Korean Job Discussion Forums

[prosodic]

[Real Reality]

The Education Ministry said yesterday it found illicit transactions involving tens of billions of won at three private universities and announced heavy penalties on the institutions. The three - Kyungbuk Foreign Language College, Daegu University of Foreign Studies and Kyonggi University - camouflaged tuition or state subsidies as funds for the foundation and also exchanged bribes during employment of professors, the ministry said. A former president of Gyonggi University, whose name was not disclosed, was found to have appropriated 5.6 billion won of school expenses for personal use, while putting 5.3 billion won worth of state subsidies into the school's foundation.
The Korea Herald
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2004/09/03/200409030005.asp

[Real Reality]

Korean society is not egalitarian: a person's status is strictly defined in relation to others. How do foreigners fit into this scheme? The simple answer is they don't. Most Koreans who travel abroad do so in group tours, which limit their interaction with the foreign environment. Korean society thus remains very inwardly focused.

Living in Korea as a foreigner requires patience and fortitude. Most foreigners have found that Koreans can be quite friendly and warm, but you should not expect to be accepted as a member of a Korean's inner circle.
http://www.voyage.gc.ca/main/pubs/korea-en.asp#Cultural

For Housing Rentals, Foreigners Easy Victims
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200308/kt2003082818233111970.htm

Discrimination plagues migrant children
"Schools that foreign children attend will have to develop a curriculum of international understanding. An understanding of foreign countries and mutual respect will help solve the problem."
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200404/25/200404252243110879900090409041.html

Discrimination
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200212/200212250002.html

[ajuma]

Real Reality: Do you EVER have an original thought??? Nearly all of your posts have links to other sites. What do YOU think?????

[Cthulhu]

Instead of killing this thread with unrelated links, Real Reality, you really need to get out and enjoy a good faculty dinner sometime.

[coolsage]

Well, this thread has certainly veered from my original intent: the point I was attempting to make, if not too clearly, was that having fulfilled my social obligation to the faculty dinner, it was my further obligation to show up for my classes relatively clear-headed. If my colleagues choose to drink themselves insensible and then attempt to 'teach' with a thumping hangover, then that's their call. It's not mine. And I'm not new to this; I've been teaching at Korean universities for five years. I find these social outings to be generally onerous. We have little in common, and the conversation is shallow at best ('Korea has four seasons'. 'You know how to use chopsticks?'). Yes, we need to accommodate our hosts/employers, but they too need to acquire some cultural smarts as to who we are. And, generally speaking, we as westerners separate our working lives from our social lives.

[Pyongshin Sangja]

So get hammered on soju and start rubbing their inner thighs. They would.

[kbridger]

Pecan did not say he was a Western Kingdoms guy, he said he was not Korean. Thus he could be Chinese, Japanese, Thai, etc. This would account for non-western phrases, just as surely as being Korean would. His advice is very good and I learned a lot from his point-of-view. It vastly improves my life to be able to understand different points of view and use them to solve issues unsolvable by other means.

That doesn't mean that I have to be drunk around students. Note that the Russians also have big drinking sprees. I hardly drink...one beer will get my high, but in Korea, according to the guides, all you have to say is that you are taking a medicine that doesn't allow you to drink, or some other small white lie. I like my Korean and Canadian colleagues irregardless of their drinking...they have lots of talent and competencies and knowledge that they only talk about when drinking...and they like me and my info as well, irregardless of my not being a big drinker.

Cool.

[ThePoet]

Here's a novel idea for foreign teachers here in Korea -- don't drink if you don't want to get drunk. Nobody has to get drunk going to an after-dinner party, an after after dinner party or even an after after after dinner party...simply drink coke pepsi or some other non-alcoholic drink. Its real simple -- nobody holds your mouth open and pours.

In this way you can be sociable - schmooze and joke and tell stories just like the rest of them -- you endear yourself to them, but you don't have a hangover to worry about the next day

So simple, even I could think of it.

Poet

[sparkx]

[Zyzyfer]

[Real Reality]

sparkx wrote,
"Are you for real? As someone who has to attend these type of dinners on a regular basis, I can say with 100% honesty, that it would probably be better not to attend at all than to reject a glass of soju that is handed to you by a boss (and this will inevitably happen) ... If i go overseas for business the koreans DEMAND that we eat korean food each and every meal. When foreigners from overseas come here the Koreans DEMAND that they eat Korean food and respect/adapt to the culture. Sometimes I feel like my head will explode having to be around such ignorance."

EXACTLY

Drunken Misconduct Abroad Gives Rise to the 'Ugly Korean'
Late last year, the Korean Embassy in Manila sent an official request asking Korean Air and Asiana to "excercise self-restraint in serving alcohol to passengers." This is because heavy-drinking Korean passengers were causing disturbances on planes. A guide for a travel agency specializing in tours to Bangkok, Thailand, said, "There are quite a few male tourists who, when riding buses, drink from start to finish and scream boisterously."

Koreans who were doing missionary work in the Philippines were barred from leaving Korea and kept in the an Immigration Department confinement cell when counterfeit immigration stamps were discovered in their passports.
Chosun Ilbo
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200402/200402200009.html

'Drinking Is Leading Killer of Middle-Aged Korean Men'
Citing a 2001 survey conducted by the Korea Drinking Culture and Alcohol Research, Kim said that men in their 40s and 50s drank more frequently than other age groups, with one out of four men drinking more than four times a week. About half of them, or 52.1 percent of respondents in their 40s and 46.9 percent of survey participants in their 50s, said that they consumed too much alcohol at one time or another. Considering Korea's excessive drinking culture, Kim argued, about 20,000 people are estimated to die from drinking-related causes every year, including drunk driving, as well as stomach cancer, liver cancer and other ailments.
Korea Times
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/lpage/nation/200212/kt2002121317183211980.htm

[manlyboy]