Korean Job Discussion Forums

[minos]

Only 1 year? You over-qualified already!

[Slowmotion]

[watergirl]

for my two cents, I don't find it too difficult ot work here at all. Nor do I find my korean coworkers especially racist or backwards. Officially, you will not be able ot get an E2 visa to teach English because they don't recognize the country's whose education system is in English but are a non-speaking English native ctry. (like the philippines, northern European countries etc.)
There are non-teaching jobs which look quite cushy. Check-out www.worknplay.co.kr to me actually. But, definitely there are a lot fewer of these.
There are also several people, who can teach english pt because they are registered as students.
So, check out your options, and take what you hear here with a grain of salt.

[earthquakez]

[Ekin]

Is private tutoring illegal (I assume it is, and I asked a Korean friend who said that many people do it)?
What about giving SAT/Toefl public or private lessons?

watergirl:
Thank you for your answer. That website was very helpful, although most of the jobs are as English teachers

[Ekin]

Sorry for the double post
I just found this website: http://neavanille.com/?p=20

Apparently, I can go to Korea with a D-4 Visa, and get some jobs there, what kind of job? I still don't know.

[I-am-me]

You can study, but I dont think you can work. If you get caught, they will deport you. Just have to chance it.

[rooster_2006]

[Slowmotion]

[earthquakez]

Korea shut itself away from the world for centuries until it was forced to wake up in the 19th century to a world that had moved on in rapid speed within decades. It has not experienced the massive movement of peoples throughout the world nor the mass immigration waves of the 20th and 21st centuries - I would not expect Koreans to have the number of racial/ethnic slurs that come through tensions when different races/ethnicities move around and often clash with each other.

Having said that, I agree with the very solid view that Koreans are basically two types of people - Mongolian and Polynesian - despite the rubbish of 'the Great Han people' a myth formulated to produce national pride in a country that contributed little to the world and suffered from its own crippling feudal system's inability to develop without other powers' influence and intervention.

I have to say you are naive if you think other cultures including Black ones (I am Black through one ancestor though I identify as white because my white ancestors greatly outnumber the black ancestry which is further back and only through one line) do not have their own racial/ethnic slurs.

One of my best friends from school is Indian and when you hear him explain about discrimination in India between different castes and ethnicities it's an eye opener into just how lack of knowledge of other cultures conceals their long histories of bigotry. And if you think Korean racial slurs are few then you obviously haven't heard of the ones they use for other Asian peoples from Japanese through to south east Asians.

And just because there are racial slurs in English doesn't give Koreans the right to wear t shirts with all manner of racial/ethnic slurs in English and then cry 'Oh but we are Korean' when you confront them about it. I was at Incheon Airport when I saw a moron strutting around with the t shirt and when he said I 'didn't understand because I am not Korean', I asked him if it was fine that on my next trip to Japan I get a t shirt made up there with the racist terms used for Koreans by a minority of bigoted, right wing Japanese and wear it when I am back in Korea.

Racism and ethnic divisions are everywhere in the world except the most isolated, monocultural places. How the problem is approached by elected governments gives you one of the best clues as to the culture's fundamental premise on racial/ethnic differences. A key point I made was that in Korea the govt and other authorities actually ask the advice of racist groups that would be called 'hate groups' in western countries.

There has been a problem with minority parties such as the anti immigration BNP getting seats in the UK parliament but when they were invited to certain events with the mainstream political parties, for example, there was widespread outrage in the media and among mainstream people despite the fact they have been democratically elected.

Same in the Netherlands where the assassination of a Dutch public figure by Muslim extremists (who belong in the same hate groups category as white racists like the BNP) and gay bashing by Muslim extremists still has not turned mainstream Dutch people into racists although anti immigration parties can get support.

And at the end of the day, the Korean focus on a very small minority of foreigners in Korea, when these foreigners have all sorts of roadblocks to staying longer than 3 years or so, have very limited visas, and have to meet the basic requirement of a university education completed with a certain degree. Even then Koreans generally do not seem to be able to handle this kind of limited foreigner residency in Korea. Contrast to countries confronted by very real issues about how to create societies that respect multicultural/multiracial populations yet at the same time function within accepted frameworks set by the predominant culture and its legal system etc.

There are more bashings and racially based harassment of all kinds of foreigners in Korea than you think - and yet Korea has a very small foreigner population. Read the signs, they're obvious to those who are observant. There's also a disturbing phenomenon whereby Koreans who feel free to go and live in our countries and have more rights as students (and of course even more as employees than we do as employees in Korea) are increasingly creating hate-filled forums on the net about foreigners in Korea that rant about filthy blooded Asians coming to Korea, rail against international marriages, and truly sound like the Nazi propaganda I studied in one of my courses at University.

These Koreans are incredibly hypocritical of course but also it shows just how little Korea will be able to cope with more foreigners in the future without more discriminatory laws and acceptable bigotry. The small numbers of foreigners paying their way are already too much for many Koreans including those who pander to notions of and believe in Korean nationalistic myths at govt and media level.

[cyui]

You're a Brit ( you are given far better options then most of us are in life)..

If you don't like Korea;why don't you go work in the EU?

Why keep torturing youself with this ridicoulus nonsence?

[earthquakez]

I'll be kind to you on the stupid statement you made and not cut it down like I should. Life is good - when I leave Korea I'll have worked in 5 countries not my own, living the travelling life I always wanted, and I'll be doing a job that reflects my qualifications and work history.

I'm going in May, I have a university job guaranteed in another country that is not the EU. Korea was a great place for limited visits to Seoul when I lived and worked elsewhere in Asia but working is a different thing altogether despite some great students and a few good bosses.

I suggest that more follow because I honestly think that absurb as this theory was when I first heard it some years back, this theory is true: the K govt and many others want foreigners teaching English in part to make themselves feel superior by having mostly white 'westerners' under their control. It's not about Koreans 'internationalising' , it's about showing off their culture and wanting us to praise their advances (which had little to do with K culture and everything to do with dictatorships imposing development plus the non Korean technology borrowed).

Unfortunately the Korean system and common views aired out in the society undermine the stated official Korean objective of so called 'internationalisation. So it becomes about foreigners earning money because although many of the English teachers were open to Korean culture when they first came, they encountered the 'We are superior' meme and the blame game of how a small minority invited to Korea are some kind of threat particularly of Aids.

At the same time there is the constant need of Koreans to feel appreciated by foreigners while they make it difficult for us to do so. Contrariness and willynillyness mixed up with xenophobia and aggressive nationalism accompanied by the need to be praised for it are difficult to deal with, I've never encountered it anywhere else. I'm glad to go and I think Koreans won't really be happy until they've pulled down the blinds again.

[rooster_2006]

[litebear]

Am I being stupid or is there a massive elephant in the room here?

Marry your girlfriend. Get an F2 Visa.

[hondaicivic]