Korean Job Discussion Forums

[nrvs]

My girlfriend is a Korean national and permanent resident of the United States. She's lived in the USA since she was 6, when her mother emigrated from Korea. She's attended all of her schooling in America, and graduated from a prestigious college two years ago. She speaks and writes good Korean, but English is the language she's most comfortable with.

After reading narratives in the Korean Job Information Journals about Korean English teachers being mistreated, I am concerned for her. The reports of verbal and even physical abuse of Korean teachers -- while foreign teachers are treated comparatively well -- made me very upset.

Will she be treated like a foreigner or like a native Korean? Will she be able to teach in the 2 million won positions targeted at foreigners? What sort of reception will she get upon applying for hakwon jobs in person, in Seoul?

Mark


P.S. I realize similar questions have been asked before, but I could only find references to gyopos -- never "real" Korean nationals.

[prosodic]

Based on everything you wrote, your girlfriend is a kyopo. The best definition of "kyopo" is: a person of Korean descent who grew up overseas in a Korean family that made some kind of attempt at following Korean traditions. Only a handful of non-kyopo overseas Koreans can speak and write Korean well, and all of them had to study it as a foreign language.

However, the correct definition of "kyopo" doesn't really matter because the average Korean has a very general understanding of the word and lumps together all overseas Koreans in the one term. Your girlfriend will be treated as a kyopo. That may be good or bad depending on the particular situation.

[jay-shi]

I have a kyopo friend from canada who came to Korea a few years ago to teach in a hogwan. She was a canadian national. She was treated like a foreigner, housing, same salary scale etc...

But at her hogwan she wasn't allowed to speak any Korean, only English, which was frustrating for her.

[hellofaniceguy]

[mindmetoo]

Mileage may vary but at my school the returnees are expected to work like native Koreans. Now part of it might be them trying to live their "I'm a real Korean" fantasy and accepting the shoddy treatment. In class, a Korean face would be a benefit as an enraged Korean teacher is far more scary to kids than an enraged white teacher.

[prosodic]

Bottom line, a school will treat your girlfriend exactly like it treats kyopos. However, every school treats kyopos differently. Also, there are some high-paying jobs that are available to kyopos but not other foreigners.

[ulsanchris]

Some bosses view gyopos with disdain. she has to be careful to work for a place that will pay her market value and not try to knock off a couple hundred thousand per month.

[marista99]

This is really too general a question to answer with any certainty, because it will totally depend on the school. It's just like if someone posted the question "I'm an American citizen. How will I be treated as a hogwan teacher?" There's no way to say for sure because there's many, many schools and they're all different.

There are lots of horror stories out there, but probably lots more success stories that are less likely to be posted because angry people are usually louder than content people.

[jay-shi]