Korean Job Discussion Forums

[coolsage]

My colleague and I were sweating through some marking of uni writing papers today, huddling close to the fans, when he remarked," Do you suppose the Korean professors have Aircon?" I replied that I hadn't a clue, never have been invited into the plush offices that the K/profs occupy. As we were leaving the building, it was evident that every K/prof office had an aircon unit, and every foreign/prof office had none. Now I've been willing to overlook, if not ignore, the fact that the K/profs got flowers on Teachers' Day and we got none, and to gloss over the notion that the KPs got hi-tech key entry to their offices, or that they KPs get sumptuous furnishings for their offices while we're still digging desks and chairs off the midnight pile on the street. All this I can come to terms with, although it doesn't enhance my esteem for the Korean experience, but to learn that a foreign teacher is not worthy of the aircon that's available to everyone else, now that's a bitter one to swallow. Do we not perspire? Aren't we the ones seeking out black-market deodorant in order not to gross out those around us? Thank the gods that vacation is due. I'm almost burned out on this situation. The blatant hypocrisy with which the Chairman mouths the obligatory phrases at the obligatory meeting: "We'd like to thank you for your hard work here, yadda yadda.." They have a twisted way of showing it.

[Pyongshin Sangja]

We don't even get photocopier paper where I work. There is, however, air-con. We do all the lifting, they get the "respect." Sort of. They are drones, too, basically. They have to pass students that don't deserve it all the time, too.

[Ya-ta Boy]

This might be something to put in future contracts: Foreign teachers will get all the creature comforts that Korean teachers get.

On the other hand, with no air con you are spared the annual argument over cool vs fresh air that we always had with our K co-teachers. They always insisted on opening the windows while the air con was on--just the opposite of the annual winter argument over warm vs fresh air when they would open the windows while we were freezing.

[Real Reality]

[Zark]

You can make certain assumptions about benefits - such as A/C - but they may not always be true.

Most Korean professors at my uni have A/C but they paid for their units themselves. I'd buy A/C too if I thought I was going to stay a long time.

[Real Reality]

[mindmetoo]

Are you a real professor or an english instructor at a university?

[Plume D'ella Plumeria]

If I am pricked, do I not bleed?

I can understand why you might be feeling a bit disgruntled, coolsage. "Fairness" just doesn't seem to be viewed over here in quite the way some of us are used to. (Am I going to get jumped on here by the A-team??)

I have seen vastly different standards of living even among foreign colleagues. At one middle school where I worked, one of the teachers was given a beautiful, new, two bedroom villa-type apartment with air-conditioning and all sorts of other nice amenities. Others, including myself (hence my own disgruntlement), were shoveled into grubby old non-air-conditioned cells with tissue paper thin walls, behind which infants wailed and mothers shrieked. At least the mother/child combo next to me did. When the lesser privileged of us inquired as to the reason for the perceived injustice, we were told "First come, first served." In short, it was just a matter of timing. Whatever accommodation was available at the time a new teacher arrived, was given to him or her. That reason made perfect sense to those in charge (all of whom no doubt, lived in agreeably air-conditioned homes). But it didn't particularly sit well with the rest of us. Odd, that.