Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Whistleblower]

I am getting bored and tired in Korea. I initially left the UK for the following reasons:

1. High tax funding people on benefits
2. Extortionate living expenses (council tax, death duty, transport costs)
3. High crime and the threat of getting shot or stabbed in my own home
4. Housing market collapse
5. High unemployment compared to last year
6. Immigration fueling job and salary competition with the British

Well Korea is fine and dandy and am starting to miss my family and friends and want to make a go of it back home. I would like to go back at the start of 2010 but want to ask fellow Brits if they would go back home even though it is less than ideal in the UK.

I have some ideas about work in the UK and would like to continue working in ELT as well as examining and think about getting students to the UK from Korea with my own school in the end.

Just after advice and wondering if there are likeminded people here, from the UK, that want to go back soon.

[Lekker]

Not from the UK, from the US but I'm feeling it kind as well. Want to go back to Alaska and camp out in the mountains for a few months, where there are NO people at all, just some bears, moose, and fish, maybe the occasional Native American, never ending summer daylight. Bring it on.

[patongpanda]

Going back is too horrible to think about, but I should mentally prepare myself for the worst. If you don't mind my nosiness...

What are your ideas for work?
And where will you live?
...and how much cash to get started??

I don't know how to avoid the financial buggering which made me leave in the first place.

1. Move to the city to advance 'career' and pay.
2. Fork out a ton of dosh renting scabby flat in a bad area.
3. Dodge winos and junkies on the way home from work.
4. Find you've been burglarised for the Xth time.
5. Have to buy a car to get to work.
6. Pay farkloads for petrol.
7. Get your car vandalised/ stolen/ set on fire.
8. Pay farkloads for insurance.
9. Waste what little disposable income I have on high-tax alcohol and cigs.
10. Get suckered into buying at the top of the cycle (not me. I said f it and went to Thailand).

[Dome Vans]

WB wrote:

[Whistleblower]

I am starting to question the reason why I am out here and not with my family or friends. I would like to be with them, going down the pub and enjoying my Sunday in the garden knocking back some beer with the BBQ under control.

I also have a family and would like my son to get back to the UK before he develops too much Korean culture within him. He is already pushing me out of the way to get to the icecream shop, toy store, etc.

But my wife and I are sick to death of the Korean "Bali-bali" Culture and the rat race here.

[Adventurer]

Well, I am planning my return home, but I do not know when I am returning exactly. It will be some time in 2009. I know that, because I am applying to graduate schools, and when I return depends on the schools that accept me and where I want to go. Hopefully, I will return no later than next summer. I am homesick for sure, but I can handle being homesick for another year if it gets me closer to certain goals.
And, hopefully, I will know a lot more Korean than what I now.

[WoBW]

I admire you for being willing to go back and give it a go. I couldn't do it. I'm estranged from my two brothers and sister back in the UK, all married with families - so *beep* 'em. Haven't even had so much as email contact in 6 years, don't miss 'em a bit. My parents live elsewhere in Europe, and that's the only family I give two shits about these days.

If I DID go back, I'd go to grad school and take a completely different direction from my old career as a scientist. The UK doesn't value scientists. Universities are dropping science courses, government scientific agencies are making people redundant all the time, there's no money in it. I'd have to start a new career.

[sineface]

I understand your plight. But let me help you see the light.

Britain, she's cold and pricey. The answer is FRANCE. France is very close. France is wonderfully French, in the sense that wine and cheese are two important things and they choose to indulge in both for long periods of time each day. Houses with courtyards one may sit in without an umbrella and an anorak. Trees! No Koreans! France.

If you are a France hater ( and if so, I cannot possibly being to fathom you), take yourself to Barcelona and revel in the squares and the fountains and the Spanish people. Italy's there, with the Italians, and the wine again, always the wine.

Have lengthy lunches at big wooden tables with vines growing over you. Take a little nap. Remember fondly those terribly rushed moments you spent trying to run with the Koreans. Lie back and have another nap. Another sip of wine.

[butlerian]

[quote="sineface"]take yourself to Barcelona and revel in the squares and the fountains and the Spanish people. Italy's there, with the Italians, and the wine again, always the wine.quote]

I can grudgingly accept what you said about France, though you're ignoring its bad points and arrogance towards British visitors (in general). As for Barcelona....it's a city of tourist madness! If you really want to experience Spanish culture, but still have the blessings of a big city with beautiul fountains etc, go to Madrid. Much less tourism, much more beauty.

[Toon Army]

definitely don`t plan to go back.....at least for a long time yet.....only as a last resort really or to visit family. I went back to the UK recently and was glad to leave again. Don`t really feel any connection anymore and it`s such a boring and depressing country IMO

[it's full of stars]

Isn't the money you make in Europe about half what you make here though?

[butlerian]

[moosehead]

wow talk about a thread that made me homesick and I'm from the U.S. anyway, am counting the months now, 10 more to go

[kiwiduncan]

Back to New Zealand in three months. Maybe for good, maybe back in Korea next year (if the rising oil prices don't cause the shit to hit the fan). I'll try and maintain a Korean connection even when I'm back in NZ though.

[i]

I got delayed about 15 years ago on a trip from Seoul to Taiwan, I think. Left from Gwangju and hit fog and had to return and missed the flight from Seoul. Delayed a day. Me and my pal were pretty mad, then standing outside a 7-11 having a Heinekin, we thought, "How many people back in the US and Canada would want to trade places with us now. We're not in Taiwan, but having a Heiney on the streets of Seoul." It calmed us down.
I was in the interior of Alaska, whining because I couldn't get a good shower. Had to either use the urine on the floor public ones or swim the Yukon with glacial sand in every place imaginable afterwards. A resort owner later said someting I'll never forget. Don't think of what you don't have, think of what you have here you don't have anywhere else. Even on the banks of the Yukon, life isn't easy, but it is one of the most beautiful places there is. Nowhere is perfect. But life in Korea has its perks.
I left here in 97 saying I'd never return. Then ended up working on an Indian reservation in the poorest county in the States. Glad to be back in civilization.