Foreigner 119

By Morgan Joseph Ruttan

Book Summary:

With their backs against the wall, it was time for all or nothing. From the implosion of one of Koreas largest and most notorious English Academies, to the defining study of a nation in a hurry to self destruct, Morgan J. delivers a new level of understanding, for a race that forgot about why. Relive two years of study, as Morgan J. races against time to achieve the impossible, and help bring life back to a nation aging well beyond its years. In the days of globalization, and a time when peace is needed with a stabilized North Korea, these simple-mans words make a world of difference.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 20, 2009
• ISBN: 9781465317278

Morgan Joseph Ruttan

Author Bio: Born in 1978, Morgan J. Ruttan was raised by a high ranking RCMP officer and his devoted and loving mother. After years of trying new careers and opportunities, Morgan J. decided it was time to leave Canada in search of new challenges. Finally submitting to the little voice inside of him, he ventured to another world, in search of his destiny.

Book preview

Who is this guy?

My name is Morgan J Ruttan. I was born June 25, 1978. At the end of an era, the race was now in full swing as the 80’s continued North America into the industrial giant it is today. I was just 8 days old when I started boating on the St. Lawrence River in Canada. My parents owned a 27-foot Trojan live-a-board and named it the Pacifier. So early in life, I had already begun the benefits of travel. As most of my friends had never spent any time on a boat, they could never understand why I felt the way I did about the river, and about boating. Traveling up and down the St. Lawrence River in the 1000 Islands National Park was the be all and end all for me. There are countless occasions of when I was growing up, I would be running down a dock, towing behind me a little plastic boat, making the noises of an outboard motor as I spit between two tightly puckered lips, only to trip on a dock cleat and suddenly find myself face first in the drink. A river rat I was born to be. Over the years, my parents had tried to influence me, using the river to make me understand there is a life outside of the small town I grew up in. Well I bought it, hook line and sinker. As the life of the St. Lawrence began to take its long-term effect on me, I saw how the river became life for so many people. As my ancestors had done before me, people used the water to travel greater distances than they could on land. Not only was it feasible to get to another place, to me, boating was everything. Who wants to take the road, when you could be bobbing up and down on the river in a boat? I made another connection as well. I noticed there were people from all over the world on the river. Tour boats would go by full of people from everywhere else, beyond my imagination, and some of the people on those boats were from Asia. I didn’t know what Asia really was, and at that, I only knew about China, just the name China. I realized something at that time, the world is a much bigger place, and those people all came from there, wherever there was. I wanted to know about there, I wanted to know why all those people wanted to visit me (the beginning of my ego, I apologize) and where I live. I wanted to know where it was they were coming from that made them want to visit my country. That was it, I needed to know, I needed to go away and even though I loved what I had, I needed to go and see all there was too see. That was the beginning of my decision to travel, and it was the realization that we are all in this together.

As I grew up, the little town of Munster, Ontario Canada made me feel as though I was a big fish in a tiny little bowl, desperately waiting to get out. Munster had about 400 houses in a little rural suburb outside of Ottawa. It had two corner stores diagonal from each other, an elementary school, two baseball diamonds, complete with soccer fields, and a park central to all four quadrants.

The police in Munster were what seemed to be about 10 % of the population; they were everywhere including my own father who was a high-ranking member of the RCMP at headquarters Ottawa.

It was hard not to get into trouble in Munster as a young teenager. With only two corner stores and a park, what could you do, play baseball and soccer all day? Although we often tried it’s just not possible. Therefore, in an effort to keep me out of trouble my parents told me to get a job. I was five days into my 14th birthday when I got my first job working in a grocery store. I had just started high school, and was not off to a good start. The school I was attending was old, and so were some of its teachers. I had an English teacher tell me I should try smoking marijuana because it would enlighten me, and a math teacher who was drunk more hours of the day than he was awake, and because of the union, nobody could get these teachers out of that school. So with Math and English nose-diving at the beginning of high school, my parents made the right choice and had me move to a much better and newer Catholic school in the city. My grades rose, but just slightly. Now I was battling the pressure of having to work 2-3 nights a week after school, and weekends, plus keep my grades up and make new friends, but this had to be done without my knowledge of my ADD.

