Finding my voice

The bus comes to a halt and as I’ve been sleeping comfortably, for the first time since I left Johannesburg, I’m a little groggy and unsure whether this is the first or second stop. I’m supposed to get out at the second stop – Government Complex. I look out the window at the unfamiliar darkness and hope I didn’t sleep through it. I look around me but I’m a little nervous to ask the strangers for help, something that was soon going to have to change.

It’s late, after 11 pm and I’m pleased to have gotten a solid couple hours sleep, and nestle back into the comfort of the limousine bus as it pulls off again, trying not to worry about possibly having missed my stop. When we come to the second stop a couple minutes later I gather my things together but then hesitate. Before I get up I turn to look around me and spot the friendly face of a younger Korean girl, please speak English I think. I ask her, “Is this Government Complex.” She smiles and nods. I can’t tell whether she understood me or was just being polite. I jump off the bus anyway. Almost as soon as my feet land on the pavement I’m greeted with a huge grin. A middle aged small Korean man, small glasses perched on his nose, hair slightly balding. “You Nicole?” he asks.

“Yes, Mr Kim?” I respond.

I’m filled with a sense of relief, glad to see my boss isn’t at all intimidating and knowing that I’ve gotten off at the right stop. As I point out my luggage he goes to pick it up and I feel bad, letting this tiny little man carry my heavy belongings. “So little bags,” he says, adding, “Most foreign teacha come with many many bags.”

I’m a little surprised to hear this, knowing I’m a few kilograms over the limit, and knowing I usually over pack. I just nod and laugh. We climb into his spacious jeep, and begin driving. There’s little conversation, I’m tired and at this point I’m still my shy awkward twin. He tells me I am going to be staying in a hotel for the first week. That the foreign teacher I’m going to replace will be moving out of the apartment only the following Sunday.

Talking in circles, as I was beginning to realise most Koreans do when they’re speaking English, it was evident I needed to say more, that he expected more confidence from me. A key characteristic they look for in the teachers they hire. Most of his teachers have been Americans.

“You do not speak so fast, like other foreign teecha,” he says to me. At the time I assume it’s a compliment but I know better now, how a Korean boss, somehow foreshadows criticism with compliments, how he can make criticism sound like advice, or a suggestion. What he was really trying to say in that moment was that I didn’t speak enough, that I didn’t have enough to say. Sure enough I changed that.