Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Cherbear]

I just finished a year in Korea and I'm planning on doing one more but can't decide if I should return to Korea or try another country--specifically China. For those who have taught in both China and Korea how do they compare? Both in terms of living conditions and working conditions. Which one would you recommend?
Also, does anyone know any good recruiters for China ESL jobs?
Thanks.

[katepult]

I've worked in both Korea and China. I was only in China for 6 months because my school couldn't get the Z visa for teaching. (I was teaching on a business visa, which is a little bit illegal, but not really illegal, especially when your boss is friends with a cop.) That, and the higher pay in Korea is why I decided to move here.
Both countries have things to recommend them. My working conditions were very good in China. I worked at a public high school, the best one in the city. There were about 15-20 Chinese English teachers, my husband and me. We were treated like professionals, despite the fact that it was our first teaching job. In Korea, I haven't found employers to treat me as much as a professional as in China. I found that in China, the people I knew were much more excited to share Chinese culture with me and my husband than in Korea.
Classes were huge, but well behaved. 45-60 students packed into a class, but if they didn't want to participate, they didn't disrupt. They were really respectful. I haven't taught high school in Korea, but Korean elementary students are not as well behaved as Chinese high school students. There are fewer of them in class, though. I saw about 1500 students over two weeks and my husband saw another 1500. We didn't teach the grade 3 students because they were too busy. We only taught grades 1 and 2.
There was no "spoken English" curriculum and the school couldn't make the students buy an English textbook. It was awkward. Teaching the classes was hard without a curriculum, but now I'd find it easy because I've been teaching English for 4 years.
Living conditions were fine. We had a nice apt. and food was really cheap. I was able to save half of my paycheck easily, even with going out to expensive (for China) restaurants. "Expensive" was a $12-14 US meal for two people including beer. Savingis the same in Korea, but the Chinese pay was quite a bit lower than Korean. I was making about $500 US per month and half of that doesn't go far outside of China.
The food in China is incomparably better than Korean food. I do like Korean food, but it took time both to find foods that I like and to adjust to the strong flavors. Chinese food from China is some of the best food I've ever eaten.
The language barrier in China is much greater than that in Korea. I was living in a small city (of 7 million people) and there was almost no English. Restaurants had only Chinese menus, the staff only spoke Cantonese or Mandarin. The food was better, but I couldn't order any of it without a picture menu or an English menu. I studied Mandarin with one of the English teachers, but didn't get far. Most jobs now offer Chinese lessons. Korean is much more accessible, especially reading Hangul in menus. Korean has more English cognates, too. The average person in Korea knows more English than the average person in China, but the people who spoke English in China spoke better English.
The air quality and pollution in many parts of China is horrible. When I moved to Korea, it was the spring and the yellow wind was here. People were complaining about the pollution in Korea, but I couldn't even see any pollution. The air is so bad in parts of China that two blocks away you can't see a huge apt. building or a stoplight. I had a persistent cough in China.
I lived in Guangdong province, which is convenient to Hong Kong, but the pollution is unreasonable there. Beijing had terrible pollution too. It was clean in Yunnan province out west, and the food is amazing in Sichuan (if you like spice). Shanghai was decent, and I remember the pollution not being so bad.
If you aren't concerned about saving money, I'd try a year in China. It's very different than Korea and the experience was interesting.

[detourne_me]

ditto.
your post was pretty much the exact thing i would have said.

[Cherbear]

Thanks for the feedback.

[weatherman]

What was the salary range in RMB? I wonder how much RMB would temp teachers in Korea over to China?

[bogey666]

[Easter Clark]

Short answer:

Working conditions: similar

Living conditions: Better apartment in China but everything else was much worse.

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewforum.php?f=9&sid=91add3852e0e4b69f72104fb736b9e5a

[katepult]

I was making around 4500 RMB per month. I was in Dongguan City and the cost of living was quite low.

Don't work there, though. The city is huge and the air is filthy. Stay out of Gwangzhou too. It's one of the worst cities I've visited anywhere in the world.

[Real Reality]

Elite Americans go to China for jobs
By Hwang Aesol, Korea Herald (August 13, 2009)
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2009/08/13/200908130106.asp

American Graduates Finding Jobs in China
By HANNAH SELIGSON, New York Times (August 10, 2009)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/business/economy/11expats.html

[The Gipkik]

I worked in China for a year, made about $1000 USD a month in a small town, worked in a private elementary school, and lived in an apartment (actually studio room) on campus. Good experience. Lots of love from the students, but the living conditions were unpredictable. It was quite the adventure. The cost of living was very cheap, saved a lot, got free lunches, lots of attention from the locals and felt I was in a unique and extremely sketchy culture. It was sketchy because I felt I was living in a frontier town where anything goes.

The pollution was horrible, sand storms, mild winters, too much isolation, and I noticed the very obvious absence of nature in every form everywhere. I often felt like I was a prisoner living at the school, but if I had known more Chinese my experience would have been a lot better. Just be prepared and choose carefully. Oh, and be very assertive, but kind. It works. Mostly, it was the fresh air and the natural environment I missed the most. It felt like total environmental devastation there, and I had a hard time accepting and getting used to that--everything was either getting torn down and destroyed or built up again. Very apocalyptic to the senses and depressing as well.

[Theo]

Me: Five years in China; 7 months in Korea.

The only thing I thought was better in Korea was sanitation. But for students/people, hospitality, food, culture, apartment (much better, at least for me), everything except cleanliness, I think China is MUCH better.

Actually, I really disliked my time in Korea. Glad to be outta there!