Korean Job Discussion Forums

[expattarheel]

from my experience (worked 2 hagwon gigs, my bf worked 1 hagwon, one public school), we just stayed professionally closeted (to administrators, not our native N.A./english coworkers) and, forgive the dramatic intonation of what follows, lived 2 separate lives - work and private life.

that being said, my director at my 2nd hagwon met my bf, he did some substitute teaching at our school (he's F4), and she really liked him. She even bumped me up to couple housing after my 2nd year as a contract renewal sweetener. i wouldn't go so far as to say she's the norm, though. She got her masters in the States and lived in the nyc metro area for a couple years before returning to korea, so she really prided herself on being progressive and international/super-modern, so she was 100% fine with me being gay personally. i only put that there as an example of there being supportive koreans, not necessarily as the rule.

that being said, i felt a significant pressure (maybe it was my weakness for not pushing the issue) to just play along and not rock the boat with all the "teacher--you marry?" questions. i didnt feel like it was my place to come in and work human rights issues into lessons about adjectives, so i just played along and pretended, albeit evasively and winkingly, to be straight. i taught kindy - 5th grade, fwiw, can't say what i'd have done with HS students.

my boss never said "don't tell the students!" but i think after a few years in korea, i learned that anything you give moms ammo to bitch about, they're going to come back and make your life miserable, so why bother? some people may judge me for passing on an opportunity for a teachable moment, but gays learn self-preservation at a young age, so that was the instinct that kicked in for me. my way of thriving in korea was just to keep up a facade when i needed to, and only really be myself around my friends. you may luck out and have super awesome progressive korean bosses and staff, but i'd err on the side of caution, at least in the beginning. the christians in korea don't play around; they don't even love the sinner, much less the sin, lol (80s era Jesse Helms comes to mind).

my bf is korean-american, so he would probably tell you his experience was much more stifling culturally than mine was, just bc the older ladies at his school were constantly on him to meet girls/nieces/daughters of friends and he had to always make some kind of excuse why he didn't want to date them. i daresay foreigners won't be subjected to the same experience.

one piece of advice to the OP: korea will affect you and your relationship. my bf and i never held hands in public (even on homo hill), and our modest PDA from before korea (arm around him at the movies, etc) was, by the end, curtailed. korea had a quiet stifling affect on us, and we're still (2 years later after returning home) not back to public affirmations of our relationship like we were before we left for korea. just feel like that's something worth watching out for.

[Benjamino]

[TheUrbanMyth]

[ms7878]

thanks for your personal insights. We're not huge on public displays of affection anyway but I do think it will be an adjustment carrying on our relationship in Korea.

[Skippy]

[YTMND]

[isitts]