residents was something on the lines of, “yeah, that’s just the way Korea is” and “that’s just part of the Korean package.”  There seems to be a sad resignation that dirty politics and corruption rules the day.  On the other hand, these responses were also followed by a sincere belief that all was never lost.  I don’t buy the dismissal that this is just Korean culture.  Just like Korean War Baby has said, when the laws change, society changes.  These underhanded practices may reflect parts of Korean society today, but they can change.

Whatever I lack in terms of political savvy, I know I make up for in personal integrity and commitment to living an ethical and honorable life. I have to believe that not all of Korea operates in such a dirty, under-handed way.  If there is one person who came to Korea to do right by Korea, it is me.  If there is one person who wants to lift up the futures and fortunes of Korean citizens, it is me.  And this is not done by seeing injustice and unethical practices and allowing them to continue.

Until Korea can ferret out these unethical practitioners and clean up their ethics, they will never be taken seriously in the court of world opinion.  And I want that.  I really do.  I want to be proud to be Korean.  Just like I tell my students – what you do or don’t do reflects upon me and all Asians in the world.  Koreans must find their way back to true honor and value that above saving face or manipulating outcomes.  Only then will Korea shake the reputation of being dishonest businessmen.  And Korea can not enter the global world as long as they hold onto racism.  And that includes reverse racism.  I must break through this glass ceiling, because adoptees are just as foreign as white foreigners, and just as skilled at our imposed now native languages.

Most Koreans hate the social situation today and want it to change.  And because this is popular opinion, I believe it will, eventually, come to pass.  We need to kill the resignation and instill hope.  Korea sure could use a Korean Obama about now…they adore Obama, btw.

In reviewing my situation, I have come to several conclusions:

• 40+ students in the public school classrooms is 10+ students too many, so I am not sad to step down to a smaller class size where real attention can be given the students and I can develop a real relationship with them.
• My skills are much better served in the pre-school to kindergarten age group or the university and adult age groups.  I have amazing classes with small groups of advanced grade 1 high school students and adults, and I provided calm yet intellectual stimulus to my own two precocious children who have grown into fine, well-rounded adults, so I also appreciate the youngest students.  Both of these populations are open and receptive, which makes me love my job.
• the black list of participating large recruiters is of small consequence, and I don’t want to work with people who engage in such unethical practices anyway.  As listed on their website, they’ve actually provided a great filter to screen themselves out.  In essence, they’ve blacklisted themselves:
  • Here are the member recruiters
  • and here is their blacklist submission form
  • Seattle and Portland people beware since they have local offices…
• The jobs for my availability are only beginning to be posted, and I will have more opportunities soon.
• Dan reminded me that losers here manage to market themselves.  I am not a loser, and I can find creative ways to market my skills too.

There are a couple more months before I need to really start worrying.  In the meantime, I just have to believe – because I care about this place and these people.

What more could you want in an English teacher?

…and it’s only mid November!

 

So I went to my neighborhood today to pick up a winter coat I’d put on hold.  If I don’t dawdle and head straight there from school, I can make it there by 5:30 pm.  Not too bad, and I beat rush hour too, so there’s actually room on the subway.

My last coat looks funeral chic and has 3/4 length sleeves and looks stupid with my hoodie under it, which is necessary to stay warm.  Not a good time to be purchasing a coat, but too late I’d already put money down on it.  The perfect not too dressy/not too casual camel colored coat was, I realized, not practical.  So I took it back and exchanged it for an army jacket (I know how you love those, Willie)  because a) a hoodie looks fine under it, and b)it had a lining that could be removed and c) it was the uniform of my generation.  So hoodie + coat + lining might just see me through February and March.

The shop keeper spoke English with a French accent and let some French words slip out on occasion.  So naturally I figured he was an adoptee, but I was wrong.  Shoulda asked how he came to have perfect French, but I think he was done with me, begging to exchange an item I’d kept off his floor for over a week.

