Korean Job Discussion Forums

oubeijin · Joined: 24 Aug 2012

Hello everyone.

I'll try to be brief and concise in explaining my concerns because I have many:

Here's a little bit about me. I am currently a 4th year JET (in Japan). I have a BA (Anthropology), and a TESOL certificate. I have decent Japanese ability, but have been studying Korean as well. I can read it, but speaking is not there yet. I also am married. My wife is Japanese, and was a high-school English teacher, but now works at Elementary part-time. I have a child (4) in pre-school.

I am interested in working in Korea, and my wife is on board too since she is interested in Korea. I have the following concerns:

1) Given my experience and credentials, should I be expecting a wage of about 2 mil. won?

2) What is the "standard deal" when it comes to living expenses? Currently, my BoE pays half my rent, but I live in a reasonably sized place, and utilities cost me about 50 000 yen a month, not including food. I am able to save however, since my wife works as well.

3) From what I read, EPIK seems stable and livable and seems to suit my needs. However, would you Korea veterans recommend going the EPIK route, or is there something better?

4) Would it be possible for for my wife to get a visa teaching Japanese (or English if needed?) after we move to Korea?

5) Are international schools quite pricey in Korea? I'd like to send my child to a international school, but I know from Japan they are pricey. Anybody here have children while teaching in Korea? Any advice for schools?

6) Given the events that have happened recently, and Japan and Korea's shaky relationship, would I, and more importantly, my family be subjected to a lot of racism? Perhaps bullying or even violence?

That's about all I can think of. I'm sorry if I may have covered something in a previous post, I tried my best to dig as much as possible. Thank you in advance for answering my questions.

Pablo · Joined: 15 Dec 2011

Hi Oubeijin

Have you visited Korea for an extended time before? I used to teach in Japan. The culture / thinking / environment / lifestyle are different in some profound and consequential ways. Some people like it, but the decision to change should not be made lightly.

When I occasionally mention something or other that I experienced in Japan, my high school students here invariably inform me lustily that "We hate Japan." This seems to be something of a national pasttime. During one of these declarations, the kids told me that they call Japanese music and music from other Asian countries "monkey music".

Pablo

oubeijin · Joined: 24 Aug 2012

Hello Pablo,

Actually, my wife is from Yamaguchi (really really lclose to Pusan), so we've been going frequently during my stay in Japan. Which is sort of why we want to experience Korea on a deeper level. If it was just me, it would be a no-brainer. I am really worried that my wife and child's ethnicity is really hamper our stay in Korea.

I would prefer a larger city, because it would offer a more cosmopolitan environment for my family, and we'd could be a bit more anonymous than living in a town.

Hotpants · Joined: 27 Jan 2006

oubeijin · Joined: 24 Aug 2012

young_clinton · Joined: 09 Sep 2009

When the JET resigning contract comes in, sign it. Anything from EPIK throw it in the trash or more realistically don't pull it up on the computer.

P.S. Your wage would be much higher than 2.0, it would be at least 2.5 or more.

iggyb · Joined: 29 Oct 2003

I wouldn't recommend putting your wife and child through it unless it is something the two of you are really gungho about -- or possibly if the wife is fine with it and you have money.

I wouldn't consider it at all if you couldn't afford an international school for the kid. I've knew a couple with mixed race children who said their kids were fine and they enjoyed their life in Korea, but they were highly dedicated to making it work, and I'd want to talk to the kids myself. (He was black and she was Japanese.)

I have no doubt your kids could find friends. And young children are resilient. But, they are also cruel. The anti-Japanese sentiment is taught very young. It seemed to me it was stronger among the children, because maybe older teens and adults learn to put things in perspective, but the Dokdo children songs and other things preached early have more effect on them.

I don't know about the experience in Japanese schools. I do know that we had a handful of Korean kids in the elementary school where I worked who had been born and raised most of their lives aboad - in the US or UK and elsewhere. They had a very hard time adjusting to school life in Korea.

One girl shut down considerably. Refused to speak at all in school - English or Korean. Went totally mute the whole year. None of them seemed happy. They were all trying to cope but found it a rude awakening.

