Before I came to South Korea in February this year my friend Bongiwe Ndhlovu told me this: if you think Rhodes is a bubble, you’re in for a surprise.
Before I came to South Korea in February this year my friend Bongiwe Ndhlovu told me this: if you think Rhodes is a bubble, you’re in for a surprise.
South Korea is filled with series-watching, pub-crawling former Rhodes students, said Bongiwe, a Rhodes University graduate who spent one-and-a-half years teaching in Busan, South Korea. As I was sipping Singapore Slings on Singapore Airlines, heading for my Asian adventure, I heard everyone around me mourn the loss of Cougar Monday and brownies at the Block House.
That’s when I knew. All Rhodes lead to South Korea. It’s not a new or exceptionally creative vocation. What is new is the great influx of English foreign language (EFL) teachers in South Korea in the past few years. I am part of a government-sponsored programme called EPIK (English Programme in Korea), that recruits guest English teachers.
The requirements are strict, the paper work is brutal, the background checks are thorough and the drug test is… necessary. Previously EPIK employed one guest teacher per government school, but this year EPIK has employed two guest teachers per government school throughout the country, which fuelled the sudden boom in foreign teachers roaming Korean streets.
Not to mention all the private institutions or academies also employing foreign teachers. A great proportion of these foreign teachers are South African and, of these, many are Rhodes University graduates.
We even have our own Facebook page, called “Rhodents in South Korea.” Nicky Dorrington, a 2011 graduate, teaches at a language centre in Chungji-si, Chungcheongbuk-do, a small city near the country’s capital, Seoul.
Nicky, like many other graduates, came to Korea to pay her student debts. “My Rhodes tuition was paid for, but not my living costs and between res and digs and interests, it’s a hefty amount,” she said. “The best job I could get in South Africa was in Cape Town and would have paid around R6 900 after tax.”
Lara-Lee Rothwell also graduated from Rhodes this year, and she now lives in Andong, a traditional city known for its conservative population and patriotism. (That didn’t stop an old woman from patting my buttocks and chuckling when I visited Andong in May.) Lara-Lee said, “I once got smacked on the arm by a furious passing ‘ajumma’ (old granny) because I was showing my shoulders on a sweltering hot day!”
In South Korea it’s acceptable for women to wear extra short skirts or shorts, as long as their shoulders and collar bones are covered. I live in Daegu, the hottest, most humid city in the country, and I have to go to school in little cardigans all summer.
Something that shocked Nicky was seeing how some Korean women aspire to be more western, by “having their freckles surgically removed, and dying their beautiful dark hair awful and unnatural shades of blonde and red”.
Apart from the language barrier, there is also the accent barrier. “The only difficulty I have experienced in Korea being a South African is the accent barrier! I have had to employ an Americanised accent in the classroom (and general conversation with Koreans) so that the students have a better understanding of what I am saying,” said Lara-Lee.
Then there are also oriental-style toilets, communal showers at the gym, with gaping old women, a societal hierarchy built on age, a drinking culture no Rhodent can match, not to mention all the bowing, to keep Rhodes alumni in line and on our toes. At least for a little while, I’d say.