I did the math and I’m going to lose a lot of weight unintentionally this month, but fortunately I can eat at school twice a day if I stay late.  I also bought more lentils.  Let me just say that I LOVE lentils.  So cheap, so yummy, so easy to prepare, and even easier on the plumbing.  All the lentils, fallafel, hummous, and curry a person could ever want in Itaewon, so a person can eat cheap.  And tacos, gyros, fou fou, borscht phad thai and steak…And cheese! so you can eat cosmopolitan and/or expensive if you want to.  And you can buy DEODORANT at almost every market!  So I was buying my lentils at an international market, and there was the middle-eastern shop keeper placing an order with a wholesaler on the phone in perfect Korean.  HEY!  How come he can speak so well and I can’t even ask for the most basic things?  Answer:  because he’s not white or an English teacher, nobody hijacks all his conversations into English practice, that’s why.

Itaewon really is a an interesting place before it turns into Sodom and Gamorrah in the wee hours of the night.  So I can enjoy the multi-cultural atmosphere, have access to the international grocery stores and restaurants, and then retreat two blocks away from it into my totally Korean neighborhood, shut the door, and never have to be bothered by the sights and sounds of the lowest common denominators consuming, imbibing, expelling, and mingling. Humans and their basic instincts can seem so endearing at times, and then – then you have the denizens of Itaewon at night. This is not like Henry Miller in Paris.  Even he would be bored with the obvious and unimaginative social lubricating and connecting going on there.  I sound like a prude, but that’s not it at all.  It’s just not interesting. For example, a gay scene without drag queens…Nothing in the way of entertainment, either.  And the sex shops look like tool sheds.  Military town..

As a side note, I saw a condom ad to prevent AIDS on t.v last night.  Which was quite a surprise, since despite the fetish shoes and hot pants worn by girls here, it’s still a very conservative and puritanical place…and I heard that the sex education was presented in a mechanical way, out of context with the student’s lives and having nothing to do with the kinds of choices they must make.

On the way home, after sending my remittance to myself and my bills at the E-marte ATM, I grabbed about five boxes to pack with.  Like Costco, they have used boxes provided as a courtesy for customers to pack their purchases in.  But unlike Costco, they haven’t had their tops cut off.  So I figure I can stop in every other day and grab a handful.  Also unlike Costco, they provide tape, ribbon, and scissors…

There’s only books and clothes and office/art supplies to pack, so it shouldn’t be too hard.  My easiest move yet.  I’ve got no pots, pans, dishes, bedding, or furniture.  Around the corner from my new place are several second hand appliance and furniture places, though Jane is convinced I should buy new.  Well, having any at all might not even be an option for awhile, but it’s nice to know just two blocks away is everything I need.  This really is a great location:  EVERYTHING I need is a block away – only it’s not in some corporate mega box store.  It’s a real neighborhood without a traditional market, so that means the market is everywhere, in little storefronts or on the sidewalk, which is pretty interesting in itself.  And a lot of the restaurants are super tiny.  I’m going to feel good supporting them.  And if I absolutely must get a latte and a fat bomb, Itaewon is less than ten minutes walk away.

At school, those few who know me have been awesome in offering to help me move and coordinating amongst themselves with their time and arranging to meet me.  So Seven Star and Nine Stones are going to come over on the 5th with their cars.  It’s so nice of them!  So different from the states, where everyone shrinks at the thought and tries to be busy that day and prays to God that you don’t ask them for help.  So unsolicited help from co-workers and Korean war baby was really amazing.

Please, God, tell Koreans that people not white can speak English too and help me find a job.

If you go to post a comment on Youtube, which I went to do to defend my best friend in the planet who was being CHASTISED for WHINING when showing people video of herself before losing her Korean language and video two years after where it was almost gone, thanks to international adoption, you get the following message:

본인확인제로 인해 한국 국가 설정시 동영상/댓글 업로드 기능을 자발적으로 비활성화합니다.  We have voluntarily disabled this functionality on kr.youtube.com because of the Korean real-name verification law.

An interesting discussion about Goggle’s stance on Korea’s law.  All of which I don’t really understand, since Google now owns Youtube.

It’s a weird cyber hermit kingdom here.  You can’t post on Korea’s parallel cyberspace.  And you can’t purchase or download streaming videos, etc.  in Korea’s cyberspace unless you have a Korean citizen number.  Registered aliens can’t even post – and they should know our real names…Very irritating…