Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Cogito]

[jajdude]

Actually felt better today. Strange how these meds work sometimes. And I have been taking it a long time. yeah I know i need exercise. The "experience" was an unanticipated emergence of sadness. I cried a bit and couldn't function right for an hour or so. Ol' depression had me. but part of it was the adjustment to the med. Anyone who has taken antidepressants might understand.

Culture shock? Yes, after 5 years I am still shocked at this culture

Cogito, please change or remove that pig!

[rapier]

[bulgogiboy]

I have a solution for all the people 'about to lose it' in Korea.

Just stop complaining and go home.

[Alias]

Have you spent 5 years in the same area? A change of environment might be good. Trying ESL in another country is another option as well. Although I am sure that you have contemplated it already.

[jajdude]

delete... how?

[jajdude]

[jajdude]

[kiwiboy_nz_99]

[jajdude]

Yep. Agreed. Just go home. Well not a bad idea, but fearing what awaits there.

[bulgogiboy]

well, you have to live somewhere and if you're about to go insane in Korea then what worse thing awaits you at home? Maybe you should try another country you haven 't been to yet?

In fairness to those people who feel they're ready for the loony bin, I have been pretty lucky to have had good employers all the time I've been here. However, I've had my share of problems, culture shock, loneliness, etc. Ultimately though, we are lucky to have the option of travelling to so many countries, and you can always go home if you feel you can't take it anymore.

[paul]

You could try teaching adults unless you are the kid's teacher type. I remember getting depressed when I was teaching kids because most of your daily energy goes to the class, and your off-time is consumed with thinking up solutions about how to control them or improve your lessons.

Both of which ultimately fail, then you just get more depressed.

When you teach adults it's way different. Most of your daily energy goes toward dating students...or trying to date students.

Really, in all seriousness. I met my Korean GF teaching adults and my life changed completely after that. I was very careful not to actually "date" her until the class was finished and she was no longer a student. Everything was fine until she chased me out of our apartment with a very large knife.

The thing that kept me from completely losing it in Seoul was girl watching. I mean 12 hours a day. I never got tired of that! If you are a guy in Seoul you are way better off than the girls.

Still, after a while ya gotta pack it in! Don't think that you have "failed" simply because you are moving on. And don't go back home after five years abroad. You will end up commiting suicide. Asia has a lot more sensual enjoyment than North America, which means more distractions.

Try another place in Korea. Head out to the country. Go to Jeju. But definetly get out of the kids' schools. It's just not worth it....especially when you consider the parents call the shots, not the owner or the director.

[captain kirk]

This is a very funny thread. I like it.
Can I tell you about how I apparently 'lost it' lately? About ninety percent of what I'm about to say is complete bull punky not because it isn't real, but because work at the hagwon and life in Korea is meant, I think, to be dismissed as a kind of weird hallucination (except it's real . If you don't believe me then look at the importance of image, and 'face'. And how entrenched is the hierarchy which is based on status and which is built up by image and 'face'. And so on.
So anyway I've been at this hagwon five months. It's an open staff room concept with the kids doing laps around 'staff island' like hamsters on a wheel or fish swimming back and forth. I get along with everyone at work, including the guy I apparently 'had a problem with'. He's the only male Korean teacher (there are seven female Korean teachers). He has orange hair and uses nail polish. He's some kind of bizarre guy with alot of showmanship. At the same time he's a 'Korean guy'.
Anyway he has some Korean style methods as a teacher. Like carrying a car antenna as a pointer but it's really an intimidation, an 'implied whip'. I laughed at him one day saying what's he doing to do, hit somebody with it. Well, the next day there's somebody behind me bellowing in Korean 'hurry up stupid lazy man, get out of the way' and it was him saying this in front of the Korean bosses at the reception desk. I said the same thing back to him so he knew I understood. I figure a Korean male will not let go of the unshakable certainty that in the hierarchy he is above a foreigner. So he seems to think. I just let him think this. He's not going to let go of this unshakable certainty, no way. Because this school is so good and the job is good and we've got it good. Why hold onto anything and form scar tissue and grudges and carry on some kind of 'hate drama'? No way. Working with kids is a lesson in the respect that weather forms and dissipates as quickly as it forms. Totally transitory. Nothing stays the same or stays put.
Another time I 'lost it' was last week when a middle school student called me a 'stupid lazy man pig' to my face in class. Oh well.
There's no way I'd go back to Canada because it would just be so friggin' dull there. The inconvenience and occasional shocking abuses here are more than made up for by the variety and unexpectedness. I met some guys at the bar tonight who were both into getting a small business grant so they can go home. Boring. But one of them said he wants to have kids and so on. And that his work here as a teacher is capped economically. So off he goes.

[Gwangjuboy]

[jajdude]

I have found freaking out and throwing a fit does shut the kids up and gets 'em to try. I don't buy the losing face thing. I just throw stuff, yell and so on for a few minutes. But sometimes I aint even up to doing that. The days I can't even be bothered to get pissed off are the worst.