Find your own path: An Irishman’s adventures in Korea and beyond

JOE

Brought to you by Lucozade Zero.

Ciaran O’Connell is a Dubliner who has travelled around the world and made documentaries of his adventures on the road. Teaching English in Korea led to further trips around Asia and South America. He talked to us about wanderlust, seeing the world and documenting his experiences.

Were you always interested in travel?

Since I was young, I’ve always been curious about other cultures. I loved Italian culture as a kid. When going on holidays with my family, we would go to places my parents had never been, such as Montenegro, Albania and Turkey. New environments obviously just stoked the flames of curiosity. By the time I was 16, I wanted to learn French, Spanish and Italian fluently before I was 30.

How did you end up in Korea?

Towards the end of secondary school, I heard about this amazing deal for English teachers in Asia, where the government/school would pay for your full accommodation and return flights from Europe, with a decent salary and only a few working hours a day. All that was needed was a university degree and perhaps a TEFL. I would have been happy to go to Japan or Taiwan, but Korea seemed to be calling out more.

I just wanted to be on the other side of the world, not understanding anything and knowing no-one (and to live somewhere with a decent climate). Then after the contract finished, I would already be in Asia, so I could explore more. It was such a blatantly obvious choice at the time. Before teaching in Korea, I took a 5-week CELT course with CES Dublin. I also did a few weeks of teaching in Universite Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium during my Erasmus year.

What was it like to work there?

In Korea, you can work in a public school (9am-5pm) or a private school known as a ‘Hagwon’ (1pm-10pm). I actually only taught for four to five of the eight hours. The teaching was OK. I learned to be a good teacher with the CELT course, but it was simply not needed in my school. In my experience, they mainly wanted the kids to finish the assigned books, which were mundane and repetitive and made stimulating the students more difficult. We were to make them look thoroughly worked on so the parents know they’re getting their money’s worth.

In many ways, you were paid to be a Western face knocking around the school. When the parents came in to pay the monthly subscription, they’d see me at the front desk marking essays and think ‘Wow they have a white guy here! This must be a great school!’ I felt for the kids. A large chunk of their childhoods were taken from them. School from 8am-10pm in some cases. During summer, they still came to the private schools from afternoon until evening. There was one enjoyable class that involved teaching a 16-year-old genius kid some university standard literature. The other staff were very nice and the school would often feed you. The holidays were not spectacular. Five days off in winter and five days off in summer.

How did that trip change you?

The biggest impact of the Korean year was that I definitely didn’t want a full-time job again for a long time. There would be times sitting at my desk that my back would begin to ache. I could feel my body asking for release. Then, there would be those summer afternoons when I would look out the window at a blazing sun and think ‘What am I doing in here!? I should be outside doing anything else but this. I am too young to be so idle.’ I thought I’d rather be poor with time than rich and aching.

Would you advise other people to teach abroad?

I would wholeheartedly advise anyone looking for something new to give teaching abroad a shot, especially in Korea where the schools give you so much help to settle in. Of course, it’s scary. Most will convince themselves that the worst will happen so that they can then push this ambition to the back of their mind and remain safe in their comfort zone. People are worried that the job will fall through and you won’t make friends or struggle to integrate.

These are all fair and natural apprehensions. But you certainly won’t find out what you’re made of without trying. The expat communities are all very open and there are internationals of every age, some who’ve started families and businesses and some in their early twenties passing through for a year or three.

Did that trip encourage you to keep travelling?

The Korean year certainly encouraged me to continue travelling. The more you travel, the bigger the world gets. What used to be a country you may only have heard of a handful of times in your life is now the one you’re considering moving to. I lived in San Francisco, New York and Brussels before Korea, so I feel each new country or city will only ignite the flames and broaden your mental map of the world.

Where did you go travelling after that?

After Korea, I had planned a four-month trip around South East Asia to 11 countries. Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, The Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore were the targets in a sort of clockwise whirlwind.

