I'm an Alien!

Wow, as of today, I believe all of the bureacracy of setting up life in Korea is done! Visa, check. Mobile phone, check. Foreign Residency Card... check! (It came in the mail Friday!!) And this morning, bank account, check.
Getting the Foreign Residency Card (aka my "green card") turned out not to be too painful, but with Korea's recent upgrade of requirements for incoming language teachers, there was a lot of runaround as most of the key people who are supposed to enforce the new requirements don't quite know what they're doing.
Take, for instance, my visit to the hospital just a few days after arriving. When my boss explained to the receptionist that I needed blood and urine testing for (for communicable diseases and drugs), they looked wide-eyed and a bit confused, and then began a string of phonecalls to find out what to do with me. From there on out, the experience was painless. The hospital was quite new and not especially busy. The medical workers seemed quite professional. And aside from having to carry my "sample" back to the nurse in an open container (plastic cup!), everything was on the up and up.
Harrison and I returned to the hospital this past Tuesday for the results of my testing. Everything was clear, which was not surprising but still a relief. (I've wondered what my recourse would be if my results came back with some question... would I be deported without further analysis? Did I have any recourse? Some things are better not messed with, and I was rather glad at least this part of my "initiation process" was straightforward.) We did, however, have to wait for quite some time again while the hospital staff tried to figure out what kind of documentation to give us. It seems I am the first foreigner to this hospital to request testing for alien status. I knew Seosan was small, but I didn't think it was THAT small!
After leaving the hospital, Harrison drove me to Taean's (next city over) Immigration Office, where I filled out a bunch of forms and left my passport in their careful protection. And apparently they processed me quickly, because Friday night, I had my green card in hand! It really helps to have a boss who is watching out for me -- I have read of quite a few experiences of English teachers in China who find out only too late that their visas, which their bosses were apparently attending to, never materialized, and they are forced to leave the country. Nothing like that here... fortunately :) I have to say, I am impressed with the efficiency of things in Korea. I guess we're getting off to a pretty good start!

