Korean Job Discussion Forums

[isitts]

[isitts]

[Cave Dweller]

LPKSA accuses others of being stupid/hypocritical. Then he shows his true hand.

[Fuzzy_Dunlop]

[The Lemon]

[ippy]

Cost of living in china is 3000 for low maintenance (job/home, not much travelling - about 100yuan/day), and 4000-5000 if youre moving about a bit or doing some socialising.

Savings on my 11,200/month salary (which, realistically was 8100 due to my rent of 2500/month as well as the 6% tax) were about 5000/month. It did come with an end of contract bonus as well though (5000 yuan), which didnt hurt, and in some cases - not mine - youll get your flight reimbursed.

Or to put this another way:

Cost of living without rent is around 3000 for very light outlays (pretty much work/home lifestyle - 100yuan/day budget which is VERY easy to be honest).

Usually though you should be hitting something closer to 4500 with a bit of traveling and socialising mixed in. If youre heavy socialiser or love your ktv then yeah, hand to mouth. But realistically you should be looking at 4000 or so for a fairly ordinary lifestyle.

This was in Tianjin, Beijing and Shanghai possibly live by their own rules, but then again, the more baka beyond you go, the more this averages closer to what im suggesting.

Thus you should be able to extrapolate some savings.

10,000 in most of China probably means a full work week (around 25-30 classes) so you might be a little beat up to carry on with supplementing your income. But (at least in my case) results in ZERO deskwarming (though also zero pay for prep - youre paid based exactly on the classes you teach). Again, you can supplement with extra private lessons, but youd have to hate your life to do too many of them if youre already hitting 30 contact hours. Id say 5-10 extra hours and youre on an extra 2000/month possible. Which of course starts giving you some solid savings. Without the extras, its around 1000US/month on this wage.

An alternative might be to take up a slightly lower paying gig with less contact hours (the part time jobs - around 20 hours/week), but paying about 8,000 (plus housing of course) that lets you also supplement your income with privates. The standard going rate in Tianjin was about 200-250/hour. Which, you know, is okay. People mention 400/hour. Again, remember, these require a bit of networking and some effort in establishing yourself. But usually an extra ten hours or so a week and youre hitting about 12000/month (plus housing) and probably wont feel quite like youre sacrificing your soul to do it.

Then theres the uni jobs. Very light teaching hours, and something of a captive market to make extra cash off out of hours. This is probably where people teaching make some of the best wages i assume so long as youre willing to work to put yourself out there. Since your schedule is super light, you can be supplementing around 20-30 hours. And since youre a lecturer you should quickly hit 300/hour. Which again puts you up nearer 15,000 (in a non-beijing/shanghai gig - beijing/shanghai seem to be around 4000 more off the bat just from a cursory inspection of salaries).

Me personally, one job is enough. Id rather just go the easy route and languish in mid pay with a stable, consistent salary and some moderate savings.

So factor some of that in. Your cost of living outside the big two should be somewhere between 3000-5000/month. The higher paying jobs demand a crap load of your time and energy through contact hours alone, leaving you fewer options to supplement your income, whilst the lower paying/lower hour jobs allow you to supplement your income easily.

Its entirely contingent on you as a person. As i say, i prefer a more straightforward life, so one job, maybe a couple of schools and consistent fair pay with as much downtime as physically possible. Im incredibly lazy

If youre a bit more of a go-getter, then a low hours gig with supplemental lessons might suit you more. Either way, if you work off that basic idea that 3-5000 yuan (plus free housing - or 5-7000 without it - assuming you want to live somewhere relatively nice and not in one of those chinese rats nest apartment complexes (which are surprisingly nice on the inside by the way), then you can work it all out yourself just by looking at the adverts posted here. But realistically the punchline is you should be saving around 800-1000US/month with little effort. And this puts it comfortably in the same range as Korea.

[Fuzzy_Dunlop]

Lemon,

Where are you at?

[Voyeur]

I think one needs to be very careful about putting Chinese salaries in a box. I find that salaries and job requirements in China are much less uniform than in other places. Costs of living and rent also vary greatly. Part of the appeal of China is that it is still a bit of the "Wild East". Sometimes you can really punch above your weight--sometimes you get screwed.