I had saved for a good upgrade on my camera and planned to make a video about the trip. I had made previous videos about New York, Tokyo and Korea, selling a few and getting some newspaper/radio/TV mentions. But the videos were not exactly meant for commercial promotion. They’re just videos that I want to watch back when I am 85-years-old and say ‘’Man, that was a good life!’’ Memories will be the only thing we have one day.

What was the inspiration for going to South America?

I had always wanted to see South America. Again, to be on the other side of the world without knowing anyone or the language and the challenge of learning it was too tempting. I think I watched ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’ when I was 14 and knew it had to be done. I wouldn’t have been happy with myself had I not lived there at least once.

How long were you there for?

I was there for six months altogether, based in Santiago de Chile. It was a toss up between Colombia and Chile. I went with Chile because it has everything! Deserts, mountains, beaches and Patagonia in the south. I coincidentally spent Christmas with the Irish Ambassador to South America in Argentina and hitchhiked back across from Buenos Aires to Santiago, and made my first little documentary. I also spent some time in Peru, Bolivia and Cuba.

Clip via Ciaran O’Connell.

How did you support yourself?

I had a job lined up as a tour guide in Santiago, which fell through and really screwed up my plans. So I fell back into teaching English to pay the bills and worked for an English summer camp run by the Chilean government in the north of the country. As well as that, I was doing photography and videography for hostels in Santiago. I worked in a bar for a while too. Anything to scrape the bills together and improve my Spanish.

Had you always planned to make documentaries?

I had planned to do documentaries someday but it came about all of a sudden in Argentina. I was hitchhiking through a small town outside Buenos Aires, and passing a farm on the way to the motorway, this curious farmer came out to talk to me and ask where I’m from/going. He was such a character. He exuded a two-metre radius whiff of hard alcohol and had a dark tanned face, sharp blue mischievous eyes, a big jolly belly full of pork and beer, dirty clothes and a genuine smile that revealed the whitest teeth I’d ever seen. I spoke with him for a while and after I walked off down the dirt road, I felt like kicking myself for not recording it.

From then on, I just decided to keep filming and recording these chance encounters, whether it be Couchsurfing hosts, truckers while hitchhiking, wise old men on the street, policemen, whoever. Everyone has a story and I wanted to find them. The series is called ‘Out Of Curiosity’ and there are a few episodes finished of Argentina and Peru, but a good few more to come about Chile, Bolivia and Cuba.

What was the maddest thing you’ve done along the way?

Competing in a burger-eating contest in a ghetto neighbourhood in Brooklyn, competing on Winning Streak in 2009, appearing as a hangman on a Game of Thrones episode, drinking whiskey from a giant crystal bowl with a Korean Supreme Court judge. And a few more I probably shouldn’t say!

What was your favourite place?

I find it difficult to choose a favourite. To travel to – maybe I would say Vietnam because of the geographical diversity, it’s cheap, they have beautiful cities up and down the country, the people are friendly, the climate is great and for me the food is better than Thailand. Also, it’s not overrun with tourists, which usually leads to price gouging, disrespect of culture, rubbish and drunken louts. Also, Havana is a photographer’s dream. My favourite place overall is Berlin though. For about one million little reasons.

What places are still on your bucket list?

I’ve visited 47 countries so far but would like to make it to at least 100. Mongolia, Burma and Papua New Guinea are three I’d be very interested in.

Where are you now and what’s next for you?

Now, I’m based in Berlin. I’m working as a tour guide in the city getting my funds back up and working on the next four or five short documentaries from South America as well as my photography work as Radical Rooster Media. I’ll stay here until winter and then I’m back to the maps. I plan to do some ‘Work Away’ programs someday in Africa and also around Europe so I can learn Portuguese and Italian too. Then there’s a plan in the works to explore India and continue the short documentaries. Basically, I have no clue what’s next. But that’s the way I like it.

New Lucozade Zero – Zero Calories and great tasting. Get it in three flavours – original, orange and pink lemonade.