Korean Job Discussion Forums

[basic69isokay]

I'm seeing more and more frustration on the part of teachers here. With Daegu the latest city to scrap the native teacher program, and any hagwons closing or demanding 22 year old females, 2015 is the year of China. Salaries have finally evened out. 12,000rmb is easily doable, and equals about ~2.1. Plus, sooooo much more interesting place than Korea. It's just a matter of when, not if. Like Japan in the 1990s-early 2000s. Nihau China!

[EZE]

[PigeonFart]

The air pollution is so bad in China (much worse than Korea) that i couldn't move there even for double or triple the salary. I'm sure many people don't care about the air they breathe so maybe you're right. In fact i hope you're right. Things were better here when there were less of us around (we were a rarity and could easily find jobs), so i hope everyone does go to China^^

[CentralCali]

Not all of China is polluted like Beijing. I taught in one of the cities in Guangdong last year and the air there is nothing at all like it is here in Beijing. Also, there is free housing, and even sometimes free meals, provided. Not only that, but the cost of living is still lower than in Korea. And renewal of a contract here does not require jumping through all the hoops that Korea has set up.

[creeper1]

Sucks to be the OP

Most posters e.g. "cdinkorea" have a job in Korea more like this

"3.3 million, 12 teaching hours per week, 5 months vacation a year, a lot of autonomy over what I teach, great students, and a low-stress work environment. Cool"

Why on earth would posters want to leave Korea?

[aq8knyus]

If the amount of native teachers coming to Korea drops significantly, isn't that really good for those who don't need visa sponsorship?

It seems that this is more wishful thinking by those who are here and dream about the good ol' days of easy jobs and high paying privates.

[jleblanc]

[Hatcher]

So many factors. In Korea an F visa is a big issue. In China, your degree is vital... I do say that China and Korea are much closer than most would think in terms of legal savings potential.

[Underwaterbob]

They just dumped EPIK in Chungcheongbuk-do as well.

[ippy]

Your degree is certainly not vital in China.

Guanxi is vital. If your boss has the networks, youll have your Residency permit and foreign expert certificate in no time. I worked with (and knew) several teachers without a degree. They were of course careful to avoid bringing it up, but its not as hard as you might think.

Actually always something good to know, but chinese police certainly arent above corruption. How do i know? One of our clients was a known gangster. He wanted his kid to do better for himself though, so we took him on (we offered service usually to the tianjin upper uppers), his kid got in a spat with his teacher over th course of a couple of weeks and his dad came in with the heavies in an act of total intimidation. There were 16 of them banging on our (now locked) doors.

What did the big scary chinese police do? Nothing. They stood there. Let them have free run of the halls outside our office. After a few hours and with the Canadian embassy now involved (and the firther threat of three other national embassies being involved) the police finally got them shifted and pulled three of them to the station for questioning.

We arrived at the station, the police made no effort to keep us separate. The goons (for the police only picked up three of the lackies despite knowing full well who was behind it). Those goons proceeded to physically threaten me audibly and in full view of the Chinese desk officers who did nothing at all.

Around an hour later, the goons decided theyd had enough and despite a 'no, stop!' from the police, they walked out laughing their ass off got in their car and drove off.

The police kept us to 10 at night going over our statements making us write them out several times. They were stonewalling.

Our boss kept asking when they were bringing in the actual culprit behind this (the kids dad). We were told they had to wait for their duty sergeant to make this call, who just so happened to be out (but was, it turns out, just upstairs). Around 11pm they said theyd phoned the man in question, but he said he wasnt coming in. So er, that was apparently that.

At this point my boss probably snapped. She had been very insistent that this could be handled locally and professionally.

Unfortunately for the police, her uncle was an extremely high ranking officer in Tianjin (extremely). So she made the call and around an hour later the sergeant was paraded in front of us. Our boss then reamed him out. Suddenly the three goons were picked up and their boss had a very unfortunate late night knock on the door. Though we obviously dont know the ins and outs of the matter, he was clearly told in no uncertain terms to back off and let it go.

No more disruptions. And no one hurt. A quick lesson that the Chinese Police force are as lazy and useless as every other police force in the world.

[young_clinton]

A mass exodus for the big bucks to be made in China. Thank God the US economy is finally showing some serious improvement while the economy in China and the rest of Asia is starting to crack.

[Lucas]

[Old Painless]

[basic69isokay]

Even that dude at 3.3, still not amazing in Korea.
Korea, Seoul especially, is outrageously expensive.
Just basic stuff like housing, food, clothes is like 3-4x the US.
Probably near 10-15x China's prices. I mean 15,000-20,000 rmb, certainly a common salary, is truly lookin better than 3.0 in Korea.
Even on the low entry level standard, 10,000rmb is gonna be
Much better than 2.0 in korea. Korea's toast. Chinas esl boom starts now.

[Cave Dweller]

Housing is 3-4 times it is in America? So you can get a one room in the states for 200 bucks a month?