Korean Job Discussion Forums

[articulate_ink]

There have been a number of threads about the new E-2 regulations. Some people have discussed their reasons why this latest batch of reactionary xenophobic craziness is the last straw, and why they'll be leaving. Others have said that the whole thing is being blown out of proportion, that upset E-2 holders planning to leave are overreacting, and so on. I want this thread to be about why this has been the turning point for people, why you're planning to leave, and why you feel Korea's just not worth it. This is my take on what others have said so far, plus a couple of my own observations.

I think that the (justifiable) expectation of inconsistent, shambolic enforcement will be near the top of the list of complaints. One Immigration officer will tell you one thing, the person at the next desk will tell you something different, and they'll both be right (in the Korean 2 + 2 = 5 sense of correctness). Managers, hagwon owners, and HR people will read the new regs through their own scrambled filters, thus making things even weirder. Advice to wait until the details are hammered out isn't helpful because it's something of a gamble what you'll be asked to do� without being given enough time to do it.

The lack of record-keeping is also a problem. Personally, I've submitted my degree and transcripts three times already, and I�ve only been here 2� years. Staying in Korea long-term on one of these foreigner-begone visas would require an endless supply of sealed transcripts, which aren't easy to obtain. Adding health checks and criminal background checks to the list of required documents that will be demanded repeatedly changes the process from annoying to onerous. Even more so if the documents have to be apostilled.

Some have commented on the uselessness, the insulting language, and the hypocrisy of the new requirements. The regs are useless because they wouldn't have kept Pedophile Guy out of Korea had they been enacted sooner, and they�re being applied only to a narrow range of visa applicants. People on other visas can also molest children. This fact seems to have been lost on Immigration. Also, wanting E-2 holders screened for alcoholism is rich in a country so thoroughly splashed with puddles of soju puke on weekend nights. In-country health checks are of particular concern because of the lack of privacy in many cases. It�s one thing for Immigration officials to see the results, but knowing your doctor might call your boss and blab about your yeast infection or your hemorrhoids or whatever? Anathema. And while a basic background check and health screening are reasonable requirements if one is working with children in a country with nationalized health care, the broad implication that E-2 holders are bringing problems to Korea is offensive. If these things reflect how the Samsung employees in charge of the country view us, well, goodbye.

Another common theme is that people are maxing out on the cognitive dissonance that goes with living here. Korea is not a logical culture. It doesn't work that way; Korean culture values relationships and harmony in the moment above logic and consistency. Western thought works the opposite way. Living here requires a sort of buffer: when things don�t make sense, you often have to let go of your inclination to react with dismay. By the standards we�re used to, the way things are done in Korea will never make sense. There's also the constant tug-of-war needed to defend one's boundaries. This is a competitive culture, with no end to the manipulation and the power struggles. It can be exhausting to live in a place where earnest inconsistency and expedient lies are culturally appropriate. For many of us, the new regs may have upped the stakes.

Finally, these regs further deprive expats of agency. First of all, for most of us, the language barrier already makes it difficult to get things done, to obtain services and information. Even fairly fluent speakers of the language may not be fluent enough to advocate for themselves if it should become necessary in this new environment. Also, the Confucian mindset managers have toward employees keeps many in a relatively powerless position. When your boss believes he or she owns you, and when this person controls your housing and your work visa as well as your income, life can be difficult. The expectation that employees ask 'how high?' when the boss tells them to jump is odious to the Western mind. If foreigners protest the new regulations, not only will it not do us much good, it�ll also reflect rather badly on us: we�ll be seen as criticizing Korea, which is Not Done in public. The hagwon owners� association may have the power to neutralize the regulations, but foreigners have little or no legal standing. The system is already heavily stacked against us. Worse, in the last year or so there have been two major reductions of our autonomy: first, the banking situation (the restrictions on international ATM cards and on new accounts); second, these regulations. What�s your own level of comfort with being powerless? I think the current environment in Korea erodes basic needs for personal security. Others may not see it that way, and that�s their prerogative, but I think this has devolved into a bad situation.

