Like Jennifer Paradise in China, Bazile R. &8220;Buddy&8221; Lanneau III had little special training before traveling to Seoul, Korea, to teach English to Korean children.

To get the job, Lanneau worked with a Vancouver-based recruiting agency that matches teachers with English teaching jobs in countries such as in the Far East as well as in South America and Africa.

&8220;They are basically a middle man that is paid by the schools to find teachers,&8221; he said.

He teaches at a &8220;hagwon,&8221; or private English school, where students attend school from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and then go to academies for such things as piano, math or English. &8220;All the kids learn English in school; the hagwon is a supplement paid for by their parents.&8221;

The country is clean and organized, he said. &8220;The airport was very impressive and easy to understand without even knowing Korean.&8221; And it is a safe place.

&8220;The night I arrived, I was told to just leave my luggage sitting outside while we went into a convenience store because crime barely exists here. I&8217;ve neither seen nor heard anything to contradict that.&8221;

Furthermore, he has found the people friendly and helpful. &8220;They try to speak English for you and in a sincerely helpful way, not just grudgingly, which is amazing. Also, if you try to speak Korean, they are really impressed and encouraging, usually.&8221;

The Korean people are hardworking and expect even the children to work diligently. &8220;They work until they drop here,&8221; Lanneau said. &8220;They even expect this of the children I teach. It&8217;s not uncommon for 8-year-olds to be up until midnight doing homework.&8221;

One routine occurrence that has been upsetting is physical punishment at school. &8220;They round up the kids who were bad in class and punish them physically. The hard thing is reading in a kid&8217;s diary about being hit.&8221;

For Lanneau, walking the line between strictness and friendliness has been difficult, as he did not want to turn the children against English.

Also, he has had trouble getting students to pronounce his name, Bazile. &8220;A lot of kids call me Brazil. Some just call me Basser, which is Korean for &8216;poo-poo.&8217;&8221;

His students do not have a well-formed view of America, he said. &8220;They&8217;re so young and don&8217;t know too much about geography. Whatever (their views are), they are probably very positive because their parents are sending them to learn English at a young age to get ahead in life.&8221;

And wherever he goes, he knows he stands out, Lanneau said. &8220;By most people, I&8217;m very respected because teachers deserve the highest respect in Confucianism. By most children, I&8217;m viewed as a big-eyed Westerner.&8221;

The parents, he said, obviously have a respect and admiration for the U.S. economy because of their choice to send their children to the English academy.

Every classroom at the academy has a camera and microphone, Lanneau said. &8220;There&8217;s a booth with televisions and headphones for parents, always mothers, of the students to observe. Most of them don&8217;t know English, so every now and then I&8217;ll get an arbitrary criticism. It&8217;s kind of unnerving to think that &8216;big mother&8217; is always watching.&8221;

When he thinks about home, he thinks of his friends and family. He also misses the music and barbecue of Memphis. &8220;I just finished reading &8216;Cash&8217; by Johnny Cash, which makes me miss the aforementioned things more,&8221; he said. And it&8217;s hard to find Dr. Pepper.

&8220;Living in one of the most densely populated cities in the world makes me miss the States,&8221; he said. &8220;There aren&8217;t too many trees in Seoul; so forget about clean air or a backyard or hanging out at someone&8217;s house.&8221;

Korean karaoke has been a delight, however, and thousands of places in Seoul offer this music, in Korean called Noraebong.

&8220;They have a decent selection of songs in English. I hope to one day learn the words to a Korean song or two to be able to wail like a native,&8221; he said.

When he finishes the year in Korea in September 2006, he will return home but may not be ready to settle down in one job by then, Lanneau said.

Perhaps he will enjoy teaching so much that he will choose it as a career, he said. On the other hand, he is gaining experience that would fit with the study of international law, and that may be an option.

&8220;I hope to live all over the world for the next few years,&8221; he said. &8220;It&8217;s easy for the grass to seem greener back home when in another country, but the truth is that contentment comes from within, not from your surroundings, and once you realize that, you begin to enjoy everything much more.&8221;