In Korea, many people seem to believe three things fervently.

1) Learning English is the key to success.

2) Familiarity with English is a marker of intelligence and cosmopolitanism.

3) The best way to learn to speak English is by immersion.

The results of this are … mixed.

The New York Times recently documented this phenomenon in a piece about a community on Korea’s Jeju Island where 12 “prestigious Western schools” are setting up shop, and where everyone will be required to speak English. This community has been created as an alternative for families who would otherwise send their children away to study abroad in Canada, the United States or elsewhere.

“We will do everything humanly possible to create an environment where your children must speak English, even if they are not abroad,” Jang Tae-young, a Jeju official, recently told a group of Korean parents.

What the article fails to address is the role of schools like mine, known as hagwons, in bridging the gap between English and Western culture.

In all fairness, I am just beginning to understand this role myself. But I do know that for families who do not wish to send their children abroad, or who have already sent them abroad and now wish to help their children maintain their English fluency, schools like mine are incredibly popular. By hiring native English speakers and requiring the children to speak English exclusively there while they learn subjects like math and reading comprehension, they offer parents a pocket of immersion right next door.*

Above: my school, which is located in a building with another academy, and around the corner from several more.

Our academy’s commitment to the “immersion” experience is embodied in Rule Number One, posted on all doors and in hallways: Don’t Speak Korean.

This means that even in between classes or in the bathrooms, a teacher can admonish a kid for speaking Korean. It also means that as a native English teacher, I can send ripples of anxiety and glee throughout the classroom if I use a Korean word to explain an English one. (I probably do this more often than I should, as it also has a fringe benefit: it makes students unsure of just how much Korean I understand, which cuts down on the Korean whispering in the back of the class.)

It’s also our job to help the children shed their Korean accents. The Korean accent is as lively as Italian and as musical as Spanish, with the speaker lingering on the last syllable like Whitney Houston, so that gamsa hamnida (thank you) becomes gamsa hamnidaaaa. Therefore, it’s difficult for students to master the clipped tones of English — they’re always tacking vowel sounds onto the ends of words, so that “finished!” often becomes “finishiii,” “check” becomes “check-uh,” and “no” becomes a long, drawn-out whine: “Nooooh, teacherrr!” And naturally, sometimes the kids will lapse into a pidgin blend of English and Korean when they’re trying hard to get a point across.

When this happens, teachers will gently tease them for speaking “Konglish” — a version of English that is uniquely Korean, and often a source of humor for both cultures.

Ex-pats here also use the term “Konglish” to refer to the unique and mistranslated brand of English seen in South Korean government and business institutions — which can be confusing and silly at best, and offensive at worst.

Korean clothing makers in particular are famous for printing ridiculous things that are popular with Koreans (who don’t seem to know what they’re wearing) and ex-pats with a sense of irony.

One wonders why Koreans don’t simply ask an ex-pat to proofread their sign, or why government offices, signmakers and brochure printers don’t employ teams of foreigners the way hagwons do, given the demand for materials in English here in South Korea. Because they obviously do not.

And so, from the recorded instructions on the subway to the cheap t-shirts sold on every street corner, South Korea is a treasure trove of Konglish humor. Some examples:

Photo shot near Ehwa Women’s University. No idea what this means. Balding men beware, I guess?

I’ve definitely felt as though a good cup of coffee can chase my inner demons away, but this is going a bit too far…

Che is clearly chagrined at having his likeness painted under the very un-Marxist “Club Womb” — next to “Vodca” cocktails, no less.

And my favorite so far, near Gwangalli Beach in Busan:

Truth in advertising. Very refreshing!

If you crave more, the site Engrish.com catalogs these kinds of things in a funny-but-condescending way. It’s easy to do, and when you’re living in a foreign land where much is confusing and sometimes uncomfortable, it’s a welcome excuse for a little levity. But it’s also a humbling daily reminder that at least Asians are attempting to communicate with English speakers in our language. I’ve met several Westerners here who have lived here for months or even years, and have not attempted to master the Korean language — which is another, equally obnoxious kind of willfull ignorance.

To speak only English in Korea is to live in an in-between place, relying only on well-meaning but mistranslated materials specifically meant for foreigners, whose ignorance is politely tolerated but not widely accomodated. It is also to rely on the immense kindness of Korean strangers, who will often go out of their way to help a lost person, even if they only know a few words of broken English. Living this way is disorienting at best, and dangerous at worst — so I’m not sure why one would choose to remain in this state, especially in a city where free Korean lessons and friendly language exchange groups are plentiful.

However, this in-between place is where I’m stuck living until I can learn more myself. My goal is to pick up as much Korean as I can while here, if only so I can talk to my adorable adopted Korean grandmother who lives in the apartment below mine, and who just now sent her granddaughter up with a plate of bananas. When you’re faced with great kindness or big trouble abroad, gamsa hamnida only gets you so far.

My other goal is to document my adventures as an English speaker in a country obsessed with English; as a foreigner in a country that is still mastering the art of explaining itself to foreigners and understanding them in return; and as a student of language living in one of the most entertaining places to study it I’ve ever visited. This site is where I am hoping to keep track of it all. (Though teaching my students and enjoying my life fully here comes first, so please forgive me for not posting daily!)

I’m also keeping track of some of my eating adventures on another Tumblr, Seoul Food, as food is where most students of a new language begin, and Korea’s food, like its language and culture, is still something with which many Western folks are unfamiliar. And in my former life, I was a food writer, so I have a lot of colleagues at home who are interested in what I’m eating and learning here. So if that interests you too, feel free to check it out!

*It should be noted that not all schools are like mine, as hagwons vary widely in quality. Some employ Ivy League graduates, charge thousands of dollars per month for private instruction, and employ all the latest education techniques to ready their privileged charges for university, with most students aspiring to attend American universities like Harvard or Stanford. However, some are little more than “glorified daycares,” employing teams of unskilled 20somethings fleeing the recessions back home — people who can barely take care of themselves, much less a room full of kindergartners. Schools in the latter category have been known to open up shop, hire a crew of foreigners, collect tuition for as long as they can before the parents realize that their children are not receiving quality English instruction, and close down within a year — leaving the students no more fluent than before, and their foreign employees jobless and homeless. So I feel fortunate, as I’ve found my way to a good school in a cozy Seoul neighborhood, with a network of engaged parents and teachers who are all working to make sure that the families are getting what they’re paying for. Whether they are equipped to deal with its side effects — from having highschoolers destined to live permanently abroad after college to tweens who want to have all of Hannah Montana’s merchandise because they now understand the show — is a question that has yet to be answered.