Korean Job Discussion Forums

[viciousdinosaur]

I disagree about the racism thing. Korean racism is more collective hatred than personal hatred. If a group of Koreans and a group of Japanese face off you'll feel it, but in a 1:1 situation, you won't. Certainly the child would be teased at school, but his wife is not going to be treated unfairly or giving a hard time because she's Japanese. People will actually show more curiosity than anything. It's kind of like with Black people here. Koreans hold every misconception there is about black people, but in a personal situation I've always seen them treated with the utmost respect.

[b-class rambler]

[meangradin]

[Who's Your Daddy?]

ㅅㅅMixed race is pretty usual in the west, at least any big city.

[Weigookin74]

Don't know what is meant by "Rural" or "Urban" on the new EPIK application. But if you can request a mid sized or smaller city, you'd at least find your money going further in terms of apartment rents. In Seoul for a family, it would be way more than any subsidy you get. Contact Korean Horizons or some other recruiter that works directly with a POE (Provincial office of Education) and you can try to get into a specific location. Just be careful of some areas or local education offices that rarely, but occasionally, force you to live in their housing and won't give a rent subsidy instead. Just check those things before you come over.

AS for the market? Who knows what will be a year from now? Maybe the economy will be recovered and there will be less competition and rising wages. We'll see what happens on that front.

[iggyb]

[iggyb]

On the schools, I think this is a pretty easy argument:

There is a reason why even lower middle class families dream of sending their kids overseas to get an education. They don't like the overall quality of life for Korean children in the school system - and this includes what they see as the mandatory financial burden of sending them to mutiple hakwons each day.

The kids in the elementary school I just worked at weren't miserable yet - but the 5th and 6th graders were on their way there. All looked at middle school like doom.

I don't know about Japan. I don't know how much they still have their own hakwon culture. I don't know how much time if any many of the youngest of kids spend in them each week.

And that is just talking about the 100%, non-tainted blood Koreans who are still maintaining one of Korean culture's biggest bragging points: Pure bloodedness....

Add mixed race into the picture, neither my wife or I could fathom living in Korea long-term and putting our children through Korean public schools.

Just watching the zombie teens skidder home late at night after finishing the last hakwon is enough for me. Or listening to some of my elementary school students tell me how many hakwons they went to the day before, how much homework they had, and how late they spent studying was enough. (I found it ironic that I was told not to give homework in a public school because the students wouldn't do the work anyway, but some of the kids in the hakwons were getting it.)

If I lived in Korea with kids, I'd have to make enough to afford the international schools.

Again, I've listened to a lot of Korean adults complain about the state of Korean education --- the public schools and hakwons combined --- over the years. Complaining about how they viewed their own years within it and about what they felt they had to put their kids through.

And they had not tainted the homogeneous blood pool...

Having lived in Japan, maybe the OP hasn't really come into contact with the whole --- Korea is a proud nation in large part because Korean society is 100% pure - thing. -- Just google it -- korean homogeneous.

Add to that the amount of Dodko teaching and the history of Japanese colonization Koreans get at the earliest age at home and then starting in preschool --- and all of the above is why I wouldn't even consider putting a half-Japanese, half-white child through the Korean public school system. Especially once they have reached the elementary school age of maturity....

[oubeijin]

Thanks everyone,

The sad thing is is 95% of the points most people brought up I already deal with or witness on a regular basis.

Japanese seem themselves as homogenous,
Japanese schools sound exactly the same as Korean ones,
Anti-American sentimentism is big,
Apartments are small,


The main reason why I am thinking Korea, is because I'm almost finished on JET, but we want to live abroad as much as we can, before ultimately settling down. We chose Korea because it's a country both of us are familiar with, and it shares many similarities between Japan, but would still be a unique and fresh experience. It is definitely NOT long term. Most likely just a year, 2 if we really like it, and we connect well in our area.

All of you gave me a fairly good insight to what to expect. To be honest Korea is one of a few ventures I am considering at the moment. Once again, thank you everyone for your input.

[ippy]

Can i just chime in and say: Dont fear rural in Korea.

