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pest2
Joined: 01 Jun 2005
Location: Vancouver, Canada
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 Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 10:58 am Post subject: WHY DO PEOPLE WHO POST ON THIS SITE STAY IN KOREA? |
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OK, I'm just objectively curious, here. Alot of people complain about various aspects of living and working in Korea. From lying to ill-logic, dumbness to dogmatism, too much work to two-faced, ranting to racism.... we all, myself very much included, have our complaints. So this question isn't intended to be any kind of an insult to those who read it: Why do we stay in Korea?.... I realize this is a big question.
For me, the reasons I did choose to stay were purely monetary. It's the only place I could have gone that had employers who would pay me enough to live, save, and pay student loans. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 11:39 am Post subject: |
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[deleted]
Last edited by Gopher on Sun Jun 18, 2006 2:23 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Grotto
Joined: 21 Mar 2004
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| Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 1:08 pm Post subject: |
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Money..money and money. Oh yes all the other stuff, explore a different culture, sightsee, travel etc.
Alot of times people will post some of their negative experiences here on Dave's simply because they need to vent some of their anger or explode.
I could go on Daves and write how nothing happened this week...everything was okay and boring..but who wants to read that?  |
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SuperHero
Joined: 10 Dec 2003
Location: Superhero Hideout
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| Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 1:53 pm Post subject: |
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| I love teaching - it's like a hobby to me. I only work 12-20 hours a week with a four day schedule. 20 weeks of vacation. Time for hobbies, family, and relaxing. |
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margaret
Joined: 14 Oct 2003
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| Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 3:34 pm Post subject: |
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1. I find living in Korea much more interesting than living in the U. S. Wherever I go or look I find something to capture my attention.
2. I like the food better.
3. I like walking and taking public trasportation. I'm happy not to have a car.
4. I love the open market and small restaurants and stores. So much more fun than the big American box stores.
5. I'm getting acupunture that costs the equivalent of $4 rather than $45 or $50 a session.
6. I'm tired of George Bush and the Republicans.
7. I like traveling to interesting small areas and mountains here.
8. I like the bathhouses.
9. I make more money here
10. Teaching is my 2nd favorite kind of work so overall the package is better, at least for now.
Margaret |
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sheba
Joined: 16 May 2005
Location: Here there and everywhere!
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| Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 3:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| For comparative purposes, however, I didn't even count down the days like this in the Marine Corps. |
wow... I feel for ya! I had a 5 week trip and was counting down the days from week one... I would NEVER have lasted 5 1/2 months!!
What you're doing is great, good luck!
(You could always tell your director you want to leave but will stay until they find a replacement, that way you can leave earlier, and they will have a teacher).
By the way, I love my job and I love living here... thats why Im here! But I think posters should be wary of newbie questions because the negativity here gives a very bad impression of the working conditions. When I arrived for my first job I was paranoid, afraid and just waiting for something to go wrong... Im still fairly new so Im still kinda waiting for somthing to happen! I feel bad for it though because my director and the staff have been nothing but wonderful! |
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chronicpride
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 5:38 pm Post subject: Re: WHY DO PEOPLE WHO POST ON THIS SITE STAY IN KOREA? |
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| pest2 wrote: |
OK, I'm just objectively curious, here. Alot of people complain about various aspects of living and working in Korea. From lying to ill-logic, dumbness to dogmatism, too much work to two-faced, ranting to racism.... we all, myself very much included, have our complaints. So this question isn't intended to be any kind of an insult to those who read it: Why do we stay in Korea?.... I realize this is a big question.
For me, the reasons I did choose to stay were purely monetary. It's the only place I could have gone that had employers who would pay me enough to live, save, and pay student loans. |
I was talking about this with some people last night. The whole Korea expat industry is like an anomaly in the cosmos. There are a tremendous amount of variables that contribute to confusion, frustration, and friction. Mind you there are also a tremendous amount of variables that contribute to joy, bliss, and happiness. It has zero to do with Korea and 100% to do with the subjective opinion of the person viewing and talking about Korea. Every expat walks these streets everyday and its quite obvious that we all have different perspectives and opinions. Just as if we were living and working somewhere else. The Japan and Taiwan online expat communities reflect this same pattern.
