Category Archives: Admin

Another washing machine in another shower …

Admin, Daegu, ,

I am not a fan of moving house. Some people find the change exciting and enjoy the packing and the unpacking. I’m not one of those. I don’t mind unpacking as much – creating order out of chaos appeals to my OCD side – but it takes ages for me to settle and I really, really hate packing. Moving house in a foreign country is a whole new level of misery.

The question of me moving has been discussed on and off for months. When I first moved here, I was told I would be living within walking distance from the school. Then that changed and I was told it would be a few months before I could move. Then, in November, I was told I’d be moving soon. Then I was told I’d move at the end of January. And so on and so on. So, you can imagine my dismay when I discovered on Tuesday that they wanted me to move now, only to a place not anywhere near being within walking distance of the school. In fact, when they first mentioned it, they referred to an area that isn’t even on a bus route. I was, I think understandably, unimpressed. After explaining repeatedly, to people who only use private cars, that a place not on any bus route may as well be in Siberia in terms of convenience, they finally got around to explaining where the place actually is, at which point I – being the only person familiar with the bus routes – figured out that there would be a bus. After a lot of stress I really didn’t need.

Then I discovered, on Thursday evening, that I would be moving on Sunday. The practice of only informing people of things three minutes before they happen seems to be a Korean ‘thing’. Several of my friends have also commented on it. Perhaps there is something cultural that de-prioritizes proper advanced planning. It bothers me. A lot. Particularly in a case like this, where the short notice meant that all the work of sorting and packing, along with all the emotional ups and downs of moving, has to be squeezed into three days. I asked how the move would happen. They said they’d organise movers to come in and move the furniture. I also got to pop into the new place so that I’d know what I needed to bring with me. Armed with this information, I started packing on Friday. This largely involved taking everything out of cupboards and all the pictures off walls and putting them in piles.

On Saturday I was woken early by worries about moving. I spent the morning sorting through things and then made a couple of trips to the new flat with a backpack full of things like books and plates and frying pans. I would have continued during the afternoon but I had plans to meet a friend downtown, a friend who is leaving shortly and whose company was infinitely preferable to the packing.

As happens when the company is congenial and there is ice-cream and strawberry dessert, the time just flew by and before we knew it, it was evening and we decided to grab some dinner before heading home. The ice-cream and strawberry creation, accompanied by miniature bottles of Rose, was at Café Lucid, which I hadn’t discovered before but which was lovely and quirky and the perfect place for sitting and chatting for hours. For dinner we ended up, after walking in a large circle, at Gulliver’s Travels – an ‘antique restaurant’. An antique restaurant is not, for the record, a place that cooks and serves up antiques, as the name may suggest. Rather, it is decorated with an eclectic collection of antique bits and pieces, paired with old record covers, big wooden tables and comfy chairs. The food was pretty good and the atmosphere lovely so we, not surprisingly, lost track of time all over again and before we knew it, it was nearly 10pm.

Sunday was far, far less fun. I woke up early so that I could get everything done. The movers were coming at 2pm so I had time to finish packing once I actually managed to drag my exhausted body out of bed. I packed up another backpack full of stuff, as well as a grocery bag (think Woolworth’s canvas bags) full of tins and dry pasta, and headed to the new flat. At the new flat, I unpacked the bags and put stuff in cupboards and drawers and then headed back to the old place to get the next load. These trips involved me walking down the hill to the bus stop (5 to 10 minutes), waiting for the bus (10 to 15 minutes), taking the bus the 10 or 15 minutes to the area of my new flat, unpacking (15 minutes), and taking the same bus back and walking back up the hill (20 minutes). I managed two more trips across to the new place before 1pm, taking everything I wanted from the kitchen.

The person from my school who was organising things phoned me at 2pm to tell me that he wasn’t able to be there just yet but that the movers had arrived. I let them in and watched in frustration as they packed everything in the house into the same crates to move them, as if they were all going to the same place. They spoke no English and my very few words of Korean had deserted me, so we were entirely unable to communicate. I was moving from a two-bedroom apartment to a one-room flat. The new place is just a bit bigger than a university res room. There was no way all this stuff would fit. The Beommul-dong flat is also the place where a series of foreign teachers have lived over several years, many of whom have left things behind: basketballs, weights, a large table, books and videos in which I have no interest, a huge hi-fi system with speakers and radio and tape deck, a pressure cooker. None of these are things I wanted, especially in my tiny new flat. I watched with growing impotent panic as they packed them all up.

