New York, New York...That Closes at One

New York – The City that Never Sleeps, The Melting Pot, The City of Apples.

This famous city was to be the destination for our family holiday. It was a welcome break too as I hadn’t seen them in 9 months or so. Expectations were high for this one, especially considering it is touted as “the greatest city in the world”, but it’s not like Americans to exaggerate or boast.

The trip didn’t start off too well. First, there was a visa issue which almost prevented me from travelling, and once that was sorted I had an 8,000-mile journey from Seoul to New York, via Shanghai (no, I didn’t get lost, the flights were cheaper that way). 26 hours-ish. Each way. When you’ve got a long journey like that you want to travel with a quality airline, so that’s why I flew with China Eastern. And if the Chinese are known for one thing it’s quality.

It gave me a chance to catch up on some classic movies that you must see before you die. Movies such as Transformers: Age of Extinction and Furious 7. Wow, Furious 7 is an awful movie. I know why Paul Walker died, he saw the first edit of the movie and committed suicide. That movie grossed $1.5billion. Yeah, billion. Anyway, I couldn’t finish it.

Arriving in New York is pretty surreal. I’ve seen the city hundreds of times on TV and in movies, but to be there was awe-inspiring, especially coming from Seoul. I love Seoul, but it’s a hideous city. The architecture in New York is truly amazing.

I know, I’m comparing the best and worst aspects of the two cities.

Before leaving Seoul I made a list of “things I must see/do in New York”. You know, the cliché, touristy stuff everyone does. The list included:

• Seeing the city from the observation deck of the Empire State Building.
• Visit the Statue of Liberty.
• Overhear a vegan hipster say something like “my band only records on vinyl, it sounds way better” while walking into a Wholefoods.
• Connect with a New Yorker by saying things like “Texas is real America,” and “things will be different when Trump is in power.”
• See a moaning Jew.

Amongst other things.

Top of the Rock

Above all else, the thing that I was most excited to do in New York was attend a comedy show at The Comedy Cellar in Manhattan. When I was a teenager and everyone was talking above their favourite bands and experimenting with drugs I was listening to the back catalogues of stand-up comedians. I would spend hours upon hours listening to content wherever I could find it and I developed a preference for American stand-up. Stand-up is the purest form of comedy. No script editing, no directors changing the concept, no interfering producers. A person can have a thought, go on stage and deliver that thought. It is art. An art form that yields instant results – if it is funny people will laugh.

The hubs for comedy in America are Los Angeles, Chicago, but none more so than New York.

Some of the biggest names in comedy started, passed through, or continue to ply their trade in New York. People such as; Dave Chappelle, Larry David, Bill Burr, Aziz Ansari, Patrice O’Neal, Woody Allen, Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Chris Rock, and the incredible Louis C.K., to name just a few of my favourites.

So being in New York presented me with an opportunity to experience this first hand. I retraced the steps of Louis C.K. in the opening credits of his show Louie. Surfacing from West 4^th Street Subway Station, walking towards The Comedy Cellar stopping at Ben’s Pizzeria for a slice. The night at The Cellar was amazing and hopefully it won’t be my last experience of the New York comedy scene.

Sure, I posed like a tourist, but I was a tourist.

The weather was remarkable too. It varied from sunshine, howling winds, long downpours, and even snow. Snow in April, who’d have thought it? I can confirm it as I saw it when I stumbled out of the Private Eyes strip club at 5am on a Monday morning. I didn’t know you could rate and review strip clubs, but it has a 2-star rating on Yelp, which is about right.

We were the ultimate group of tourists having gone to Times Square, The Rockefeller Centre, the Empire State Building, Ellis Island, Liberty Island, an NBA game at the Barclays Centre, the 9/11 Memorial, the Natural History Museum, and so many other places that I can’t remember.

Times Square - The novelty wears off pretty quickly when you walk through it everyday.

The Statue of Liberty and Manhattan

By the end of the trip I did feel like a true New Yorker, I was annoyed with all the tourists in Times Square and was even arguing with taxi drivers.

“Where to?”
“Brooklyn Ave Station, please.”
“There is no Brooklyn Ave Station.”
“There is, so just take me there.”
“I don’t know where you want me to take you.”
“Look mate, I’m in a rush and if you’re not going to take me I’ll just take the subway.”

I got on the subway, checked the map and it said Bedford Ave Station. Of all the station names to forget and I forgot Bedford. Yes, I argued with a taxi driver who had probably been driving around the city for 20 years even though I’d only been there for 2 days. I was blending in, that’s what us New Yorkers do.

You can choose your friends...

Luckily Dad had a hair dye accident, which meant he had the dodgier Barnet of the two of us.

5 days just isn’t enough there. I walked a lot, laughed even more, and ate too much. It was great to spend time with my family, and no doubt I will be back again.

I Speak Two Languages, Body and English

I have come to Korea trying my luck at a job I have never done before, a profession that I’ve never really considered, with no idea as to whether I’d be successful at it. A good teacher requires; patience, a caring nature, and knowledge to impart, three qualities that I lack but I thought I’d give it a go anyway. As I write this blog I have just finished my first full week and this is my experience of it.