Many people who would not otherwise be travel or culture curious, wind up in NE Asia for money and make their way to this site to indirectly voice that they are not the explorer-type that likes to venture into the hearts of the culture to understand and learn about it. Also, if you remember what its like to work back in the west, and the workplace dynamics that were there, one can remember those people that would complain and cast blame on everything that they can think of. We have them over here, too. But here, there's an easy target for an outlet, especially if one conveniently opts to not immerse themselves into exploring and learning the culture, in order for them to protect their vantage point and the outlet that they need. And there a lot of other things that can contribute to how a teacher projects onto the culture.
The online ESL community is the extreme byproduct of all of this. Firstly, only a small % of the ESL community posts here, so its not very representative of the large and diverse market. The majority of teachers that I meet, either don't know about this place, or if they do, only use it for jobs, or they are too busy with their offline lives to be a part of an online one. Nevertheless, the vast majority of the offline folks that I meet have opinions about Korea ranging from OK to Amazing. The only people that I ever seem to see spitting and swearing about this place is when I come online and see the posts of 20 or so regulars or semi-regulars who are very loud about their unhappiness (what they are truly unhappy about is often a teeth-pulling debate, in itself). Often they cowardly hijack the voiceless opinion of the other 10,000 teachers who don't come online to gripe and use it to further their hateful and often discriminatory and racist diatribes (which often can be hypocriticially seen in threads about how much they think all Koreans are hateful, discriminatory, and racist.)
There's more positive stuff that is being said or referenced to on this site about living in Korea, but the hate stuff that gets spit out by the minority tends to get a lot of curious attention. The more realistic, birds-eye view of the expat community seems to reflect a trend to more positive experiences than not. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 6:50 pm Post subject: Re: WHY DO PEOPLE WHO POST ON THIS SITE STAY IN KOREA? |
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| chronicpride wrote: |
. ..The only people that I ever seem to see spitting and swearing about this place is when I come online and see the posts of 20 or so regulars or semi-regulars who are very loud about their unhappiness (what they are truly unhappy about is often a teeth-pulling debate, in itself). Often they cowardly hijack the voiceless opinion of the other 10,000 teachers who don't come online to gripe and use it to further their hateful and often discriminatory and racist diatribes (which often can be hypocriticially seen in threads about how much they think all Koreans are hateful, discriminatory, and racist.)...
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I don't often agree with you, but I think you've hit the nail dead on. Of course now some of these unhappy people will now come on here and say something like "Well the only people I meet who are happy or content with this place are the apologists on Dave's"
Anyway excellent post. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 6:54 pm Post subject: Re: WHY DO PEOPLE WHO POST ON THIS SITE STAY IN KOREA? |
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| pest2 wrote: |
OK, I'm just objectively curious, here. Alot of people complain about various aspects of living and working in Korea. From lying to ill-logic, dumbness to dogmatism, too much work to two-faced, ranting to racism.... we all, myself very much included, have our complaints. So this question isn't intended to be any kind of an insult to those who read it: Why do we stay in Korea?.... I realize this is a big question.
For me, the reasons I did choose to stay were purely monetary. It's the only place I could have gone that had employers who would pay me enough to live, save, and pay student loans. |
This is very simple. It has been discussed over and over. For most of these people it is the only place they could have gone that had employers that would pay them. Period. Most of them can't get jobs back home or at least as well-paying jobs. They are well aware of this. So they sit around and take it out on Korea. If they really could get such jobs back home, why aren't they back there, if they hate this place so much? |
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billyg
Joined: 16 Feb 2005
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| Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 7:34 pm Post subject: |
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| margaret wrote: |
1. I find living in Korea much more interesting than living in the U. S. Wherever I go or look I find something to capture my attention.
2. I like the food better.
3. I like walking and taking public trasportation. I'm happy not to have a car.
4. I love the open market and small restaurants and stores. So much more fun than the big American box stores.
5. I'm getting acupunture that costs the equivalent of $4 rather than $45 or $50 a session.
6. I'm tired of George Bush and the Republicans.
7. I like traveling to interesting small areas and mountains here.
8. I like the bathhouses.
9. I make more money here
10. Teaching is my 2nd favorite kind of work so overall the package is better, at least for now.
Margaret |
You can count me in on all except for 2 and 8. |
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pest2
Joined: 01 Jun 2005
Location: Vancouver, Canada
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| Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 8:20 pm Post subject: Re: WHY DO PEOPLE WHO POST ON THIS SITE STAY IN KOREA? |
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| chronicpride wrote: |
The whole Korea expat industry is like an anomaly in the cosmos....
It has zero to do with Korea and 100% to do with the subjective opinion of the person viewing and talking about Korea.
