Strike 1 For Korea

Before I started on this year teaching ESL in Korea I told myself I would give things three strikes before I seriously considered other options. By three strikes I mean three seriously unacceptable incidents or behaviours. Today was strike one. I was standing at my kitchen counter when my landlord opened the locked door to my apartment with his own key. Didn’t even bother to knock.  I instinctively grabbed a large knife on the kitchen counter, wondering exactly how things were going to develop. I have never actually seen the owner of the place so had no idea who this stranger was illegally trespassing in my residence. He closed the door quickly when he saw me. I put down the knife, gave it a second, then went and opened the door. He was at the next apartment with a huge roll of keys, looking like he planned to trespass there as well.

This incident is strike one. Three strikes = bye-bye Korea. I’m out of here without the slightest hesitation or remorse regarding the circumstances of my departure.  I hear great things about teaching English in Prague.


Comments

Re: Strike 1 For Korea

You may as well leave now, or come to the realization that after about 341,962 strikes this place will have grown on you and you will never leave. Let me ask you this in all seriousness. If your landlord back home had opened your apartment without knocking, would you move out of that apartment? Is that a proportionate reaction? Is leaving a perfectly decent country a response in proportion to your landlord's action? If you go to Prague and your landlord opens your door without knocking, will you then go to Saudi Arabia? And if they open your door... And so on. You will always either find some reason to pull the plug on your host nation or you will learn to roll with social faux pas. I bet your landlord was more embarrassed than you.