My English Village Adventure

Me and the girls pausing for a photo.

As mentioned earlier, my classes at the girls school were all cancelled this week which allowed me the distinct pleasure of attending my first school field trip: a journey north to the Paju English Village.

The girls at the village entrance.

Some teachers trying to make sense of things with their students.

English villages are springing up all over Korea as demand increases for proper English immersion programs, in fact, it's rumored that the government wants to start one near Jeomchon within the next 5 or so years! But unlike the mental image you're having (I had it too--the one of a cute little American town where everyone says "howdy" and no one speaks Korean), English villages are more like English theme parks (think Toon Town at Disneyland).

English village customs and immigration.

This one in particular was rather theme-parky. The whole place is enclosed with a large fortress wall and from the moment you enter, you know it's not a real village. It's basically a large scale English camp. The first building is a mock airport where students pick up passports and go through customs. After that, you pass through the city gates and into English land, where everyone speaks English (residents and shop workers). There are lots of stores--including a wonderful English curriculum bookstore!--restaurants, coffee shops, museums, and all of the regular city facilities like a clinic, a police station, post office, city hall, and performance hall.

In front of the Performing Arts Center.

There is also a school where during the week middle schoolers attend camp in a classroom setting and are taught from 9 am to 9 pm everyday by a large staff of foreigners. On the weekends, entire families come together and there is also a day program for adults.



My first thought when I got there was, "Wow! It would be so cool to work here!" But after an our or so I realized that it really wouldn't. Working at the English village would be like prison. It's outside of town (at least a half hour walk), I'm sure everything closes by nine, you would have to do all your shopping and eating out there, and you would have to live at your workplace--not good, folks.


But it was nice to visit and see what it was like. My girls were especially fascinated with the elaborate set-up, busying themselves by bustling to and fro shops and offices. I had a lot of fun taking pictures of them and just being goofy.

Just goofing around. :)

The best part of the day, however, wasn't at the English village but on the bus ride there. A couple of girls from the back of the bus wanted to listen to their pop/dance music so I got the bus driver to crank it up. Then I closed all the curtains, had him turn on the rainbow aisle lights, and we had a dance party there in the bus while it hurled down the freeway. The other two Korean teachers on the bus looked at me like I had completely lost it, and maybe I have, but I didn't care. I had so much fun bonding with my girls. It was by far the best bus ride ever.

I rode on bus number four and figured I should take a picture of the front and make note of one Korean superstition. To them, the number four is like our number 13. So, while every bus had a number in the front to indicate which class number was on that bus, this one had a simple "F" in it's stay. No sense in jinxing a bus...

Getting ready to depart.