The titles is startling, I know; but don’t worry! I am currently back in Korea… I’d say I’ve been teaching all week, but with the exception of the day I lost my voice and the one after, I haven’t really been doing much teaching at all (but kudos to me for not skipping school!)
It’s been a very eventful week! I’m surprised I’m not in any worse shape than I am now, but truth be told I am doing much better than usual. I’ve been on a health-kick the last month (as I mentioned before) and I am loving it! It’s easy to see why people get addicted to exercise. I’ve mostly been biking and doing home workouts, yoga on Wednesdays to fix my tense muscles up. I beat some of my best records biking yesterday but my Strava app messed up so I lost the data ㅠㅠ. It’s okay though because my next ride will have me beat all my personal bests 10-fold! My muscle gain is visible, same with my weight loss (lost 7kg! 6 more to go and I will meet my goal!).
Although I am in korea now, I don’t think I will be for much longer. A few changes took place over the last month that changed my mind about staying here. First I found out a lot of folks are leaving anyway. The Imsil office of education has been treating teachers very unfairly and it’s only a matter of time before those problems start to effect me too. If it weren’t for some great teachers and friends here who’ve had my back, I would be in the same boat as some of the newer teachers who’ve been getting the shit end of the stick.
With that being said; I’ve been learning Chinese and I am rather good at it. My girlfriend is in Hangzhou, CN, and fate keeps seeming to push me over that way. As much as I love (and I mean LOVE) the nature and mountains here in Korea, especially Imsil, I think It’s time I move on. I’ve got good friends and memories here in Korea, and Korea is an amazing place to start a career as an English teacher, but my heart just isn’t here…. It’s been in Cambodia for 5 years but when it comes to home I can take to a little polyamory. I absolutely love Hangzhou and the parts of China I plan on making my home. It’s a new adventure and I think I’ve got a good shot at becoming fluent in Chinese within a few years time if I stick with it. Yesterday I was given my choice as to whether or not I would stay or go. I think I made the right choice:
But fret not friends in Korea who may or may not read this! A round-trip ticket between Korea and Shanghai is roughly around the $150 to $220 range. In Korea getting this ticket just means foregoing restaurants for a week or two (which is easy because I cook at home mostly now and now that I don’t pay for smokes or alcohol I’ve been saving that money too!).
And it becomes well worth the saving as well! Shanghai and Hangzhou are absolutely beautiful! I was honestly very shocked at what I had seen. Anytime I read anything about China it was always about the market prices, pollution, factories, etc. Never really a shred of good news. In university I learned about some interesting history and culture, but never really learned much about the present day. Before arriving in Shanghai I assumed I would be spending one more year in Korea. After spending time there (and then later Hangzhou) I realized I couldn’t stay in Korea much longer than my contract would allow me.
Right now, China is really pushing to make things greener for their country. There are two key differences between China and Korea that I noticed when it comes to the way people are handling things: 1. Shanghai, Hanzhou, Zhengzou, all different cities I’ve seen, have trash cans everywhere. There is a place to put your recycling and a place to put general garbage. There are people who walk around cleaning the streets of cigarette butts and other such things. The trash cans alone make everything so nice….. Korea doesn’t believe in the existence of trash cans unless it is a national park or something. There is literally trash everywhere. In the cities of Korea, it is normal for one person to place their trash somewhere, and then this place becomes the area where most people set down their trash. someone eventually cleans it up the next day but the wind and foot traffic moves everything around. It kind of makes a lot of places in Korea look a little dirty.
Take this to the countryside where there are less people to clean up trash, and the wind is gonna blow this garbage into rivers and forests where no one will go to pick stuff up. Imsil and a lot of countryside towns have garbage all over the place. The street before my house is littered with trash. The river is full of trash. The woods are lined with trash. I get it’s a small country and it doesn’t seem like a problem now, but what if Korea was the size of China? This country would literally be a garbage heap and I think no one would bother to fix it…. and this bugs me too because Koreans seem to be very clean people. You take your shoes off at the door, recycling seems to be taken seriously, tables are wiped down, you wash everything before eating. It almost seems like if it’s not in their home/business, it’s not their problem. It confuses me.
On the other hand, Korea has less air pollution and there is a lot more nature. wild-life is taken seriously, the mountains, parks, and historic artifacts are regarded with a lot of care. and in the case of peoples homes, they tend to be kept pretty well maintained. Just in my bike rides this is evident: here is a national treasure hiding in Imsil:
The other thing I noticed is that developed cities like Hangzhou and Shanghai have a ton of greenery and diversity of architecture throughout.
galestudio.wordpress.com 