From the moment I stepped foot on American soil after my year long journey in the Eastern Hemisphere, I planned to teach English as a means to my wandering end. For most travelers without a huge nest egg, unprepared for years of unemployed exploration, it’s the easiest option. Hearing from a friend who had just returned that South Korea was both the easiest and the most lucrative destination, I started my research. I landed in the States in February and would be back on the other side of the planet by June. Marina was right, it was almost too easy. After a week of emails with a recruiting company she recommended, I had three interviews. Within three weeks, I had two job offers. While the mess of recruiting companies and horror stories about abusive Hagwons can be hard to manage, I trusted her advice, and Appletree did not let me down. After one five minute Skype interview to make sure I did, in fact, speak English and wasn’t overweight (apparently they reallly hate fat people over there), I had the contract in hand. I had only to submit the necessary documentation before my visa would be approved. I was dizzied by the pace at which it was all happening.
Little did I know, a thoughtless mistake I made when I was twenty would haunt me for the rest of my life. While the offer process is lightning, the documentation is molasses. An FBI criminal background check is required as part of the visa application and for some reason the Korean government frowned upon the five counts of felony public document forgery I was charged with eight years ago. The charges were dismissed, but could not be expunged, and everything I had planned at once dissolved as though it had never existed. I was a runner without a track.
By the time a year had flown by, my plans were long forgotten. I was settled firmly in my job at the bar, settled comfortably in the love of a good man, yet still locked in a room with no doors. I had spent six weeks alone in South and Central America, but it cured nothing. Instead it made me ever more eager to find a permanent departure. To top it all off, my passport had been re-issued with limited validity and I was without question going to be in the States until January at the earliest.
With a year of waiting ahead of me, I did what every good traveler should do. Started saving. I took some small trips to break up the monotony of the bar, which cost my savings envelope dearly, but were a price worth paying for my sanity. As the day approached where I could finally apply for a proper ten year passport, my limited options loomed in front of me, reminding me of all the things I couldn’t do.
where to go?
With that, I began to focus on Japan. Knowing I couldn’t teach in Korea I tried to explore other options that may not require anything from the FBI. I could certainly pass a state background check and so my plan became to merely slip through the cracks into a teaching career in Japan. But the more I tried to plan, the further away it seemed. South Korea will pay for your airfare, give you an apartment, and pay you as much as Japanese schools in a country that stands at about a third of the living costs. Japan offers none of the above. In order to get to Japan we would need about $7000 each for all the upfront expenditures. Not to mention you have to wear a suit to work every day, something I promised myself I would never do again. After months of research, just like that our one and only plan dissolved faster than South Korea did almost two years ago.
While I have about $4000 saved, and could potentially make it to seven before March, Hudson has only just begun making enough money to save anything and is just now inching up on his first grand. With only a few months between application and start date, it was impossible. I tossed through every option I could think of. Taiwan looks like a shithole, Europe and Australia require a TEFL or CELTA which is just another $1500 upfront. And then your expenses are barely going to be covered, much less cover enough to send home the student loan payments we both dutifully make each month. Without a sizable nest egg, our options were looking ever more bleak. And waiting six more months for Hudson to keep saving was simply never an option for me.
One morning last week, in the spontaneous strike that carries each of my whims to me, a plan materialized from nothing. South Korea was something I knew I could never do. But it wasn’t something Hudson could never do. It was never even considered because I couldn’t get approved for an instructor visa. But who says I have to teach? The girl whose favorite pastime is being unemployed in a foreign country? With an apartment being supplied to Hudson through whatever job he was sure to get, I would certainly have a place to stay with him. With living costs somewhere around $1000 a month for the most frugal of people I could survive for months without working at all. I would even finally have the time to focus on the writing that was so easily set aside against the exhausting demands of a full time job. My entire body smiles each time I think we may have finally found our way out.
But what about when the money runs out? I surely won’t have enough saved for an entire year when the tourist visa requires I leave the country every three months to have it renewed. But whenever it is that I do need to work, there is the illegal private tutoring sector. Spoken about openly on many expat blogs, thousands of native English speakers pick up extra money by tutoring students after school. Illegal even for teachers with the proper visas, it is a commonplace practice among those there to teach. While illegal work may not be the path for everyone, it seems almost fitting as a criminal history is what stopped me from working legally in the first place. Did someone say recidivism?
And so the planning begins. I helped Hudson fill out the application with Appletree last week and the emails are already pouring in with offers from various schools around the country. There is much to do, from getting fingerprinted for your background check to getting sealed transcripts from your university; the visa process is arduous. The hardest part of all it is vetting the schools from which you receive offers. From the strictest programs that have cameras in the classrooms, to nightmare stories about being fired just to avoid paying for your ticket home, the TEFL market in South Korea is about as easy to navigate as its spaghetti bowl of a subway system. But none of that will matter when he and I get on that flight to the far east and after years of struggling with loving versus leaving, I get to have it all. Fingers crossed for this one, guys.