My parents decided I was to invest in my own car at 16. So since the first day of work, they monitored what I made and kept 50% of my salary until I could get my license and buy my own car. At 17 when I could finally drive by myself, I bought a white 1987, 5 Liter Mustang hatchback; 225 hp, and all the guts in the world to use it. But now I had to pay bills like gas and insurance, worry about the maintenance and oil changes, and all the other things that go with owning a car. Although I survived my teen years with a sports car, unfortunately, my grades in school didn’t, and my parents wanted to find out why they couldn’t motivate me to study. They checked me into multiple psychology clinics to find out why they couldn’t trigger my learning mechanism. When they got the results, they allowed the theory for a while, but then resorted back to thinking their genes are perfect and dismissed all notions of the theory. You see I was diagnosed with ADD; and, to those who would prefer layman’s terms, I couldn’t focus. The doctor prescribed me some concentration bombs to help me focus on the important things, like school and learning, but the side effects were awful, and I thought if I was going to do this, I would do it on my own. I stopped taking the drugs and proceeded to do things the hard way. I increasingly found it hard to deal with school as I was now smoking and hanging out with the wrong crowd. Being focused on money, I dropped out of high school at 17 during the last semester of the year, and started working full time. I had told the vice principal before I left I would be back, and I would continue my education as soon as I was not distracted by money. Half a year later, I was back at school and finishing a semester just as I said I would. Later that year my parents decided to move to Kingston Ontario, Canada’s first capital city. With all the instability in my life both mentally and physically, I decided to stay in Ottawa without them and continue trying to achieve my high school education. I got an apartment and changed jobs to better suit my needs. I finished one semester, promised I would be back, and dropped out to save money again. My plan failed, so instead I moved in with my family in Kingston to finish my last semester of school. During my last semester, I took creative writing as my last English credit. I had top marks on my essays in my class, but that was about to change. My teacher asked us to work in pairs, proof reading and editing each others essays. My partner, who was assigned to proof, read, and edit the rough copy of my essay, decided it was not in their best interest to hold up their half of the bargain, and instead my partner simply handed in my rough copy. I went from the top marks in the class to almost the bottom, and in turn the student whose essay I edited, scored the highest mark. When I explained to the teacher it was not my fault, she simply told me those were the breaks and tuff luck, your grade is your grade. My overall average started to slide, as I simply couldn’t understand why when it was clearly not my fault, was the teacher telling me too bad. Eventually I ended up with the highest mark in the class on my final essay. I took the opportunity to use excellent spelling, grammar, and content to tell the teacher just exactly what I thought of her method of educational justice. It was one of the proudest moments of my life. I had manipulated the system, she had to mark me on my grammar, spelling, and content, but I was free to write about what ever I wanted, and in the end justice had been served for the little guy. It was then I knew some-way somehow, finding justice for the underdog was what I am meant to do.

