Be Prepared for Seoul

By Carmen Rodriguez

I want to take some time to tell you a story about a potato I almost stole.

Yes, that’s right. I nearly stole a potato, because I was literally starving.

Let me be clear: Korea is a highly advanced society, there aren’t any famines, and I’m in the EPIK program I get paid on time every month. But within one month of arriving, I ran out of money. Seriously, I did not have a single cent, I ate rice with salt for the last two weeks of the first month I was here before I got paid.

The EPIK program is great because you don’t have to pay rent, you get a settlement allowance, flight reimbursement, you get paid on time and also the contract is pretty straightforward.

When I was preparing to move to Korea, I scoured the internet for all the information I’d need to make the transition as smooth as possible. How much money would I REALLY need? Everyone online said $1,000 would be enough. So I picked up all the extra shifts at my restaurant gig, and scheduled a maddening amount of shoots to save up. I showed up in Korea with my recommended $1,000.

If you are reading this and trying to gather information because you are applying to EPIK, let me save you some reading: I ran out of money because there are many expenses I didn’t anticipate (keep reading if you want to know more about this) and $1,000 for Seoul IS NOT ENOUGH. You will not get paid anything (not even your settlement allowance counterproductive, I know) until your first paycheck, a month after being here.

Back to my story.

I have never been frivolous with money. I’m good at spending responsibly and saving.

So what happened?

How could it be that there I was, standing a block away from my Seoul apartment on a warm, dreamily lit, Saturday morning in September eyeballing a potato from the outside display of the corner store and thinking things like:

“Maybe I could walk by and sneak it into my purse?”

“Maybe I could just grab it and run, they’d never see me, I can be fast…. Wait a second, I’m so hungry I get dizzy spells throughout the day, that’s never gonna fly.”

“OK. What is HAPPENING? I am NOT this person! I am a civilized and honest person. I’ll just go inside and explain my situation…. OH WAIT, I DON’T SPEAK KOREAN.”

First things first, if you don’t already know, I’m living in Seoul. Seoul can be very expensive: taxis are more expensive, coffee… everything is more expensive here!

Secondly, there were many costs I didn’t anticipate. Everyone tells you about the Alien Registration Card (ARC) costs, transportation and food, but you need also to consider some of these things:

Phone: although you have to wait two weeks before you get your ARC to get a phone, if you bring a device from the your home country to connect here, you will need to think about how much this will cost you. I didn’t know I had to unlock my phone from my carrier in the States and that alone cost me a couple hundred bucks. Do your research. Call your banks in your home country before leaving and let them know that you are moving here. I didn’t know to do this, and my bank accounts and credit cards were frozen. With no phone and a whopping 13 time zones away, calling during business hours was a hassle. What’s in your contract, although legal and backed up is not ALWAYS as set in stone as you think.

Let me explain that last bullet. My contract specifies that I may be asked for a security deposit for my apartment and that it should be no more than 500,00 won (roughly $500) and that if this is the case, then it should be taken out of my paycheck: half ($250) on the first paycheck and then another half on the second.

This was not the case with me; and the thing about Korea is that many things will happen with little notice (if any) and this is something you need to just accept and roll with. I was asked for the money up front and despite whipping out my contract and pointing a stiff finger at that clause, I was still asked for the money.

So I found myself (and no, I’m seriously not exaggerating here) hungry and barely getting a full meal once a week. They serve good food at the school for lunch, but I was a newbie: I don’t eat pork and spicy food gives me nasty heartburn. Seriously, I was in tough spot.

At this point I could have asked for help, but it was important to me to be (independent) stubborn at the time (I know, stupid).

Moral of the story is: it’s important to be prepared whenever possible, but when not possible DON’T BE AFRAID TO ASK FOR HELP. You are coming to a new country you may or may not know anything about, things will come up and it will all be OK! We all have tough times and there is so much negative stigma attached to issues like hunger and homelessness. I don’t feel that it was entirely my fault that I found myself in this predicament. In all fairness I knew I could count on that paycheck so I don’t pretend to know what it’s like to feel malnutrition and starvation from experiencing the consequences of poor planning. However, it did shed some light and a new perspective on something I never thought about too much.

Anyway, I’m no modern-day Jean Valjean and I didn’t steal the potato. In fact, no one knows too much about how hungry I was. I just walked home, turned on my fan, thanked my stars I even had a roof over my head and made some rice.

Except… maybe the potato knew.

I was mean-mugging that poor thing.