New year in a new country!

Oh! Korea! Oh! Korea! The cultural differences are so many. This habit of telling people things at the last minute even though the "thing" in question was know to the communicator a while before. How it hurts us Westerners not used to this way of communicating information! It's also not our faults as Westerners if we ask too many questions about procedures and frankly speaking "Why is this like this instead of like this?" is a recurring question in my mind. People don't question authority at all here and I think they have a rather small critical sense (NOT everyone is like this). I won't even talk about traditional views of relationships either because that could warrant an entry by itself! But hey it's going well for them as it is. I'm just not used to many small things.
Since I'm here I haven't really done that much in terms of exploring the country, which is my biggest regret. I've seen a lot of Seoul though! And Yongin still sucks. Life is certainly different from Montreal, but not all that much. Except from the small things that people get used to, namely their working environment, life is the same here. It's a modern country with the same kind of businesses and entertainment. You'll find almost any kind of food you want in Seoul (not in Yongin though!); they have poutine for god's sake, mais pas de tourtiere! Korean restaurants are super cheap and you eat well. I think it's impossible to get fat in Korea except if you constantly eat Western food like McDonald's and Italian food (cream sauce spaghetti!)

It's a big change to teach to kids, I had no experience whatsoever with dealing with kids in my life. Now that fact is changing greatly though. I don't have to discipline them though, it's not my job and anyways I can't really do that in English to a Korean kid; he won't get it! The job in a public school is fairly easy, the pay is good and the hours are good also. Half my day is dedicated to teaching, the other half is pretty much sitting at my desk preparing a bit for the next day and mostly browsing the net and studying Korean (yes I'm taking Korean language classes at the moment).

So with this said I'm looking forward to the coming months here in Korea. I'm getting used to life here more and more and I'm also meeting more people. Cheers!

Happy New Years to all!
프랑수아 (Francois)