My Resume

Shortly after finishing high school, I had decided to move out west to the heart of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, in Lake Louise, Alberta. I was in search of a full time job and some full time money to pay some full time debt I had accumulated over the years. I started working in a hotel as a dishwasher and before I knew how to wash my hands, I received news foreshadowing my entire time in that hotel for years to come. My co-worker told me I should be careful about how well I perform my duties. He told me if I’m good at what I do, I will never move up to supervisor, and he had learned that very same thing the hard way. I have to say it’s difficult to nod and say yes when someone you don’t really know gives you the advice of if you do a good job, you won’t get anywhere? Instead I followed my instincts and worked as hard as possible at being the best dishwasher I could be. After a short period of time, I was offered a lateral transfer within the department to become a garbologist (garbage man), and later on I was then offered the position of recycler. Now at that time, it seemed as though I was being promoted, and that’s what it seemed like to other dishwashers as well, because the task of actually washing dirty dishes all day was really dirty, stinky, and monotonous. So I took it as a good sign and continued to work as hard as possible for the company. I later became the head recycler, which was contrary to not being an important job. The hotel was situated in the heart of Banff National Park, so impact on the environment was a key issue, especially if the hotel wanted that multi-million dollar expansion it had been fighting for. Trying to do my best for the company, I re-engineered the recycling room so that it was almost self sufficient and needed little to no work force to run. It was a big accomplishment because now I could fulfill the job of two people. This was a big accomplishment for the hotel because the recycling room, before I got there, had a resident recycler, who had been there for years before me, but nothing had changed. In the past there were many times the recycling room was so bad, I went to work and found the Director of Operations for the hotel, actually doing the recycling himself. That’s right, a man in a suit and tie, probably making six figures, waist deep in filth, newspapers, and empty beer bottles etc. So after finishing my plan, I made a presentation to all the department heads to change the recycling room, complete with written proposal using diagrams, and was told by the General Manager himself, as he was shaking my hand, if I stayed with the company, I had a future.

My second task was to call the line. I was the first dishwasher in the history of that hotel to ever call the line, and I was certainly proud of it. You see calling the line is when you stand in front of a team of chef’s and you tell them what the guests are ordering. Sounds easy enough, all you have to do is read a little piece of paper and yell out the command for food and what kind of food… not so easy. I had to stand in front of a team of chef’s who certainly didn’t want to be told what to do by a dishwasher, never mind one who was younger than them, and organize all of the food according to time, guest, server, and seating. I was forced to argue about what I was ordering from the chefs. I was telling the servers, who were getting frustrated with slow service they would have to wait, who would then tell the Maitre D’ I didn’t know what I was doing. The Maitre D’ would then tear a strip off of me, only to find out I was the only one who knew what was going on the whole time. Not only that, but I had to do all of this "P.R.", while applying the right garnishes to all of the plates, sometimes 200 or more plates all at the same time. Usually the job was for the head chef of the restaurant, but I not only mastered it, it was my baby, and I dare say I was not only better than my supervisors before me, but my speed and efficiency records still stand today.

I had more than accomplished my fair share of the workload in my time at the hotel and since I had all the knowledge in the world of my department, I thought it was time to seek a supervisory position. Well the time finally came and the old supervisors, who were seeing their mentalogical clocks ticking away, finally decided to move on. This in-turn had made room for a younger generation to move up the ranks and become supervisors. Well I was sure I was a shoe-in for the position. I had all the necessary training and experience to become a supervisor, so naturally I applied for the position. I was denied, and man I was angry. All of the sudden everything that guy told me had just come true. I said why, what about all the things I’ve done for this department. I was told they had considered me strongly, but they would have to go with someone else. That someone else was six months my junior, and when the employee turnover rate is 250% annually, mostly between dishwashing and housekeeping, that’s a long time. I sucked it up and thought okay I’ll get it next time. Then finally after another five months and four positions later, I had nothing. I had worked my butt off for a year and two months. The whole time listening to my supervisors ask me questions about policies and how to do something or fix something. My supervisors, younger than me who could not complete the tasks in half the time I could do them, were afraid to tell me what to do. Not because I was a loose cannon and would just snap at them, I always knew it wasn’t their fault, and if I were them, I would have taken the job too. No, they wouldn’t tell me what to do because I already knew more than they did. It was like telling a priest how to be religious, if you did, you’d feel silly.

One day a close friend of mine said to me, Morgan, who cares, do you really want to be the king of the dishwashers? I realized at that time that although I didn’t have the heart to compromise my ability just to appeal to the lowest common denominator, I also didn’t want to be a dishwasher king either. There is nothing wrong with being the king of the dishwashers, but it really wasn’t for me.

