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Korean Job Discussion Forums
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spike.matt
Joined: 16 Feb 2006
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 Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 7:41 pm Post subject: |
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butter808fly,
It sucks that you had a bad situation your first night back in Korea. Whether or not you or the driver was in the wrong isnt really important. Sorry that you have a bad first impression of returning to korea. Hope the rest of your stay is more enjoyable. :) |
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billybrobby
Joined: 09 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 8:28 pm Post subject: |
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| i can understand being tired, but you'd have to be high to think a taxi from incheon to seoul is 17,000. |
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butter808fly
Joined: 09 May 2004
Location: Northern California, USA
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| Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 10:26 pm Post subject: |
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| billybrobby wrote: |
| i can understand being tired, but you'd have to be high to think a taxi from incheon to seoul is 17,000. |
Yeah, I thought it strange a good deal to begin with. I bargain for everything here. Thought maybe he was hard-up for cash.
Thanx spike.matt.... glad to be back in a foreign country with the different experiences. |
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Jensen
Joined: 30 Mar 2003
Location: hippie hell
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| Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2006 12:09 am Post subject: |
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| Obviously there are worse jobs to have but I wouldn't want to be a taxi driver in Seoul. Lots of liability, danger, frustration, and piles for what might be almost a living wage...assuming the wive and kids are living with your folks back in hicksville and you're staying with your uncle's brother's cousin's family. Carting the "swells" back and forth day after day...it would get old. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2006 7:18 am Post subject: |
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| butter808fly wrote: |
| bucheon bum wrote: |
dude, you're an idiot. You have no reason to complain. Sure, the taxi driver was jumping to conclusions with his USA rant, and went overboard, but come on. You were dumb- that's what it comes down to.
Hell yeah I double check taxi prices, at least when they seem like the deal of the century (which yours certainly sounded like). |
Im not a dude. And what on earth is your avatar supposed to mean? |
It means: "be grateful you're not a Yemeni woman." Either that or I just thought it was a cool pic. |
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skindleshanks
Joined: 10 May 2004
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| Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 7:48 am Post subject: |
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I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, especially when there's a communication barrier, but I have very little patience for the taxi drivers at the airports. There are very strict rules for taxis at the airport, and the taxi drivers treat those laws with no regard whatsoever. I don't care so much about being ripped off myself, but it reflects very badly on the country as a whole to be treating visitors in such a manner.
When I first arrived in Korea, my (then) fiancee had to haggle with half a dozen drivers until she could find one that would take us to her place in Incheon on the meter. The rest all insisted that we pay 3 times the normal fare (26,000 won, I believe) The driver that did agree to take us locked our bags in the trunk, then disappeared for 20 minutes before actually leaving the airport. Not a great first impression of the country. (It did prepare me, though, to meet my first employer!)
That was four years ago. The last time I went to pick up a friend at the airport (in January) I was approached by a tout who wanted to take me to Seoul. This is very illegal, and the fact that he was doing this so obviously tells me that someone's getting paid to look the other way. I looked him in the eyes and told him (in condescending Korean) that he was breaking the law. He smiled, shrugged, and walked away.
In spite of this sort of thing, Incheon still wins an award for best airport in the world . . . makes one wonder. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 10:48 am Post subject: |
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[deleted]
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Jun 17, 2006 3:57 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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gypsyfish
Joined: 17 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 3:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| eamo wrote: |
| Has anyone ever been offered a discount by a taxi driver when they get a bit lost and the fare is well over what it should have been? |
Taxi drivers tend to be problematic all around the world. I had a rather absurd experience with a Brazilian taxi driver in Rio once about a rate that I had confirmed and reconfirmed three times with him in his own language before getting into the car in the first place.
In any case, Koreans are problematic too, and the OP is not necessarily out of line.
I've been back in southern Cal for several months now. I teach part-time at an international EFL place. We have a collection of students from everywhere -- Finnland, Sweden, France, Germany, all three cultures of Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Andora, Turkey, Saudi, Panama, Chile, Brazil, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan.
The Japanese are ten times the prudes the Koreans are, but damn if the Koreans' prudishness doesn't show everyday -- I'm speaking relative to the others. They are clearly freaked when they have to interact with Brazilian women, because Brazilian women, for one thing, don't ever wear jeans to the beach, and they hardly wear more in class. In fact, one Brazilian woman complained about her Korean roommate freaking her out by always going into the closet of their room, shutting the door, and changing her clothes there rather than taking off her clothes when her rommate was in the room.
The Koreans are also extremely shy and reclusive as a group. The Europeans want to avoid other Europeans while here, get to know Americans, eat American food, etc. The Koreans are totally the opposite. They insist on living with other Koreans, finding the Korean restaurants in town, seeking out the Korean areas around here, etc.
Just a day or two ago, I walked into another teacher's room during a break and found it filled with all of the Koreans, eating traditional Korean food, talking in Korean, chomping away with their mouths open (to the horror of my colleague who had never seen or heard this before), trying to showcase their culture. No other group behaves this way. |
Sure, taxi drivers can rip you off anywhere in the world, but the OP knew what the fare was (@W40,000, according to her post) but 'understood' the driver would take her to Seoul for W19,000. At night. I don't buy it that she has a point.
Unless you mean that her point is that Koreans act boorishly or are shy and clannish (based on the rest of your post). When I taught ESL in Washington DC, except for chewing with their mouths open (and maybe they did, I never watched them eat) you could say the same things you said about Koreans about my students from Latin and South America. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 3:59 pm Post subject: |
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[deleted]
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Jun 17, 2006 3:58 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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numazawa
Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Location: The Concrete Barnyard
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| Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 4:25 pm Post subject: |
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| bucheon bum wrote: |
| dude, you're an idiot. |
Curiously, the only respondent in the whole thread willing to call this particular spade a spade, did so under the mistaken assumption the OP was male. And they say chivalry is dead.  |
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gypsyfish
Joined: 17 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 5:01 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="Gopher"]South America is in Latin America, first of all, so they are not separate points of origin. quote]
'Scuse me, I meant Central America. Everything else I said, I stand by. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 5:15 pm Post subject: |
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[deleted]
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Jun 17, 2006 3:58 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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gypsyfish
Joined: 17 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 5:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
All right. Well, "Latin America" means everything in the western hemisphere south of Canada and the United States.
Within Latin America we have Mexico and Central America, or "Mesoamerica" to some; the Caribbean Basin, including Belize, the Guyanas, and several islands, although there is little that is "Latin" about their inhabitants; and South America, which includes "the Andes" and "the southern cone."
So when you say that some of your students came from Central America and others came from Latin America, it doesn't make much sense. |
I guess we're both a little stupid this early in the morning. When I amended my earlier statement about Latin America, I guess I should have made it simplier and said I meant Central America when I said Latin America.
According to Wikipedia:
Central America = Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama
South America = Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil , Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Falkland Islands, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru , South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela
I misplaced some commas and double spaced when I should have single spaced, in case you want to pick anymore nits. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 5:36 pm Post subject: |
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[deleted]
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Jun 17, 2006 3:59 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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gypsyfish
Joined: 17 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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