This is why my Korean wife and I never considered living in Korea long term if we had kids --- school life, the education system, and being mixed race.

Maybe if you only wanted to do it for a year (or less if it didn't work out), and you and your wife both really wanted the experience and were going to do all you could to make it worthwhile for you and your kid, maybe...

I just wouldn't recommend it.

Can't you save up a good bit of money and take a long holiday to Korea? Don't you get long school vacations in the JET program? Could you save up enough to spend a month or so in Korea travelling around?

viciousdinosaur · Joined: 30 Apr 2012

Good

Racism will be pretty low in Korea, but most people will think your wife is a tourist all the time.

Bad

The apartment you'll get will be too small for your family, so you'll need to get your own place, but the subsidy they give you is just a pittance of what they really pay. Most people who have their own place don't work at hagwons or public school for this reason.

The price of international school won't be any cheaper.

Do you really want your Japanese/Caucasian child to grow up speaking Korean?

The ESL market in South Korea is on tilt and shrinking quickly.

The Won is weak, the yen is strong. That doesn't just affect your pay but the cost of everything you buy too.

You think you'll save more, but I think you'll just be getting into way more problems. It's seems like such a no-brainer for you.

Fox · Joined: 04 Mar 2009

iggyb · Joined: 29 Oct 2003

oubeijin · Joined: 24 Aug 2012

iggyb · Joined: 29 Oct 2003

Your child only being 4 is an advantage if you are only looking for a year or two. Pre-school would be easier than elementary or middle or high school.

I would still think hard about it, however.

Outright violence isn't going to happen. Bullying in pre-school unlikely (?). In elementary school and higher - I'd say likely. Bullying is an issue in Korean schools for Koreans.

Racism directed directly to your wife wouldn't be common. Her not knowing Korean would help her avoid seeing the signs of the anti-Japan bias she might find in the culture.

What Pablo says is what I experienced with Korean kids - with the kids being particularly susceptible to anti-Japan(ese) rhetoric and such they hear in school and pop culture.

It is probably somewhat similar to what Canadians would say about anti-US/American sentiment in Korea (especially a decade ago): They might not say the same things aloud to the American expat but the sentiment was still there and not hard to find.

iggyb · Joined: 29 Oct 2003

Modernist · Joined: 23 Mar 2011 Location: The 90s

I, as usual, wonder why? Why do you want to come here? What is it about Korea that 'interests' you? Even more, what 'interests' your wife? Being Japanese, is she not aware that Korea is in many, many ways little more than a poor knockoff of Japanese things? Notwithstanding their popular culture [dramas, KPop, etc] which is apparently pretty good if you can stand that sort of thing, and notwithstanding their big corporations, which have been giving the knockdown to the old tottering Japanese versions, the rest of Korea is---well, the best way to put it is, like Japan, but not as good. Cities, like Japan but dirtier and uglier. Food, like Japan but DISGUSTING. Landscape, like Japan but dull and monotonous. Fashion, like Japan but more herdlike and lower quality. So-called culture, like Japan/China but less original and more boring. History, like Japan/China but less accomplished and typically a pawn of the former two.

So...what is there here that is of sufficient interest to merit surrendering the, apparently, much-coveted JET job and taking a chance on EPIK? AND bringing both a Japanese wife [who WILL have to deal with racism and anti-Japanese sentiment, a LOT] and a mixed-race, non-Korean child here? 'Cause I don't see it. If you need a break from Japan, why not China? Why not Southeast Asia?

Why the interest in Korea?

blm · Joined: 11 Nov 2010

There is a 3 year old half Japanese (the other parent is Korean) child at my sons childcare.

I don't think he suffers any direct racism but the parents joke about his ethnicity. I don't think it happens to the kids or his parents face but they jokingly blame him for everything i.e. if there child is sick they always say they must have caught it from XXXX.

For all I know they could be doing the same about my son when I am not there. It doesn't bother me but I think it's worth letting you know that it's not all sunshine and rainbows and that there is a decent chance you won't feel any more a part of Korea living there than if you were a tourist.

schools can be a crap shot as the staff change a lot and they are very important as to your experience.