Within my time spent at the hotel, I had worked in various departments to educate myself on the entire system—how it works right down to the bones. I wanted to know how people felt when others were doing their job, and when some weren’t. So I spent some time in food stores, where the food is received and stored for the entire hotel, which was operating 7 restaurants at one time. Busy, was not the word for it. I spent some time in security and with so much of the staff being so young, like 18 or just over, I learned what babysitting at the parent-to-adult level was like. I had helped in housekeeping, which was clearly the worst job in the hotel. I waited tables in the dining room, the largest one, and I found out what it was like to make real money, and having to really work for it. So in a matter of two years, I had covered a total of five different departments within the hotel. In the end, I met some great people in that hotel, and have some incredible memories, but I made the mistake of thinking talent has its fortunes in this world, and when I went back to the same hotel later, I chose to do things differently.

After my first tour of duty at the hotel, I headed home for Kingston Ontario. I was in search of something new and exciting, a fresh start. I started bartending at a night club in Kingston where I met the foreman of an aluminum boat building company who was part-timing at the same club. After a short period of time, and a lot of drinks later, I found my new career in nautical construction. The company was in need of some more laborers to help with their new project. The company was contracted to build military gun-boats for the U.S. navy. After the U.S.S. Cole was hit while refueling in the port of Aden, Yemen on 12 October 2000, an aluminum boat company based out of Anaheim California subcontracted us the opportunity to build the first five, 33-foot shallow water gun-boats. Having never been able to operate machinery before, and having no idea how to build a boat, I thought this is a job for me. I started at the bottom of the barrel, polishing aluminum, getting it ready for someone else to actually make a difference when it came to building a boat. I’m kidding of course; I know every little bit counts. But sometimes as I spent hours on end just grinding away at aluminum, I really just wanted to get up and run out of the shop, and never stop running until I reached my end. I even thought I wanted to grind my own face off sometimes, in hopes that the pain would take my mind off the task at hand. I really hated grinding down metal all day. But I stuck through those times and remembered if I did, it would get better. Eventually it did pay off, and when my supervisor thought I would be able to handle a plasma cutter, I took it and ran. After some time I was given little odd jobs here and there and eventually was granted my first raise and the title of fitter. That meant I was a guy who took prefabricated parts that didn’t quite fit, and then made them fit. I was later given the title of fitter/fabricator which meant I could not only fit the parts, but also create them myself. I kept at it for a while sometimes picking up a welding gun here and there, and eventually took my tests to acquire my MIG aluminum welding tickets, level 1 and 2, in all positions. By the end of my time there, I had the largest portfolio of anyone building those boats, and almost all of the main components were somewhat my responsibility.

Though I was building boats during the day, at night I would study Hotel/Restaurant Management. I would work ten hours a day building boats, and six hours studying at night. I did this all because of a little ad in the newspaper that said Teach English in Korea.

I had an interview with a guy who told me I could go to Korea and teach English. But I had to have at least a college diploma and a TESOL certificate to go, and that’s only if I got permission from the school and the embassy in Ottawa. I wanted desperately to go and see Korea, live there, teach English there, experience the whole culture and lifestyle. So I went home and started studying. I finished my two-year diploma in 4 months, studying as much as possible, no matter how tired I was from building heavy aluminum boats all day.

When I finally got my piece of paper, the recruiter called the school and they responded with we don’t recognize your diploma. I was shot down, and I would not even think about Korea again for another four years.

I returned to the great Canadian Rockies as a bellman in Lake Louise. On my first day, I learned my old boss from the dishwashing department was still working at the hotel. It was nice to see familiar faces of friends I had known from years before, and my old boss made his appearance as my colleague. I learned that when my old boss wanted to move up-and-out into the front of the house, he was told that kind of position wasn’t really best suited for him, and so he was forced to take a demotion and was now at a rank no higher than mine. I was at peace.

