The 5 stages of being a Black teacher in Korea (part 1)

Denial and Isolation.

When I first got to Korea I was placed in a seedy 2 bedroom apartment with no hot water and a drunken Irishman due home at anytime during the night. I could not leave the apartment to find food because the door had a numerical lock that the braintrust at my hagwon failed to tell me. So I sat in the room with a steak knife under the Peter Rabbit pillow and ate the Nutrigrain bars I brought with me from America. I spent the entire night thinking what have I done? I had a good life in America. I could sit at the Social Security Administration for 25 more years and watch my ass grow into the Unicor furniture. The next day my Irish roomate (who sounded like the chef on the Muppet Show) and his bald Korean girlfriend introduced themselves and escorted me to our office. That was about 60% of the interaction we would have for the next 5 months.

So after a few weeks of isolation and depression the anger sets in. You grow tired of the stares and whispers when you pass. Children cry and babies are clutched to their mothers breast whenever you are around. Women won't ride the elevators with you if you are male(because you flew 6,000 miles just to rape a middle aged Korean) It is not as much fun as you thought and you aren't getting everything you are suppose to receive as per your contract (or common decency) because Koreans have a mercurial relationship with the truth. My boss( a mildly attractive Korean woman with an openly gay husband with a ponytail and a son who is due to come out of the closet any day now) would tell me a lie that she knew that I knew was a lie just to save face. Typical lie

Me: can I have my money?
Cunt Lee Sure on Friday
Friday comes around

Me: can I have my money
Cunt Lee I can't pay you because it is against the law to give foreigners
money?
Que Me exploding in anger and refusing to teach.

Scene 2

Me: Who referred to me as the nigger?
Boss: I didn't do that (I only say it in Korean)
Gay Husband: not me
Gay husband boyfriend: not me
Boss's Boyfriend: I didn't say it.
Me(in the middle of the
office): Yelling You wanted the nigga
nigga hear now (Before I left I watched 40yo alot)