Korean Job Discussion Forums

[simonandmartina]

I know someone who worked freelance making music in New York City for tv commercials. Life was rough: cost of living was steep but clients were abundant. I was wondering what working freelance arts in Korea is like, if anyone's doing it, be it freelance webdesign, photography, music, whatever.

Is it legal, first of all? How's living here as a freelancer as opposed to living elsewhere doing the same? Are clients as hard to find? Do they undervalue your services more? Demand more, give less, or vice versa? Hell, any thoughts on this would be interesting.

[Yaya]

I work freelance but not in teaching, and that's thanks to my F-4 visa. I'm not sure about the rules governing the other F series of visas, but you are right, life can be rough but it beats staying at the same office day after day.

The author of the book The Millionaire Mind quoted a self-employed person as saying to a person with a full-time job, "You have one employer, I have dozens."

[crossmr]

If you are not on an F series (gyopo, married to a korean or been here long enough to qualify for and gotten your F5 permanent resident visa) it would be illegal to do any freelance work. That doesn't necessarily stop many people, but just putting it out there.

[jugbandjames]

If you're freelancing for an American company or something, and it's not Korean earned income then it's legal. At least, that's what my school told me. If you set it up so that you're getting direct deposits in a foreign bank account, I don't know how the Korean gov would even know about it. I'm not actually in Korea yet though, but I leave in a few weeks and they told me I could legally continue freelancing for American and British companies on an E-2 as long as it didn't interfere with my job.

I don't live off of freelancing though. Right now it's only about a third of my income, and when I get to Korea I'm just going to do it enough to maintain my contacts.

Edit: I don't do arts. I do linguistics and teaching material related stuff.