To disclaim, I've been following the threads about this with a little more detachment than most, I think. I hit the wall with Korea well before Pedophile Guy was arrested and the backlash began. As I've said in other posts elsewhere, I�m on my way out. I�m gone in July unless I find a job sooner. I�ve been treated quite badly by my employer this semester, and I�m past the point of diminishing returns. This new Immigration insanity adds insult to injury. Although I�m planning to leave, I�ve taken a personal interest in this because I�m appalled. I still live here. I�d like to think that this is a tempest in a teacup, but I don�t. Even if it blows over, the powerlessness of foreigners here still seems precarious to the point of being unsafe. If you�re an expat, to some degree you�ll always be at the mercy of your host government, but plenty of other places are less xenophobic than Korea.

[StephannieK]

Bravo~ very eloquently put~

My turning point has been the new regs, not because immi wants them, but because immi has placed impossible time constraints. I'm changing jobs with my current visa expiring Feb 08. I've gotten another job lined up, but the anxiety of 1) not knowing if they will accept my visa transfer or not 2) being told I can submit a �website based check or a receipt of having paid for the FBI check� in lieu of the actual paper by liaisons with immi (fact or fiction?) 3) knowing the FBI doesn�t� apostle, and my home state of NC will only give a crim background check to a registered business (ie no internationals) and local checks will come on a dot matrix printout with no letterhead AND I�d have to pay a notary to be onsite, then all the mailing mumbojumbo between local-state, then state-federal to get the apostle~! AND I�ve got to convince friends to do the running around for me~! AND give power of attorney to someone~! AND have this by end of Jan if I hope to satisfy new regs.

What they ask is logical, but the timeframe with no concessions is impossible. And for a job market that�s offering smaller or no housing, a pittance for housing allowances, shrinking vacations, forced camps, higher & higher base hours to the contract, AND unfriendly (ie patriotic) co-workers. Hmmmm� not looking like the cost benefit ratio is favorable�

AND if this is the reaction to the CPN event, then ask yourself what is going to happen when these new regs uncover hidden pasts? It will reinforce the xenophobia, and likely tighten up regs even more.

Using the incompatible western logic� supply & demand hints that fewer teachers will mean more won for those who survive� from the IMF days to now, average income has risen 500.000 at least for the low-end paying positions. And that�s a low estimate. Check out this thread for more info on that time�
http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=105373
didn�t see any mention of the fingerprinting requirements but it was just after the IMF crash. And for those who stayed, suffered the racist shakedown, there were opportunities to prosper.
But as articulate_ink (what an appropriate name!) has pointed out, logic doesn�t apply here.

[nautilus]

That really was well put and I think it summarises most peoples current feeling.

For those public school workers that have already undergone CRCs and medicals, it doesn't seem that bad. We're just waiting to see the new regs as they appear for certain, and how much hassle or not it actually means.

[sadsac]

My wife and I have been here since 2001 and have suffered through the many indignities foisted on foreigners by uncaring, unsympathetic and ignorant government agencies and workers in these past 7 years. The new regs are definitely the end for us. march 16th will see us bid farewell to working in Korea. Wages have been eroded in real times by the strengthening of the Korean won and the rise in the cost of living in Korea. Wages have not kept up with these changes. Then we must supply transcripts, the fact that these can be as easily forged as degrees seems to be lost of the MOJ and Immigration. Now we must provide a criminal background check and a medical, which is then duplicated in Korea upon your arrival is rather ridiculous. I do not have any issues regarding these additional checks, but they should have always been a requirement and there should be a grace period of 6 months to allow people to fulfill the new requirements. This constant knee jerk reaction of the MOJ and Immigration just gets frustrating and annoying. I now firmly believe that things will only deteriorate further within the ESL market in Korea. Other contries now look much more attractive from a work perspective than Korea does. My wife and I have had some amazing times in Korea, but unfortunately we often lose sight of those times when the inherent stupidity of Koreans comes to the fore. Gain the you must understand our culture, but we really don't give a sh*t about you or your cultural norms. Time to say goodbye.

[Snowkr]

Well done, OP. This was very well stated. You ought to look into getting that published.

Your username, "articulate ink" is more than appropriate.
Even though I do not personally feel the same way that you do, I think that your post is excellent and should be read by others outside this forum.

