Word gets around

I was on a tour bus heading out to River Road the other day and I struck up a conversation with a lovely Australian woman who was in town with her husband and son. She was an experienced, certified teacher and was curious about my time in Korea. She was thinking about doing it and asked if I could recommend it. I can honestly say I found that a really hard question to answer. As much as I tried to be gracious and espouse the positives of Korea, I failed miserably.

I tried; I really did. I told her of the fantastic people I worked with, the culture, the food, the travel and the many friends I made during my time there and tried to leave it at that. Her next question was, of course, “So why did you leave?” I’m a terrible liar so I told her the truth – Korean government agencies have some horribly discriminatory, xenophobic and downright ridiculous policies in place and I couldn’t stomach it. She asked me to elaborate so I told her of the Education Office's E2 testing policy, how I refused the tests and how the Education Office revoked their offer of a 2nd contract. Needless to say, she was dumbstruck and didn’t understand how such a policy came about or how it would help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS so I gave her a brief rundown of AES, Korea's yellow journalism etc.

In the end, despite me reiterating the positives of my Korean experience, she said that she felt the negatives would outweigh them as, like me, discrimination was something her and her husband felt very strongly about and that they’d have to cross Korea off the list.

Way to go Korea.