I was given my teaching schedule and I found out that I have drawn the short straw as I have 7am classes. So for my first day I awoke at 6am and I was out of my apartment by 6:30. I live in a very lively neighbourhood; close to a Konkuk University there are many pubs, bars, clubs, and restaurants along my commute to the school, which unfortunately for me are all still open at that time. People are out drinking, smoking, laughing and enjoying life which is not what I want to see as I walk to work so early on a Monday morning. There aren’t many people that have to walk through the Korean equivalent of the Zante strip on their journey to work, regrettably I’m one of them.

I was lucky enough to have some form of training before I was put in a classroom, the school I work for are generous in offering a two week orientation. Over that time I had learned the method of teaching but I still had no experience. So when my first class came around I was shitting myself but it really wasn’t that bad. I stuck to the methodology, made use of all the material the school offered, and if in doubt I went with the trustworthy “repeat after me”. If anything I actually found the adult classes to be quite enjoyable. Then the afternoon came around and it was time to teach the children. I thought teaching adults for the first time was being thrown in at the deep end but that was a toe-dip in comparison to teaching children. They’re pure bundles of energy that are a nightmare to control. The kid classes are difficult but they can be fun. I persevered and got through them, and then it was the turn of the teenagers. When Koreans hit puberty, they are just a mass of hormones, they’re so shy. They sit blank faced in silence, avoiding eye contact hoping that they won’t have to speak to answer a question and when they do they become low talkers. This is being thrown in at the deep end and having your head held under the water for 30-40 minutes at a time. Brutal. I hate the teenager classes because they scare me. I am more afraid of Korean teenagers than I am of the Taliban, the greatest threat to the western world. Let’s face it, the Taliban couldn’t even take down one Pakistani school girl, but the silent treatment you get from the teenagers is enough to make any man cave.

On my very first day of teaching I was still finding my feet and had many questions to ask. I was about to go into a classroom to teach a teenage class and I asked the co-ordinator about which section of the textbook I should teach to which she replied “we won’t be using that book this term and the new books haven’t arrived yet so just go and teach anything you want”, and then she walked away. What kind of advice is that to a brand new teacher?! Teach anything you want. With no preparation time and no material I went into the classroom, I decided to teach from that textbook anyway but I was asking them questions about text they couldn’t read and pictures they couldn’t see. The lesson became an endurance. Jerry Seinfeld once said “all human endeavour is killing time”, and teaching Korean teenagers English is the epitome of that, just running down the clock. (Two Seinfeld references in one blog, aren’t you lucky).

I’ve tried to think of ways to motivate these students to make my life easier, but there are only two ways that will actually get results, reward and fear. I’ve started offering/bribing the younger students sweets to get them to talk and it has worked, if it gets to the stage where that is no longer a motivation for them then I’ll start kidnapping their families and writing ransom notes in English. I bought a big bag of sweets and like most kids they only want the good flavours, so at the bottom of the bag were the coffee sweets that the kids didn’t want. I remember as a kid that I hated them too but I thought I’d have one and you know what, it wasn’t that bad. It was at that point in my life that my childhood was over at the age of 24. For most people it’s when they start to have more responsibility, when they get a mortgage or have children, my realisation was liking coffee flavoured candy. I knew that disappointing day would come eventually and now I realise I’m an adult. Depressing.

There are times when the kids can be a little overwhelming, trying to control eight six-year-olds but then I think to myself “I reckon I could take them” I could cause some serious damage to these kids, so what have I got to be worried about? The teenagers have their own problems, they often say something in Korean and then they all laugh which means they are laughing at me, but to be honest ever since I was a teenager I’ve been used to teenage girls laughing at me so it’s like water off a ducks back. You seem to get your favourites in your classes, some students make your life easier and others are there to test your ability not to hit children. Maybe these kids exist as a punishment for all the times I was a little shit at school, maybe I deserve it. Karma’s a bitch. Actually, you know what? I’m glad I was a nightmare student as a child, I’m pretty sure I would have misbehaving children regardless of whether I was well behaved at school or not. So for all the suffering I’m going through at the moment I’m glad I made some other teachers life a misery growing up. What’s that expression? Two wrongs make a right? Yeah, that sounds accurate.

I sometimes feel like I'm making a difference. When you teach someone something it does make you feel good but there are other times when you repeat yourself over and over again and it just doesn't sink in. No matter how many times I practise pronunciation it doesn’t really matter. I sometimes feel like I’m teaching a whole class of Ralphs.

Teaching as a whole hasn’t been as bad as I once feared. The adult classes are easy, they’re the ones that are paying their bill so obviously they want to make the most of their lesson time. Whereas the children and teenagers are forced to be there by their parents, so I don’t really blame them for not being the most focused. If I was sent to after school classes every day of my childhood I’d have been miserable too. The teenagers should be doing what the British teenagers are doing, taking drugs and getting pregnant. That’s the British way! They shouldn’t be in education, when has that ever helped anyone?