Every expat walks these streets everyday and its quite obvious that we all have different perspectives and opinions. Just as if we were living and working somewhere else. The Japan and Taiwan online expat communities reflect this same pattern.
Nevertheless, the vast majority of the offline folks that I meet have opinions about Korea ranging from OK to Amazing. The only people that I ever seem to see spitting and swearing about this place is when I come online and see the posts of 20 or so regulars or semi-regulars who are very loud about their unhappiness (what they are truly unhappy about is often a teeth-pulling debate, in itself).
There's more positive stuff that is being said or referenced to on this site about living in Korea, but the hate stuff that gets spit out by the minority tends to get a lot of curious attention. The more realistic, birds-eye view of the expat community seems to reflect a trend to more positive experiences than not. |
Indeed, the Expat community is quite an interesting "anomaly" in the universe of people you meet in the world. In fact, I think that they share some personality characteristics that the average person in the world doesnt have.
However, I think each person and the personality of that person reacts differently to a culture depending upon the unique characteristics of that culture. Person A might be very introverted and/or blunt and tactless and therefore that person might do poorly in a place like Korea that is very socially-oriented and ritualistic. Person B may be a people person and also be very interested in the "surface" aspects of a culture such as learning the new words of a language, learning the new kinds of food in that place, and so on (I got that term, "surface" from another paper I read). Person A might do better in a place like Italy or America -- places where individualism and genuineness are more strongly valued -- whereas B might do better in Korea since those places seem to value the characteristics of each person in thier own ways differently. So, instead of it having nothing to do with it being Korea, it has at least 1/2 to do with it.
in evidence to that idea, and contrary to what was said above, it seems like opinions of expats living in Korea about it are quite variable. Some people seem to hate it right away and want to leave immediately. Others can deal with it but dont like it too much. Others love it and never leave. Personally, of the people I've met, I'd say they are pretty evenly divided into those categories. |
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bosintang
Joined: 01 Dec 2003
Location: In the pot with the rest of the mutts
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| Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 8:46 pm Post subject: |
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Ok, I'll chime in. I'm tired of Korea and have been for months. The adventure of being an expat here has worn off, and I know this place does not mesh with my type of personality. I have no interest in investing more time or energy into this place or its culture, and frankly, I believe the ESL-industry in Korea, at least for those who are teaching children and are sincere about it, is a dead end.
A few months ago, I considered breaking my contract and moving on, but as circumstances happened, I didn't.
Why did I stay? Because although Korea is far from my paradise, I have not yet let it consume me. My boss has treated me well, and overall I enjoy teaching my students. In the meantime, I have midterm goals that will be much easier for me to achieve if I stick it out to to the end of my contract, which is not that long away.
After I finish this contract, I'm out of here. |
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bosintang
Joined: 01 Dec 2003
Location: In the pot with the rest of the mutts
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| Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 9:07 pm Post subject: |
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One other point:
Read my signature..it's true. In my part of Canada, Korea is seen an easy and convenient way for bored underemployable arts majors to pay off their student loans. In fact, it's so common that people come here to teach, that it doesn't seem to cross a lot of people's mind that they're actually going to a foreign country! I tell people back home I teach in Korea, and I get an "oh really.." dead-end sort of uninterested response. There's no exoticism in Korea because everyone's here.
I know a girl who is coming here in a few weeks. I know her personality, she's going to hate it here. But as far as she knows, she's just jumping on the Canadian student loan repayment program like everyone else. |
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hari seldon
Joined: 05 Dec 2004
Location: Incheon
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| Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 9:27 pm Post subject: |
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| !@#$%^&* |
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chronicpride
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 9:47 pm Post subject: |
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| bosintang wrote: |
I tell people back home I teach in Korea, and I get an "oh really.." dead-end sort of uninterested response. There's no exoticism in Korea because everyone's here.
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Is it not possible that you are projecting your own personal low opinion of living and working here, onto their unknown thoughts? I have never met anyone back home that thought this way, nor ever heard any other teacher reference this behavior when they go back home. Unless, the individual that I'm talking to back home is not interested in listening to me, or their thoughts may be preoccupied with their own life and interests. Just because we live in the fishbowl and our thoughts are preoccupied with it, 24/7, doesn't mean everyone else in the world knows about this particular fishbowl and the good and the bad of it. The avg person back in the world doesn't even know what the acronym 'ESL' stands for, let alone all of this. |
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