WTF? Flashbacks Already? Mentor....

Part of the induction process at BPU is that you get a “mentor” whose job is to chaperone you through the difficult parts of acculturation and help you figure out the administrative and practical steps of teaching at BPU. My mentor was Philip the Great. He was, unfortunately, greatly absent when I landed. He was off on vacation, if you can call getting married a vacation. I think of it along the same lines as I think of that classic old Dead Kennedy’s song “Holiday in Cambodia.” But that’s just me.

On my third day, or so, in town, I received a message from the BPU office that my mentor was looking for me and wanted to have lunch with me. This message arrived at about 11:45 so, even if it was precipitate, it was timely. We went out to a lunch during which we discussed very little of work, and a very great deal about expatriates. Phillip’s wife, who was a Russian teacher, and not coincidentally Russian, showed up partway through and completely silenced the group of Russian students next to us (Global BPU baby) by speaking to them in their native tongue. Like me, they presume on their own incognitology.

The Mentor had a car and this was the best thing ever. We ran to several stores and purchased a crap-load of needed things. A pillow, for instance, and another comforter in case the swine at BPU felt like stranding me again in some cold, unheated place. The comforter purchase was interesting. The comforters were in piles and I chose the one that had the fewest emasculating cartoon figures on it. As we walked away with it, a store clerk buzzed up to us. Any store of any size in Korea has more store clerks than you can shake a pointed stick at. It’s a service economy (premised, I think, on extremely low wages) and I have already taken to not shaving and having my iPod plugged into my ears every time I go into anything larger than the corner store. Otherwise, I am pestered nearly unto justified homicide. Anyway, this clerk was nearly overflowing in Korean and we stood, for about 5 minutes, at the escalator unhappily not communicating with each other. We wayguk decided just to go and check out, and the clerk retreated, obviously unhappy. Phillip noted that and decided to call a friend who spoke Korean and could, over the phone, translate. It, apparently, all boiled down to this.

1) Korean beddings are only sold in complete sets
2) Unless the clerk wraps the individual piece in a large bag BEFORE you get to the register.

It seemed fairly nonsensical, but after the wrapping the clerk was happy we had done it the right way and I was happy to get out of the store with another comforter. About a week later, walking randomly around Daejeon I discovered at least 3 small stores that sold comforters individually and for about 2/3 the price.

Mentor also took me to the “old” downtown by the river, which included a traditional Koran market of alleys and umbrellas. Particularly to one alley in which you could purchase “traditional” US items that seemed to have come over the barbed wire fence at US army bases in Korea. This was a hodge-podge of weird things. US candy, canned food, even an 8-pak of Vaseline in plastic. This latter item gave me pause to wonder what exactly the US army thinks its men are doing in Korea. Either getting very chafed, having lots of children, or using unsafe lubricants.

We also picked up a case of bottled water and a few other heavy things.

After this useful bit of shopping I was dropped off home. About 45 seconds after I collapsed into my icy-cold room, there was a pounding on the door. My Mentor stood outside with my “training” manual. He said goodbye and then said, “Oh, they’ll give you an evaluation sheet on my mentoring. Give me high marks.”

I never saw him again and when I got the evaluation sheet I saw that he had basically done nothing he was supposed to do. I had no idea where my classes were, the layout of the two campuses, how to get copies made, how grading went, well.. anything.

Still, I had food, clean water, and a nice warm comforter.

I gave him an excellent evaluation. ;-)