Korean Job Discussion Forums

[beercanman]

I hit mine a while ago: about 6-7 weeks. The reason it was broken was I went to a smaller city, under half a million people, ie hicksville, to get a visa and an American woman was along for the deal.

Not so impressive perhaps, but this city does have somewhere between 2 and 3 million people. During this spell I just went to work and came home, did a little shopping of course, nothing special. I have met a few foreigners here (in China) but not recently. In 4 months here I guess I have seen maybe 10 obviously foreign people in public. The smaller city was a bit surreal. At first I thought this provincial capital city was, and I guess it is, sort of. Small town China must be something else, people who have never seen a foreigner, for real. Compared to Korea it is not as bothersome for some reason. There's a lack of maliciousness or something like that. There are no protests, no crazy guys tracking foreign teacher behavior, none of that. They look at you, and it's like who cares? In Korea it bothered me more. Strange maybe, but I feel a different vibe. When I get self-conscious, which is routine for me, I can just sort of glide through and not really pay attention to anyone, just do what I have to do.

An inexplicable difference between here and there...

[travelingfool]

Having worked in both China and Korea I know exactly what you are talking about.

[Summer Wine]

3 - 6 months.

People used to wonder why I talked so much. In many cases it was the first time in ages that I actually used english as a conversational language.