Job Discussion Forums

[taffer]

Quibby and jojo are on the money with their comments for sure.

I would add that in Korea I could be sitting in a bar or a coffee shop wherever- maybe just strolling down the street, not meaning a gnat or a fly a bit of harm, when I would SUDDENLY run up against one form of negativity or another. A crazed bus driver putting a choke hold on a passenger, a taxi driver on the hood of his car screaching...an irate girlfriend bellowing, WAE GUDDAE???????!!!!!!!!! to her hapless boyfriend. Bible thumpers, red in the face holy rolling at full volume down the aisle of my train...

I just respect the fact that I can just coast on down the lane here without being put upon or challenged in some weird, macho way. Lo be it to me to tell you it is paradise here, Noelle, but having done fun/ crazy/ rewarding time in Europe, the Middle East and in a few countries in Asia, well, I appreciate the vibe. The non-vibe as it were.

[Apsara]

One place in Japan where you will see a Christian presence is around Shibuya station every year in the weeks leading up to Christmas. They are all over the place with placards and loudspeakers, non-stop for hours with the message that Christ died for our sins (in Japanese so you might not notice it). They stand there holding placards for hours in 3 degree December weather- very dedicated. They don't seem to accost people though.

[Noelle]

Thanks everyone.
Maybe I'll come to Japan in the future but I won't trade my job here for another one there. I haven't had too much contact with Japanese students other than those I taught in the U.S. , but I really liked them a lot.

As for the Christians, they are everywhere... or at least they'd better be. In some places they are just more obvious than in others. Korea is one of those places and that reason alone will most likely be what keeps me here.

[cafebleu]

Japan and Korea.

In my opinion, whatever you do you will find that the negative points and positive points are about the same. Just different. First, let's deal with the food.

Japanese food is NO healthier than Korean food. Yes, it doesn't have that red pepper paste but why can't you avoid it? I did.
I'm not a fan of it though it didn't give me allergies.

I managed to spend a few years in Korea working without having food with it. How? I cooked for myself. I never ate kimchi in my place, I never ate anything with red pepper paste in my place, I never ate anything with red pepper paste outside my place. I don't mind kimchi - I just never ate it outside of school or outside of dining with co-workers on social occasions.

If it's school lunch that is the problem, don't eat school lunch except for the rice etc that doesn't have the paste. Don't worry about the nonsense from your nosey Korean colleagues going on and on like toddlers about what you aren't eating. It's none of their business and don't give them any credence by replying. Eat what you like.

I managed to shut up a no. of Koreans doing that to me in my time there by smiling and saying, "Oh, in my country it's bad manners to try and force people to eat things they don't want to me, especially guests. And it's bad manners to keep talking about what others eat." Which it is, despite their excuses of Korean culture etc.

Too much Japanese food is garbage - I'd say the convenience stores in
Korea actually win hands down there. The nasty industrial taste of the sandwiches etc shows just 'healthy' Japanese style western food is.

The Koreans still have the relatively nasty white bread and their bakeries don't understand that real bread doesn't have a sugary taste but as far as I am concerned their convenience stores and bakeries have healthier stuff than the Japanese equivalent.

Korean rice has a nice taste, Japanese rice is just bland and has about zilch nutritional value. The colouring in Japanese food is over the top although there's too much of it in Korean food.

As for J kids being supposedly harder to teach - no. They are more apathetic and silent but easier to control. You own your own visa in Japan - a far-sighted policy (I still don't understand why they have it as I am sure it wasn't done purposefully for the benefit of foreigners) whereas you are owned by your employer in Korea.

Both countries are xenophobic - it's more in your face in Korea. In Japan I had agreeable experiences of being helped when carrying heavy bags or standing by a roadside wondering what to do re the right direction. Japanese people with some English skills helped me in those and other situations without being asked to do so.

In Korea a woman walking with her child saw me with a cup of steaming coffee and a heavy workbag and made sure she walked into the store before I could put my bag down to open the door, and didn't hold the door open for me. I spilled hot coffee all down my work clothes.

There was no apology from her, no apology from the convenience store people. In Japan that would usually be unthinkable from a woman with a child, except by not noticing.

In Korea I have over-paid for items because of language misunderstandings and the next day it was never refunded although the store staff knew damn well who I was when I came in again.