My Battle with Bureacracy

Living in Korea Lesson #1: Never underestimate the amount of bureaucracy involved in getting your E2 visa!!
This process that I started literally 3 months ago is still not yet finished, despite the fact that I am actually here in Korea! After a quite lengthy, somewhat confusing, an often nerve-wracking paper shuffle, and a little good karma, I managed to get the green light to step onto Korean soil. Here is my E-2 visa two-step, in a nutshell (written especially for all of you who I know are secretly thinking, I want to teaching in Korea!! But... where do I start??):
The early part of the process involved applying for a new passport (my passport from my Round-the-World trip in 2006 was "seriously mutilated," according to the postal worker taking my application), which meant ordering a new birth certificate and getting my picture snapped. Then I had to arrange for fingerprinting at my local police station and forward them to the FBI with a request for my criminal report. Being that I was in Utah and my diploma was buried somewhere in a box in my parents' house in Pennsylvania, I next had to contact my university for a new diploma and multiple sealed transcripts. And then I waited... and waited... and waited.
The first to arrive was my new passport, which was utterly amazing. Without expediting my order, I received it in a week's time (when are government agencies EVER ahead of schedule?? I was amazed.). I was impressed with he new passport layout -- pages watermarked with symbols of American pride and heritage, and encoded with a microchip, plus biometric scanning capability of my passport photo. Most exciting was that they had returned my mutilated passport to me (I was told I wouldn't get it back)... so all of the stamps I acquired from stomping around Europe and Morocco) are mine to keep!! Then the diploma and transcripts arrived. And finally, the FBI report. As it turns out, they took me off the "Most Wanted" list. OK, kidding, I'm still on it. You would think that a report from the FBI would be "proof enough" for Korean Immigration. But no, they require a special seal to be affixed to your report, which is called an apostille. I'd never heard of one before, but apparently, after some such Hague Convention a few years back, a system was agreed upon for authenticating documents for international recognition. Quite a few countries now required that documents be authenticated with an apostille. As this is a fairly new requirement, I got quite a bit of run-around from the US Authentications Office (in Wash. D.C.) and the office of Utah's Secretary of State. No one wanted to take responsibility for helping me out. In the end, Utah came through. I had my documents notarized by a local notary, and then forwarded them to Mr. Sec'y of State for the official apostille. And you guessed it, waiting again to get them back in hand.
The next step was to FedEx my documents to Korea. OK, I way underestimated the cost of this! Copies of my passport, check. 3½ x 4½ cm photos, check. Diploma and transcripts, check. Resume, check. Employment contract, check. Criminal report, check. And last but not least, Korea's Medical Self-Evaluation Form, check. Sending this tidy little stack of papers over the Pacific set me back a handsome $78. And for that princely sum, it still took 4 days to be received!
Are we done yet? Oh, not even close :) So, Korean Immigration processed my documents and sent me a Visa Issuance Number. The next step was to forward another set of documents to the closest Korean Embassy within the U.S. (which happened to be San Francisco), along with this Visa Issuance Number, visa application, my actual passport, and of course, more money... followed by more waiting.
Normally, the embassy requires that you visit in person for an interview with a Consul (this is an official requirement for your E-2 work visa). Because I was living in Utah at the time, the embassy waived this requirement and allowed me to conduct my interview via telephone. (One word of warning: please CALL the embassy to make sure they received and are processing your visa... mine was lost in a paper shuffle in their office for almost a week while precious time ticked by. When I called, they told me they hadn't yet received it, and only later after I had confirmed delivery with USPS, did they find it!)
After completing my interview, the Embassy finished processing my visa, and then shipped my passport + visa back to me. I received it on Saturday, June 7th, just a few days before leaving the country. The whole process took about 2.5 months. (Note: If you're serious about teaching in Korea, go ahead and order your FBI report and university transcripts, dig out your diploma (or order a new one), and make sure your passport is valid. Having these in your back pocket makes you a much more attractive candidate and saves you quite a bit of time waiting, once you find your "dream job.")
That's it for this installment. Stay tuned for Part II, getting your Foreign Residency Card :)

Smooth Sailing into Seosan

IMG_2906, originally uploaded by mizmoxie.