[PBEnglish]

Your post sums up exactly why I am frustrated with Korea, why I am regretting resigning for a second year, and most importantly, why there is no way in hell I will be resigning for a third year.
I resigned for a second year in September (with a starting date of Oct), so just around the time of Pedophile Guy (as a matter of fact, his story "broke" when I was back home between contract). So I dodged the added nonsense that Korea has (or will be) throwing at new applicants. My frustrations with these new regs isn't so much that they are inacting them. I think Korea needs to tighten up their issuing of visas. My frustrations lay with the fact that all of the responsibility lies with the person applying for the visa, and there is seemingly NO responsibility being taken by Korean immigration for the previous mistakes that have landed Korea in the mess they (claim to) find themselves in.
Since coming here in September of '06, I've had my degree and transcripts verified 3 times. That doesn't include the initial verification that happened when I applied for my visa. Is there any rhyme or reason to that? Is there honestly something different in my transcripts or degree from the first time to the fourth time?
That being said, jumping through the hoops wouldn't be that big of a hassle to me, if this country wasn't so xenophobic and downright racist towards anyone who isn't Korean. I would accept going through extra sets of checks and balances if it was enforced evenly across the board AND if there were reasonable expectations given for enforcing them (for example, time frames) But given that Korea doesn't seem to be too interested in enforcing this when it comes to their own citizens. It's downright insulting to expect that "the evil foriegner" must jump through their hoops at a moment's notice.
In my case, all of these new regulations are just compounded by the fact that since I resigned, the working experience has sucked. My boss is becoming far more unreasonable in expectations, her attitude towards myself and the other foriegn teacher is nothing short of insulting and the overall atmosphere is just not what it was during my first year. Obviously there was something there that I enjoyed enough for me to resign, but all of the positive things that did exist in the first year have pretty much dried up.
In short, my contract is finished on Oct 7th, 2008. At that time, I am out of this country without so much as a second thought. I will go to a country where a teacher is respected, a foriegner is not treated like dirt and things actually make sense. As I've said in another thread, Korea and their backwards attitude towards anything that is not Korean can stick it.

[Al Khidr]

According to EFL Law's website on Korea, the number of foreign teachers here has already dropped significantly in the past five years. Perhaps a mass exodus is what is desired here. I've always felt that as a country, Korea in general has viewed foreigners or anything that doesn't harken back to a glorified confucian past as a temporary expediency. A poll done here a few weeks ago claimed that Koreans seemed ready for a multicultural society. Yet, when I asked my university students (those who hadn't lived abroad) to define what that multicultural society would be, they had no idea. Similarly, many years ago I worked with a Korean middle school teacher here who told me she thought the English language could be stripped of all culture references and taught to her students. After she came back from a couple of months of living in San Francisco, she dumped that idea wholesale.

For all the boasting that goes on here about Korea's IT industry, the emphasis seems to be more on the tech and less on the information. There used to be a program on TV a few years back where a couple of Korean guys would travel the globe, asking in there poor English what people from other (usually non-English-speaking) countries knew about Korea. There seemed little attempt to provide the Korean viewer any information on the country the doofuses were visiting; instead, it was a pitiful exercise in trying to get some head-scratching villager in Panama or Uzebekistan to learn something about kimchi or the konglish use of the word "fighting!" Good for laughs to watch, but a rather sad commentary on the inferiority complex this culture exhibits where depending on the situaton, Korea is a developed country and "number one!" or it is a victimized or struggling developing country that might achieve great things if only (fill in the blank) would let them.

I predict that within the next five to ten years, the notion that English will be a kind of quasi-second language here will be cast aside. Maybe this is how it should be. Japan has done well enough without its citizenry showing particularly high levels of English fluency (next to none, from what I observed on my five visits there). Since Koreans seem to want less and less western influence these days, perhaps they ought to be embarking on an expansive Chinese language program, since China now is dominating their trade while also buying up North Korean resources in long-term contracts. However, whether Koreans like it or not, 25% of their men are marrying non-Korean Asians. One way or another this country will not be a monoculture a couple of generations down the line. Waxing philosophic aside, living here has cured me of any notions of kumbaya world peace why-can't-we-all-get-along ideas I had floating around my head before I ever left my home country ten years ago. It also put some dough in my pockets.