Working at my current hagwon is definitely “old school” Korea, in some ways. I suppose what I mean is that it’s a small business, where the human relationships are what dominate the employer-employee interactions, as opposed to the pseudo-professional character of the big chain hagwon (such as I experienced at LBridge) or the bureaucratic-but-hopefully-benign neglect that seems to reign in public schools (such as I experienced at Hongong Chodeung – minus the benignity).
This was underscored for me last night. Our hagwon is going to have a short little couple-of-days-vacation (not because it wants to – it’s a new provincial-level regulation that’s being forced on all the hagwon industry, apparently). Curt gave a little speech thanking all the hard work from the teachers and staff (July has been a tough month, the combination of increased class offerings and enrollment due to summer vacation, combined with Grace being on her long vacation meaning we’re short one teacher).
Then he handed out envelopes of cash.
I suppose there might be, um, er, “tax reasons” for handing out envelopes of cash, too – as opposed to simply paying higher salaries. But there’s nothing like two crisp gold-colored bills to make one feel appreciated, eh? The note reads “즐거운 휴가 되세요^^ 감사합니다.” [Have a pleasant holiday^^ Thank you.] Actually, I knew Curt did things like this – I’ve witnessed him doing it before, but had never been on the receiving end of it up until now.
Tangentially, below is a picture from the bathroom window at work. It was raining, and something in the view of all the apartment tower blocks seemed stark yet somehow iconic of life in high-density Ilsan. Remember, although this looks like something an American would call “housing projects,” in Korea this is upper-middle class. Everyone has a car in the underground parking garages. All the kids want to go to Harvard or Oxford or Yonsei or KAIST. One thing that is striking for me, about Ilsan, is that, because it’s one of the “oldest” of the 신도시 [sin-do-si = “New City”], it is lushly populated by large, healthy trees: apartment towers in a forest.
