Korean Job Discussion Forums

PatrickGHBusan · Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 8:38 am Post subject:

Mollybloom,

Youtuber has no kids.....

MollyBloom · Joined: 21 Jul 2006 Location: James Joyce's pants

Captain Corea · Joined: 28 Feb 2005 Location: Seoul

PatrickGHBusan · Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 8:03 am Post subject:

Agreed Captain!

PatrickGHBusan · Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 8:11 am Post subject:

Ok Molly here is my input for what its worth!

Note: Our son was born in Korea and only attended daycare and a few specific classes (drawing, swimming). I know numerous people with school age mixed kids in Korea so here goes:

neandergirl · Joined: 23 Jun 2005

Hi Molly,
Congrats on your upcoming nuptuals!

I didn't have my child in Korea but knew and worked with a number of people who have. I think a large part depends on, as someone's already noted, whether the kids are mixed, and also what their ages are.

Younger kids, especially babies and toddlers, do get a lot of positive attention. Occassionally there've been negative comments re the mixed heritage but over all it seems to be positive or neutral.

I do know a number of people with older mixed kids and they do have more negative stories, but by far the most negative stories I've heard have come from people with older, non Korean/non-mixed kids. One single mum I knew had an 8 year old in the local school (with morning and afternoon classes in Korean; she actually spoke a good bit of the language and happily had chats with our Korean co-workers) and her daughter had a terrible time with being bullied and/or marginalized by the other students and a number of the teachers. They ended up moving to HK after about 18 mos here.

Of course, none of my friends lived in Seoul or Busan - things might be different there.

meangradin · Joined: 10 Mar 2006

Xuanzang · Joined: 10 Apr 2007 Location: Sadang

Captain Corea · Joined: 28 Feb 2005 Location: Seoul

TheUrbanMyth · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Location: Retired

Jeonmunka · Joined: 05 Oct 2009

God, not this same repetitive argument again about half kids and treatment in Korea. Cripes, again, people without kids of their own come on and talk about the bad treatment etc etc ...
Ugh. The repetitive nature of this site sux.

Anyway, you don't have kids yet Molly, just go with the flow and when you do have them smile and be happy and if there are problems then post about them.
However, you and your (future) children may be better off here than many other places in the World. It depends.

Countrygirl · Joined: 19 Nov 2007 Location: in the classroom

I've written alot about my kids being in public school so you can search my posts if you want to know more about our experience.

We came back to Korea when my kids (mixed) were in grade 2 and kindergarten (grade 1 and 3 in Canada). Both kids learned Korean here.

My daughter is now in grade 4 and has some of the highest marks in her class. My son has some of the lowest marks in his class. Korean teachers don't really like to deal with the parents so it's hard to help my kids to improve.

I teach at the same school that my kids go to so that I would be close to them and so I can have some control over their schooling. It's worked out so far.

I personally think that a childhood in Korea is great. There are tons of other kids to be friends with and if you are in a good area, most parents will love you (ie free English play dates). Ice cream is cheap and it's safe for the kids to buy it themselves. Korean kids play lots of games such as gonggi or dakji. Hogwans for swimming, soccer etc are cheap, close by and have buses to pick up the kids.

But the older you get the harder it gets here...especially if the kids don't study well. This is our last year, for many reasons, but if it was my choice I'd stay here until my daughter was in grade 6. If you get into middle school and high school, the education (ie hogwans) gets more expensive. Also, clothing, baby stuff etc is very expensive here.

And, like the other posters who've lived here, no bad things happened to my kids because they are mixed....unless you consider the endless comments about how great their Korean speaking ability is and how 'epuda' they are.

**I also know 2 families with kids who are as blond as they come and they are planning to stay in Korea for the long term. But they do homeschooling. If I had blond kids, I would probably send them to public school. Once the other students know who your kids are, no one really cares what they look like....personality is the defining factor.