Tired of the mountains and the lifestyle of seclusion that came with it, I was ready for my next challenge. I applied to a summer camp in Pennsylvania U.S.A. This was no ordinary summer camp. Parents paid 10,000 U.S. dollars per child for less than 2 months of the summer. Those kids were all amazing and most of them suffered from AD/HD, but there were some with turret syndrome, others were autistic, bi-polar, and dyslexic kids as well. There were almost 300 campers with two hundred staff paid to do everything from helping the campers get dressed, to learning the many different activities teachers had to prepare on a daily basis. The staff was the best I’ve ever seen, and their patience and tolerance level on a daily basis was by far way beyond their salaries. I had lucked-out and landed a position teaching wood-shop with one of the greatest guys I ever met, we were equal and opposite and without my mentor, those darling little angels would have torn me to shreds.

Camp was extremely intense for the staff, it was the first time I had ever seen grown men, with tattoos and metal bits all over, actually breaking down and crying on a regular basis. The job was literally 24 hours a day. If there was a kid up in the middle of the night sick, you were too. If there was trouble between a couple of the campers, you would be all night trying to get them to stop fighting. At times the campers had such an inability to socialize properly, that you could never think of what they were going to do next. For example, I spent one night cleaning a cabin for hours after a camper who was desperate to see his girlfriend, missed the toilet completely in all his excitement, and then thought cleaning up the mess (number 2) was smearing it all around the floor of the entire cabin (I have no idea what he was thinking).

The staff had a mandatory psycho-therapy meeting once a week to make sure that none of the staff were going to go postal. They (the administration) wouldn’t even lie to you about it, and when you arrived at camp or when you were having your interview, they would just say, It’s tough, and you’re going to feel it. But at the end of the day, it was the most rewarding experience of my life, and made everything else, I mean everything else, seem like nothing next to it.

I finished my summer at camp and went back to Kingston to start my apprenticeship as a carpenter. I would continue to spend the next year of my life learning about building code and theory.

My career took me to Toronto and the carpenter I worked with was the best in the business, and our houses were virtually perfect thanks to him. He was the finest framer I have ever seen at work, and his reputation precedes him.

Due to a rainy summer and work missed causing financial crisis, I quit building houses and sold all of my belongings to take my TESOL course in Toronto, and eventually became a certified English teacher. It was there I met a Korean girl, a friend of mine, who is now living in Korea. Although we spoke of Korea often, for me it seemed out of the question, so I began my search elsewhere. I started working at a Toronto Montessori school as a summer camp supervisor, teaching and instructing the kids on a day-to-day basis. The experience was rewarding, and a welcome break from the camp in Pennsylvania. Though I had no intention of going to South Korea, as I had already known the answer, I still wanted to go to Asia, so I thought I would be leaving for China in the very near future.

Upon completing my course, my TESOL teacher decided to have a recruiter’s open house. She invited recruiters from all over the world to meet with us and discuss future contracts. I then met my Canadian recruiter who would put me in contact with my recruiter in South Korea. It was then that brought me to now.

Nightmares really do come True

I met with a recruiter at the TESOL school open house, and we talked about the idea of going to Korea. She told me that with my education, I had a chance to go and teach in South Korea. I wondered if it was possible, I asked her how, since there had been no way I knew of. She explained to me there was a new visa to Korea, available to Canadians. It was the H-1 visa, a working/holiday visa. She said she would be in touch with her contact in Korea and then get back to me with the details. I received an email from her saying a large company in South Korea, based out of Seoul, was looking to hire me to teach English. I thought to myself, I can’t believe it, just 4 years ago I thought there was no way, and now everything was turning in my direction. Later my Canadian recruiter asked if it would be okay if the recruiter in South Korea could contact me on my cell phone for an interview. I said it would be fine, and proceeded to give her the information. I didn’t tell anyone except my girlfriend about the opportunity, as my parents had already informed me of their opinion, and they thought it was a dead end move. I was later contacted by my recruiter in Canada. She said the company had accepted me and I would hear from my Korean recruiter very soon.