If I lost time on my computer in a pc cafe because the computer was not functioning properly and I had to wait, the time was never made up though I had paid for it. Yesterday's food items in convenience stores and others were regularly passed off as today's - not put aside. No discount for the used by date items.

This never happened in Japan. The Christianity I saw in Korea never seemed to filter down into daily life - showing respect for others. The Japanese have the same 'you're not in my in-group' mentality but they have better manners in public to each other and show some consideration. I saw very little evidence that Christianity means reaching out in Korea - the mentality there is if you are not part of my family or inner group I don't have to even see you there while I ignore you and cause you to fall over or spill hot coffee over you.

The same lack of consideration for others also means screaming in the streets at all hours despite the fact it's done in residential areas, slamming your apartment doors although you could be quieter, screaming in stairways at all hours and not caring that others are asleep because well, you don't know them so their wellbeing means nothing to you.

Christianity is more business than anything in Korea, the idea of reaching out to others in genuine charity works etc is virtually non existent.
Even the Japanese have a better record there and few of them are Christian.

And while the Japanese can't handle too much critical thinking about their society they are more open to debate and discussion than the Koreans and they don't take it as a personal insult if you don't like some of their food.

The Koreans are more nationalistic in the worst way than the Japanese, and their obsession with casting the Japanese as the ultimate villains is hypocritical to some extent as Koreans served in the Japanese military during WW2 and by credible, certifiable accounts behaved just as cruelly and in some cases were considered to be worse by Allied POWs.

Orphans are still confined to orphanages in most cases - the Christian Koreans don't consider changing theirs or their society's feudal attitude to 'blood lines' and having more of a compassionate attitude. Many 'orphans' are in fact the offspring of single mothers. There are attitudes in Korea that would belong in a book by Dickens.

In Japan adoption laws are far more open and it is easy to adopt any other person, maybe unusually for a society that has some of the same rigid thinking about families etc.

A real downside of Japan compared to Korea - Korean people don't form themselves into 'neighbourhood' or apartment groups and demand you pay money to them each month.

Usually this money will never benefit you. The Koreans don't have the pathetic obsession with hanging around the garbage area watching you like a hawk to make sure that you the foreigner has separated your garbage properly. Even when you do some old racists will accuse you of being the one to not to things properly.

[Quibby84]

wow, it is cool that you can actually compare both because you have been to both...but...I dont agree with the adoption thing. I have researched adoption in Japan and find that it is way to hard, only like 150 kids are adopted every YEAR. We visited an orphanage (which was very nice by the way) and the guy said he has NEVER had experience with adoption and he doesnt even know where to start. The child has to be declared "abandoned" and that almost never happens because these kids have parents, the parents just dont want them (because of remarriage or whatever). Japan also doesnt want to start sending their kids out of japan because of the falling birth rates....so we decided that if we adopt it wont be from Japan because a. it is SUPER hard and almost never happens and b. the kids seem to be decently well off (maybe worse off in the US)...

[ironopolis]

This one was initially a bit different, as Noelle was asking about a very specific point, but generally speaking, Korea/Japan threads tend to get done to death, and usually we end up with a long winded rants about totally personal experiences (or, possibly, a simple inability to deal with a different culture) in both places and people trying to make out their experiences are the definitive ones for everyone.

I've spent a lot of the last 15 years in both countries. I have a strong preference for Korea, but really don't dislike Japan and do have things that I prefer here than in Korea. I'm often asked which one I recommend, and I usually say that it depends totally on the person - some people's characters are more suited to one, some the other, and some could do fine in either or neither.

As for why Japan gets the more attention and interest - well, I think the main reason is simply that Japan is bigger, more well-known and has a greater influence on the world stage. Korea is obviously the opposite, and has the additional disadvantage of being sandwiched in by another well-known giant on its other side.

[cafebleu]

Quibby - I don't know so much about the reality of Japan's adoption processes but I know under the laws you can just about adopt anybody, even if they're an adult.

Ironopolis - I think this topic hasn't been done to death and I think it's useful for people in both countries to know what they're getting into. If you look at my posts on the caf I am not a fan of Japan as such though I had some good experiences there.

