Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ArikaWithAnA]

I have been offered a 6 month contract in Chungnam. Can someone please give me their input into the area? I am a 27 year old female who really enjoys going out and meeting new people (this is starting to sound like an ad for a dating site ). I like art, theatre, beaches, bars and clubs.

Where would be a good area to live?

Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[UknowsI]

Chungnam is a pretty huge area. Chungnam national university it pretty good though, but I can't talk for the whole of chungnam

[tzechuk]

Yeah.. where in Chungnam? Daejeon is its administrative city.. but there are a lot of other places, too.

[dcausey]

How did you find a 6 month teaching job?

[young_clinton]

I teach in Cheongyang county which is in the middle of Chungnam. Chungnam is generally pretty rural. I think Cheongyang county is about as rural as it gets in Korea. I don't know where in Chungnam you're going to teach so how rural your school will be I don't know.
Taejon which is historically a part of Chungnam actually is in its own district and is not a part of the Chungnam adminstration. Cheonan is the district capital of Chungnam. There are a few medium to large cities in Chungnam. Taejon which borders Chungnam is 1,500,000 in population, the Cheonan-Asan metro area is maybe around 800,000 people, Gongju is around 150,000, Buyeo 90,000, Boryeong 130,000.

The area here is heavily Christian, maybe as high as 90% of the population. This is due to the agrarian occupations that you get here. Christianity has an outlook of "all people are equal in the eyes of God" and they really like that here. When you come here you will immediately notice the high number of churches with thier interesting architecture.

I personally like this place because the children here tend to be very sweet and cute. These are the cutes children I have ever seen.

If you find yourself placed or isolated in a rural area that you're not use, Korea has a really good express bus system. This system extends into the rural areas with numerous buses leaving most towns and villages for Seoul, Taejon, and all the other cities in Chungnam. The buses don't take a long time to reach Seoul. You can take a weekend break in Seoul. any time you want. You can also find relatively inexpensive accomodation in Seoul for your weekends or if you don't stay late in the day Saturday there just simply take the bus back.

Hopefully this helps you.

[bharville]

[AsiaESLbound]

Cheonan is the big city of Chungnam and then it has smaller cities like Seosan, Taen, Hongseong, and Boryeong. It's mostly flat low lands with many large corporate farms like Dangjin which grows rice. Not a whole lot of mountains, but there are challenging rocks out there such as Palbongsan, 8 craggy steep rocky peaks up to 700 meters high. There are quite a few reservoirs similar to you see in America filled with American bass and carp, but the area requires your own transport to fully appreciate it. Make a few Korean friends any way you can, if you want to be shown around a bit on car trips.

Chungnam said to be rural, but the schools are very large to the tune of 900 students. There are 2 elementary schools within 15 minutes walking distance of me that have 900 students, one of which I teach at. I feel 900 students is too many where you see so many classes each week for so little time each that you never get to know your students and they don't really learn much on account of too little interaction with the teacher and the subject. I'd rather focus on one class of the same students; not 15 classes of 34 students coming and going like it's some Korean Grand Central for kids. You might consider going for 1 year instead of 6 months as you get flights and vacation as well as the 1 month pay for completing a year which is something to do with what is the Korean unemployment scheme where you get 1 month pay for each year worked upon quitting.

It would be nice to have a scooter or small car to do the rural areas or you'll be confined to the city center and taking buses to other city centers such as Gangnam, Seoul. I wish I'd figured out how to get a driver license 6 months ago and just laid down $500 on something to tool around on. Now it's going to get cold in a month and Winter is on the way soon after it's not worth it when I want to fish and hike in warm enough weather not requiring coats.

A bus to Seoul takes 1 hour and 40 minutes under normal conditions, but can be 2 to 3 hours if there are too many big silver SUV's in the way where you have to wait 5 to 10 long light cycles at several intersections, particularly in Gangnam. If you go really early or late in the evening, you usually good good traffic. I only make these trips to shop and eat out, not because I like sitting in traffic. I'd prefer to live in Cheonan to just hope on a bullet train to the center such as Yongsan, but drive a car to enjoy tooling around the rural parts of Chungnam. There are great little cracker jack box cars for 500,000 won or less that run such as late 90's Kia Pride or Matiz.

Know a couple people who drive with no license, insurance, and papers and get away with it, because only a brief blow in breathalyzer is the extent of getting stopped by police, but I didn't wanna take the risk of being liable for some incredibly over stated damages of bumping or rubbing into something. You pay the on the spot blood money if you don't want the police and possibly immigration to get involved with how illegal you really are. A small minor fender bender or rub could be very serious in the case of trouble costing you money if you don't have your ducks in row with being legal. It looked super easy to drive out there in all the times I rode with people with adequate English road signage and no one seems to care what you do as long as you don't hit them. I can't count how many times I've experienced people I'm with having a close call with tight congested traffic where there's not enough room and the cars are way too big.

[SandyG21]

Is Asan a good area to live in? More rural? Less rural? Any details - let me know please. I also wasn't wanting rural - because of concern of lack of stores or public transportation - which is what rural is in the USA.

[misery]

[snowjd]

[happiness]