I was in Naju... actually i was about twenty minutes away from Naju. No matter where you are in Korea theres a highway bus thatll get you to a nearby city within a couple of hours. Its not like Japan where rural means a once every few hours bus to a train that maybe runs twice a day for a three hour journey through the mountains before plumping at some mundane crappy town like toyohashi before you can get somewhere decent.

Korea is more like a good game of 'Civilization'. With all the towns spread out with enough space to grow some crops or farm a trade resource and allowing for enough room for growth. Japan on the other hand is like a civilisation that started on a mountain land and can only really find enough space to build near the coast. Inaka means something a little heavier in Japan i honestly think.

Cant help you about family or school, but as for me, i was in a 2 bed apartment. Pay was alright, but JET is the daddy and im sure you realise youre taking a pay cut. What will make that worse is that your savings which will be better than were you to stay in japan and take up a dispatch post for example, dont really go that far from Korea to Japan. They go MUCH further the other way around.
I used to come to Japan every winter to hit up the mountains, and damn if just the standard cost of living didnt routinely wipe out my savings. Transport in Korea is INSANELY cheap. Net cafes are unreal cheap. Hotels are AWESOME (none of this footering about like in japan, loads of them pretty much all over the shop). Foods pretty cheap relatively. And my god is it yummy.

Basically youll save a wad of cash, and you should be on a decent wage with a tesol (for epik at least it (used to?) bump your pay grade as will your teaching experience). Expect 2.3 and hope for a bit more i think. Once you get your docs sorted start advertising youre good to go, and with 5 years experience teaching on JET youre liable to have people tripping over themselves to pitch for you.

Rural also has adorable kids. I loved teaching in korea, it gave me enormous job fulfillment.

[gdn35]

Re:ippy - that was a refreshingly positive outlook towards teaching in Korea. Thanks for sharing that with us.

[young_clinton]

[Weigookin74]

I think Japan not on JET would really suck. Maybe you could do it for a year if you had some savings already and just wanted to experience the place. But paying off debts or saving money would be impossible.

[Murakano]

EPIK has a tiered pay scale and as long as you have a document(s) to prove you've worked those 4 full years (quarter/half years don't count) then you will start on a higher level (2.3 or 2.4 at the very least)....more if you're working rural....and an extra 100k on top of that if you do an online TEFL.

From my experience if you're working for EPIK Seoul then your accommodation will be not be sufficient for a family of 3. If you're working away from the big city then your room should be bigger (apartment if you're lucky, but that's if you're working way out in the sticks). On application it's definitely worth asking though..there are families like yourself who have been in this situation. Otherwise it's better to find your own place (you'll need sufficient key money ala Japan). Payment in lieu of school accommodation is 500k AFAIK (a half decent 2 room place in Seoul would be 800k/20 million won depending on area and less outside of Seoul...I know...I've just been through this!). That key money you would get back (and there is no "thankyou" money which you lose like there is in Japan, I used to live there too)

If you're only planning on being here a year or 2 I wouldn't worry too much about the school situation with regards to potential racism issues.....especially with kids at 4 years old . I know Japanese in Seoul/Busan and Daejeon (from my time studying here) and they didn't encounter much direct racism from what they told me but bumping into ignorant people can happen anywhere in all forms of life.

There is a chance your wife could work here if she has the relevant teaching qualifications. I know/known of a few Japanese teachers in Seoul anyway and they had the right criteria....but I believe have to apply from Japan. Depending on how old your wife is, she could just come over on a working holiday visa also(but not legally teach on it AFAIK).

[oubeijin]

Thank you Murakano-san!

That was really helpful. I've already contacted a recruiting agency (Korvia), and by the sounds of it my only concern is housing. Schooling is number two, but it's not as pressing.
At the moment, my family and I are holed in a 2DK in Japan and it is "cozy". We definitely could not do a one room bachelor suite type room. So, while I'd like to go urban, I'm thinking rural is best.
As for my wife, she has a degree in Education, and teaching license as well. She is more qualified to teach English than I am technically. If she could get a job there, that would be great. We still have a year, so we aren't rushing into this.

[b-class rambler]