When I received the first phone call from my recruiter, it was a Tuesday, sometime in the evening. By the time we had finished a few more conversations, I was on a plane to ICN airport, the following Friday morning. Those conversations were the first of many suggesting something wasn’t right, but I followed my heart and continued as planned.

I was given directions as to which visa I was to obtain and how from the Korean Embassy in Vancouver. My recruiter, lets call him Dave, said I would need 24 hours for the visa to process, but if anyone asked, don’t tell them I have a job waiting for me in Korea. I asked what the problem was of course, and he replied, You aren’t supposed to have a job before you come, but its okay after you arrive. Now I was under the impression that technicalities are just simply that, you know like, what does it really matter anyways, my visa said I could work right? I have what the company wants in order to be a successful teacher, no worries I thought. Wrong!

Now when I was talking with my recruiter from Canada, she showed me pictures of what my apartment would look like and explained it would be fully furnished. She also let me read a sample contract from the company and it too explained I would receive new accommodations and full furnishings. I’ll clarify fully furnished for you. Imagine you’re on a trip to a country on the other side of the planet; what would you bring with you? If your answer didn’t include pots and pans, a bed strapped to your back and somewhere to actually put your clothes, you now understand fully furnished.

Friday morning came and I headed to Vancouver airport. I got on the plane and landed in LAX, I then traveled to Japan via a Japanese airline, which I might add, is an excellent way to travel. I really like Japanese airlines, except on this particular occasion, they left my luggage at LAX. They were kind at the airport and gave me 10,000 Japanese yen for my troubles, about a hundred bucks. I treated myself to some amazing sushi in the hotel I stayed in located in Narita, and it too was paid for by the airline. I was offered a complimentary upgrade by the front desk agent and so far so good, in Japan that is. The next morning I got on a plane to Seoul and landed at ICN at about noon. I made it through immigration, and Dave was waiting for me at the airport. We got on a bus for a city called Banghak, located just outside the northern part of Seoul, in which case I took the time to strike up some conversation with good ole Dave. ICN is a beautiful airport, I said to Dave. He replied with yes, it’s the most beautiful airport in the world (which is true according to some statistics). But this was the foreshadowing of life in South Korea; everything in Korea was always the best in the world. I then asked Dave if he had been to many other countries before, and he said no, never. And with an expressionless look on my face, I turned and stared out the window of bus in hopes to end conversation.

We were arriving at what I thought was my apartment when in all actual fact it was the office. It was about 3 pm and the sun was hot, and I was still wearing my clothes from the day before. I also started to feel the jet lag from the trip. I had a break in Japan, but in the excitement of a new trip and new places, I really didn’t get much sleep, never mind the exact opposite sleep schedule from what I had back in Canada. I met the director of the school I was to work for. My first impression, well when she walked right by me and just looked at me as though I was nobody, my impression turned from wow, I’m here, I made it to Korea to Uh, was that a good thing?. I was brought to the office where I met the family. It turned out a couple, who couldn’t put a sentence in English together if their lives depended on it, were to be my new owners, I mean slave drivers, uh? You know what I mean.

The office was an office tell. Basically, it was a loft apartment, set up to handle your everyday business or pleasure needs. I wondered if I was staying there, I mean I didn’t want to seem rude and all, but I was really dying for some sleep, especially since my directors, Sunni and Cher, told me I was to begin teaching the next day. They fed me donkas (a Korean pork chop) as my first taste of Korea which was nice of them. After lunch, I asked if I would be receiving my cell phone (my contract stated I would receive a cell phone as soon as I arrived in Korea). I was told no and the dishes were cleared away from in front of me, and a pile of books were placed there instead. They asked me