Interesting experiences as the year closes.

Getting colder here in Cheonan, South Korea. Can't believe that I've spent almost a year here; having arrived in February and now coming up to December! It's been this long since I started, man, what can I say has happened thus far?

I've started with Kindy and Ele, a steep slope of development and reaching an awesome peak before being thrown down like Sparta before I bounced back again (with some help from my friends) and eventually found myself South of the Capital teaching Elementary School students. I've made new friends, met new people, got into new things; know what I want to do with myself now and for the future, and am quite content to be where I am.

Korea has been a rather interesting experience none the less, things are very different here then they would be back home, and though not always as a positive notion, I want to actually touch on a three things I've noticed and want to get off my chest as either interesting, unusual, or just plain silly.

Business Organization
For the most part, business tend to do what they need to do get stuff done; influenced both by world commence with a close resemblance to American economic;

most business continue to work the same way they would back home. Hogwans however are slightly different. For the time I've been here, I have experience and been told many different stories of the oddities of Hogwans. I admit, my experience thus far has been fairly organized and without much error, but due to recent slips from my own workplace, I felt I should touch on this subject to make sure people know and perhaps even do something about it.

First and foremost, Hogwans run a rather unusual business compared to anything back home; as always money is important, and schools sometimes do whatever they can to keep costs. Many people I've talked to have told me stories of how others were let go because of budget cuts, or the company goes bankrupt and shuts down. Its terrible to experience, but because Hogwans are both very common and in a cut-throat industry, its either sink or swim. That sorta of issue hasn't caused a problem for me, and I'm lucky to not have to worry about it, however, it has occurred once.

During the winter months, around the end of November, the classes of Grade 6 move on to middle school and the schedule changes to organize the other classes to fill in the students left. This is a fairly simple idea; however, not being told this idea until the actual day of the change is a rather problematic issue. Having arrived at 3pm when I usually start and not seeing my kids even past 3:40pm, I can't help but ask what's going on, which is when I was told about the change and the front-desk girls spent a half-hour running around and sorting out my schedule. What started as having 24~ classes a week, was shorten to 14 classes, which isn't bad, but just a surprise as I have so much spare time. In the end, it's not all bad; my work environment is great and my director can keep on top of most things, any questions are easily answered by my fellow teachers too, so it's a good place to be.

Parking and Traffic

Parking and Traffic in South Korea is A LOT different than back home, people here tend to drive a bit more aggressively than in Canada; there aren't as many accidents either which is a rather curious thing to consider. When I say aggressive though, I go a bit beyond what you may see in Rush hour, I'm talking buses and taxi's blitzing through red lights, the certain lack of Stop signs and people going when pedestrians are crossing. Its gets ugly at points; not to mention how fast some people drive and scooters.


Oh geeze, the scooters. Having ridden one myself, I always assumed Scooters had to be cautious and careful as they are smaller and easier to miss; not in Korea, Scooters (gas mostly) are driving all over the place, on roads, sidewalks, anywhere.

However, the WORST I've seen since I arrived is PARKING. The motto here for parking seems to be anyplace is a space; what do I mean by that? Look at these pictures. I was walking to E-mart nearby, just on my phone when I bump into this car on the sidewalk. To add insult to injury, I bump into a second car soon after. It seems like many people just park where there is space; unlike back home where there are regulations, there doesn't seem to be such thing here. Everyone parks everywhere even if it slows down traffic. It just blows my mind and gives me another good reason to not drive here.

Public Safety Measures
This is probably the touchiest subject in regards to what's happened this year, so I'm going to keep this breif; there's a slight lack in the safety of public persons, not just because of traffic, but because of general rules and regulations of what goes on around the city. For those who don't know, the sinking of the Sewol Ferry off the souther coast of South Korea was the most tragic incident to relate to a lack of safety procedure. Due to the various reasons noted in the news, from lack of conduct for the loading to the crew telling the passengers to remain, 300 people, mostly students, died. All over Korea, there were memorial set-ups, using the color yellow to show their memory of the sinking ship. People would write there respects on these little slips and tie them to tree's and lines around the memorial. It was a tragic incident, one that could have been avoided if procedure and safety rules were followed, but they weren't, now a company is in shambles and the family's of the 300 children are left distraught.

Recently however, there was a concert going on in Seongnam for a Pop-concert with the band 4Minute. 16 people who were standing atop a ventilation grate caused it to collapse 20 meters to their deaths in a parking garage below. This incident, as the news stated;
"The incident comes as South Korea still struggles with the aftermath of a ferry disaster in April that left more than 300 people dead or missing....The tragedy exposed regulatory failures that appear to have allowed the ferry Sewol to set off with far more cargo than it could safely carry." -The guardian

To add a sense of insult, the individual responsible for planning the concert committed suicide because of the deaths; certainly not one to live with the fact the failure in safety caused those 16 people to die when they probably wouldn't had it been done correctly.

Perhaps there is still much to change; South Korea is a well-developing country, but these incidents scar its reputation as a established Asian nation; hopefully it will be a wake up call to those needing to act and do something about this.