Just then, to make things worse, the landlord’s wife came in and started talking at me in Korean. I couldn’t understand her. And I was already miserable and stressed and tired. I tried to explain that I didn’t understand. She just kept on and on talking at me in Korean, getting louder and more and more annoyed. By the time my boss arrived, ages and ages after he was supposed to be there, I was close to tears. He proceeded to have long conversations with various people before we could finally leave. I suspect that the problem was that the landlord and his wife – neither of whom I had actually seen much of at all before this horrible day – had not been informed that I’d be moving out. Either way, it was not a fun few hours.

We arrived at the new place and I had another struggle to convince the movers and the person from my school that they could not just dump all the stuff at my new place. I stood my ground fiercely and eventually got just the few things I wanted moved in. They left and I went upstairs and collapsed on my couch and stared at the the things I needed to unpack.

The silver lining of the whole experience is that I quite like the new place. It really is tiny, one room which includes sleeping area, sitting area and cooking area – picture a bedroom closet next to a refrigerator and the sink and cooker, just a couple of feet from the edge of the bed and the couch – plus a little bathroom. But it on the second floor on the top of a hill and the windows that look out across the top of buildings towards tree-covered hills and, most importantly, I can see the sky. Blue sky and clouds and stars and everything. Just up the road is a large art gallery and theatre (Suseong Artpia) with another small tree-covered hill. Nearby (probably within 10 or 15 minutes walking distance) is Suseong Lake. The hill I have to climb to get home is much, much gentler than the one I used to walk up from the bus stop and also shorter. There are better and closer little shops. At the end of the road, literally 10 minutes walk away (I timed it) is The Hut where we generally gather on a Friday night to drink dongdongju and eat kimchi pancakes. Almost all my friends live in the area. There is a range of little restaurants and take away places within a couple of blocks. A lot of the top fancy restaurants in town are nearby. Inside, the flat is done in a colour scheme of back and white, instead of the sickly, faded pink and green which was starting to drive me mad. And there is far more light and air because the windows aren’t shaded by other buildings.

So the destination isn’t all bad, but I think I’ll try and avoid the experience of moving house in a foreign country again, at least unless I can be absolutely sure that the people involved all speak English and I have a little more time and a little more control. Oh, and just for the record, there is a washing machine in my new shower, too. Only in Korea…

Banking

Admin,

Thursday was the day when I finally got a Korean bank account. I’ve been here for two months now, so it has become something of an inconvenience not to have the modern conveniences of life like an ordinary debit card. I dislike the admin of being in a foreign country but, as a friend pointed out when the whole process leading up to my trip was getting me down, that’s the price you pay for wanting to work in a strange land. And I’ve handled the frustration of the admin, as well as things not always going exactly according to plan at work, fairly well. Colleagues and superiors here have commented several times on how well I handle the semi-chaos and that I never complain. It’s something of a vindication after being called a difficult employee by more than one boss in the past.

On Thursday, however, all the admin of getting my alien card had finally passed and I headed off with my boss to set up a Korean bank account. I’ve never been a particular fan of banks. I find them annoyingly beauracratic and time-consuming, particularly with SA’s FICA system. I am starting to think, however, that the annoying South African banks are really the best of the bunch. Apart from anything else, it’s intimidating to be setting up an account in a place where no-one speaks English. For this reason, I was glad to have my boss with me. He did all the talking and got me set up with a foreign currency account which should, at some point in the near future, allow me to send money home, as well as a Korean account so that I can move money around here. I would have preferred to be able to set up one account for everything but apparently here you have to have a separate account if you want to do internet banking. That said, the initial hassle is probably worth it to be able to move money, particularly because the ATMs are all in Korean and close at midnight. Of course, I’m still in the process of setting up my computer so that I can actually do internet banking but I’m sure I’ll manage. The site has an English version, so I will hopefully be able to manage and navigate it.

The bank itself was a strange experience. I’m used to banks being cool, quiet places of organisation, security and order. At a South African bank you have to enter through a double security door, where there is almost invariably a security guard, and a place to check any weapons. Cellphones are not allowed and the staff are serious people, going quietly about their business. Everyone speaks in hushed tones and the tellers are all (at least seemingly) discrete and professional. Compared to that, this felt a little like a circus. The place was warm and welcoming with balloons and bright colours and posters and ads for (I assume) special deals and accounts. There was minimal security. The staff all seemed to be wearing different outfits and behaved, really, just like ordinary office workers. There were numerous customers chatting on cellphones, a baby crying and a toddler wandering around in shoes that squeaked like a child’s squeaky toy. A man I assume was the manager wandered around having loud conversations with staff and customers. One teller was sitting at his desk with a cup of take-away coffee-shop iced coffee. People ambled backwards and forwards with wads of cash and with people’s cards and bankbooks. Once I handed over my passport and alien card, the person who was helping me chatted to the person next to him and wandered off with it and had loud conversations with my boss, possibly about how to write ‘South African’ in Korean. I then had to sign a small forest of forms – all in Korean, so that I have no real idea what I signed (I’m relying on my boss and hoping that I haven’t just signed over my entire life to the bank).