However, Japan gives foreigners a better deal when it comes to being able to go about your business quietly and peacefully in Japan. You are conveniently forgetting that some countries' embassies warn their nationals against working in Korea for very good reasons - the continuing abuses of foreigners working there especially in the hagwon system.

Japan's employment problems for foreigners pale besides the ones waiting for many of them in Korea. I had a good job in Korea but I knew so many other foreigners who were routinely cheated and abused in other ways. It's a fact.

It's why there's a huge turnover of foreign teachers of English in Korea and why they offer perks such as free housing and airfares although being cheated out of those is certainly not unknown. It's the reason why demand outnumbers supply in Korea.

Japanese laws governing foreigners teaching English are positively enlightened compared to Korea and are decent in their own right. You are not owned by your employer, you do not get blacklisted at your employers' whim because you didn't renew or because you gave enough notice for resignation.

Or because you were stressed and left under a cloud because you weren't getting paid, or where in an apartment with no running water or dirty yellow water, or placed to live in a red light district and your employers refused to change the situation. These are only a few samples of what really goes on in Korea for many teachers.

You'd have to do something criminal to get blacklisted by Immigration in Japan. In Korea it's easy - have a polite falling out with your employer and you could very well find yourself in that position.

Overall Japan is a non confrontational culture. I found it easy to feel good about my life there apart from some interference by bigots in rural areas. However, in daily life the Japanese back away from confrontation and as I noted before will go out of their way to be civil generally.

There is still the you are an outsider mentality and it can lead to some rudeness by people who are otherwise polite but it is nothing compared to the daily rudeness of having doors flung in your face, no thank yous for helping people especially older people, hacking up phlegm and showering it in pc cafes on the floor, spitting on the street, surrounding foreigners who just want to go about their lives quietly etc.

This does not happen in Japan as a rule and the only people spitting and being a bit strange are in a minority, a real minority. Throwing trash and spitting was something I encountered on a daily basis in Korea.

On the trains there is incredible rudeness in Korea such as being physically and nastily shoved aside because the people didn't want to wait. The manners of middle aged and older to old Koreans are often uncouth especially compared to those in Japan. A few old ladies queue jumping in Japan are nothing compared to the aggressive handling that goes on in Korea as fairly normal.

I found Korea to be in my face and what was worse, the constant whingeing about every other country received huge over emphasis. When in a football game a Swiss referee or somebody didn't favour the Koreans, it became a huge issue on the news, just as the constant 'I hate Japan' mantra was also disturbing.

The Korean kids are brought up on a diet of aggressive nationalism in their text books and are encouraged to feel insulted in foreigners don't like kimchi etc. The nationalism in Japanese textbooks is relatively passive compared to the garbage that passes for instruction in some Korean school textbooks.

[ironopolis]

[Noelle]

Ok, I think I get it!


Thanks again everyone...

[Apsara]

Just in answer to points above- I have never been asked to join a neighborhood association, even though my husband is Japanese, and friends of mine (Japanese husband, foreign wife) just adopted a little Japanese boy, and didn't mention it being really tricky.

No hard and fast rules, it seems!

[Quibby84]

I think it makes a little bit of difference if you are going to stay in Japan or if you will move away...but I am happy to hear that they adopted! That is so cool....I always ask my students about adopting and most of them say that they couldnt do it...they dont think they could love them...sad...but congrats to your friend!

[just4u]

I was just reading the Korean forum, and then began reading this thread....
Some good points were made and I got to page two. Someone complained about this topic being "done to death" and I thought, "wait a minute." There is a lot of logical information being presented, normally this topic can get a little bit raunchy and trollish. Christianity is mentioned, and in a positive way. There is no talk about "girls" or "drinking", and no one crashing the thread from New Zealand.
And I wondered, "what has gotten into these people? Dave's has gotten so much nicer. The teachers in Korea sound so much more articulate, logical, coherent, and benevolent."

Then I clicked back and noticed that I had forgotten I had stumbled into the "Japan" forum. If this is any indication, then it says it all, I don't know what else does.

[Apsara]

I'm from New Zealand, and I crashed the thread! Well, I posted in it anyway and I live in Japan- does that still count?

[just4u]

Even the KIWIS in Japan sound a lot more benevolent...crikey-ha! I'm so there.