James Blore moved to Košice in 1998 to teach English. Nearly three decades later, strangers recognise him from videos about Slovak food, culture and the experience of never quite feeling like an insider.
James Blore is an English teacher, school owner, and YouTuber who has lived in Košice, Slovakia, for nearly 28 years. What started as a way to promote his language school and give his students extra listening practice has developed into a small but dedicated following for his videos on Slovak culture, cuisine, and the everyday experience of being a long-term outsider in eastern Slovakia.
In an interview with The Slovak Spectator, he talks about how he ended up in Slovakia almost by chance, why he has never quite stopped feeling like an outsider, what keeps him there nearly three decades later, and what it's like to be recognised on the street as "the guy from the Slovakia videos".
How did you end up in Slovakia?
I trained as a chemistry teacher, or a secondary science teacher, and then worked as a supply teacher for a bit because I didn't want to commit. I was quite young, about 22, and I'm not really the disciplinary type, which doesn't work well when you've got no intrinsic discipline yourself at that age.