I am lying on a cotton-quilted bed in my host family’s guest room, trying to convince my body that it really is 10 AM Friday morning, and no longer 9 PM Thursday night. But I can’t blame myself for being a bit confused. It’s been 2½ days now since my last “real” night’s sleep, and 31 hours since leaving my parents’ house now half a world away… With too much left to finish Tuesday night before my flight the next morning, I opted to pull an all-nighter. Plus, I had reasoned, I’ll crash on the plane and rest on Korea’s clock while being catapulted over the Pacific. It could have been that simple, but naturally, getting myself to this firm-yet-comfy little bed on the other side of the world took more than a little doing.
First, I was held at the check-in counter in Harrisburg for the better part of an hour, while the airline agents confirmed that no, they wouldn’t let me board the plane until I had in my hand an onward or return ticket from Korea. Having an E2 visa (good for 1 year) pasted inside my brand spanking new passport did absolutely nothing to convince them otherwise (forget that plane tickets can’t be bought more than 330 days in advance!!). So $1800 later, I held a one-way ticket returning from Seoul sometime next May. Fortunately, this cloud had a silver lining – the ticket is fully refundable. Somehow I’ve just got to arrange to mail it to my parents, who will have to make a trip back to the airport to get their $1800 back. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for fronting the money for that unexpected little wrinkle 
The flight from Harrisburg to Chicago was uneventful, and 2 hours after arriving, I was again wrestling my carry-on luggage into an overhead bin, this time heading for Tokyo, Japan. 13 hours airborne meant plenty of time to sleep, learn a few words of Korean, and, as it turns out, make friends with the young Korean girl seated to my left. Halfway through the flight, after waking from yet another neck-paralyzing mini-nap and pulling out my Lonely Planet Korea book, Su Min introduced herself to me. As it turns out, she had been living just a few miles from my parents in Harrisburg for the past year, where she had stayed with a host family while attending high school. This seems to be a rite of passage for a large portion of Korean teenagers, an opportunity to further ensure gaining entrance to a good university, and hence, have a successful life. Su Min and I talked about her family back home, her dreams to be a singer. She warned me about the recent protests in Seoul against the government’s agreement with the U.S. to buy American beef. Her eyes sparkled as she told me of the places she longed to travel to, how much she loved to meet people from different places, to learn about the culture. Well, that pretty much sealed the deal – we had officially “bonded...” which turned out to be a blessing in disguise
After landing in Tokyo, we were informed that our flight to Seoul had been delayed by 4 hours. Thanks to Su Min and her Korean calling card, I was able to get that message to Harrison, my new boss, who would otherwise have had a very long evening at the Incheon airport. It was unfortunate to be in Tokyo on a rainy evening, weighed down with heavy baggage and no real chance to venture out from the belly of the airport. So I did the next best thing – I slept. Hard plastic seats were no match for my profound exhaustion, and I somehow managed to surrender to the dream world – that is, until the left side of my body woke me up with a loud protest of discomfort. It was a short time later that Su Min found me, along with another Korean boy, who had also been studying at a high school in Harrisburg… this was turning out to be a ridiculously small world. The three of us walked the length of the terminal, until we managed to find the airport’s food court, and treated ourselves to dinner. I enjoyed a plate of Japanese-style beef curry with rice and earned a compliment for my chopstick performance from my new Korean friends.
Before too long, we were airborne again, and I tried to entertain myself with the in-flight magazine while sandwiched in economy class between two sleeping strangers. It would have been the ideal time to sleep, as we didn’t pull onto the tarmac until minutes before midnight. But of course, that meant 11 AM to my very confused body clock, and I was completely alert (though, unfortunately, no match for the crossword puzzle on page 75). We landed into thick Korean fog, scuttled through the terminal to pass through Immigration, and waited with growing impatience for our luggage to surface in Baggage Claim.
Finally, I walked beyond Customs, my cart loaded down with two packed-to-the-max duffle bags, and gazed out at the gentle swarm of eager faces awaiting our arriving flight. How would I find Harrison?, I began to wonder. Will he recognize me? And then, I saw it – my unmistakable larger-than-life-size head glued to a pole, staring back at me. It was my passport photo, blown up to obscene dimensions… ughh! Attached the other end of the pole was Harrison, smiling, bright-eyed, despite the terribly late hour. He had made a welcome sign to greet me, and held it energetically. As soon as I recognized him and made my way to where he was standing, we exchanged warm handshakes and expressions of “It’s so nice to finally meet you!” I hugged Su Min goodbye and wished her a happy stay with her family. And Harrison and I started on our way.
“You look so different from your picture,” Harrison told me, moments later. Thinking perhaps he was somehow disappointed, and reminding myself how disheveled I must appear to him after so many hours of travel, I shrugged it off with a reference to my recent haircut. “No, it’s not that,” he continued. “You look so much friendlier in person!” And at that, I had to chuckle. He was right, my straight-faced passport photo did absolutely nothing for my personality. I am much more at home with a smile on my face, and a sparkle in my eyes, and it didn’t take Harrison long to see that. For the next three hours as we lugged my baggage across the airport, loaded down his van, then drove south through the wet, cool fog to Seosan, Harrison and I had time to talk. I found myself settling into a happy awareness that I was finally here, in Korea, seated next to the man who had become a friend through months of emails and visa updates. I felt a positive and peaceful wave of energy overtake me as Harrison told me how very glad he was to have me here. I felt the genuineness in his voice as he told me how happy he was with his life – how fortunate he felt to have a family he loved so much, a job he enjoyed so much, and a home in a city he loved so much as well. He exuded such a positive energy, which seemed to coalesce with mine, and it was one of those moments when everything just felt right in the world. The challenge of arriving here, the long process for my visa… all of that was behind me now, and all that mattered was that I was here, that I had come, that Korea had beckoned to me, and I had answered.