After what felt like an age of signing forms and entering secret pin codes (you have to invent your own pin number here, instead of them assigning you one – which seems to me to be somehow less secure) and listening to harried conversations in Korea, I eventually left with two bank books. The bank-book concept has fallen out of favour in SA as a result of its inconvenience but seems to be alive and well here. It wasn’t until we got back to the car that I timidly asked about a debit/ATM card. Either this is not standard practice here, or it just hadn’t occurred to anyone that I might want to be able to access my money using quick and easy modern methods. I’d assumed that they’d immediately issue a card – as they do at home. In fact, given that I am likely to have trouble communicating my requirements to every bank teller I ever deal with, and that I won’t be able to read any of the Korean forms that I assume are required to withdraw and/or transfer money, I would think it would be in their own interests – purely for the sanity of their bank tellers. Apparently not. My boss has promised to go back to the bank (there are several branches near work) at some point next week to sort that out.

On the advice of a foreign colleague, I also set up the service that sends a text message every time a transaction is complete. I’m very used to having ‘In-contact’ on my SA accounts and have some of the South African paranoia about crime, so it’s good to know that I’m able to do that here, even if it does cost me a little.

On the plus side, I now have an account into which they’ve been able to pay my August salary, so once the card is sorted out I will have money and- provided I go into the branch with confirmation from my school that the money comes from my salary – be able to send money out of the country.

As frustrating as the admin can be, it’s good to know that I now have an alien registration card (although it’s currently with my boss who is registering it with the Department of Education) and a bank account or two. As far as I know, that is all the admin I need to worry about for now, unless of course – which is entirely possible – there is something else which no-one has told me about, but I’m hoping to be admin free for the next couple of weeks at least.

Anticipation

Admin, Travel,

In a conversation not long ago, we chatted about how much of an agony anticipation can actually be. The idea of an exciting, joyous, happy-making future event is great. Or at least, it sounds great. But when the future-event is not certain (or – worse – is less certain than you think) and when the time-frame is not definite, it can get terribly frustrating and even a little depressing. It also makes you cynical. I have become cynical. After many disasters and disappointments, I’m not at all convinced that this trip will actually happen.

Perhaps in direct response to this – Murphy’s law and all – things actually appear to have worked out. By this I mean that I appear to be all set to leave the country.  After months of waiting and bureaucratic hoop-jumping, things have suddenly fallen into place. It seems.

The last step was applying for my visa at the South Korean consulate. This is really a follow-up step. The process starts (the visa process, I mean – the whole process starts with the SA bureaucracy) when you send all your precious documents (degree, criminal record check, etc.) to the school in Korea. They then submit your paperwork and – assuming you’re not a terrible criminal and haven’t lied about having a degree – get a visa issuance number, which they then send to you. This is perhaps why the process of applying for a visa in Pretoria (at the South Korean consulate) is so peculiarly painless and unbureaucratic – because the initial work has been done already.

Whatever the reason, this last little bit of the process of trying to leave the country has definitely been the least painful of the lot. In fact, it has been very pleasant. Simple, efficient, quick. The fact that this is sufficiently foreign to have me suspicious is probably an indictment on the poor service from SA’s bureaucracy. Alternatively, it’s just because the South Korean consulate in SA are super-fantastic. Or at least, the people I dealt with are.

For a start, they are able to read and respond to an email requesting information on how the process should work. Quickly. Which is a revolutionary idea. The actual application required one completed form, one photograph, some money and a passport. That’s all. No forms in triplicate, no jumping through hoops. I simply dropped off the form, money and photo and passport. I’ve also been having an email conversation with them and when I mentioned that I’m hoping to leave shortly, they rushed the visa through. Generally a South Korean visa will take 3 working days to process here in SA – which is pretty amazingly quick anyway. I dropped the application off on Monday late morning and picked it up yesterday at 10am. Quick and easy.

So I now have a visa. Actually, I now have a visa and a flight. It seems the anticipation may finally, actually, be over in just less than a week. Right now now that fills me with relief and happiness and sunshine and light. I imagine it will become less thrilling and increasingly terrifying as the week proceeds.