Korean Job Discussion Forums

[speakyword]

Hello. Could anyone tell me a bit about what life in chung-ju is like? I've got an interview with a hagwon coming up soon. Thanks very much

[stimpleton]

You might want to check your spelling - Chung-Ju and Cheong-Ju are different cities, and would probably have different attractions and lifestyles.

I lived in Cheong-Ju for 3 years, and it's okay. It's basically a medium-sized city with a lot of trees and natural stuff around. It has some foreign-style restaurants (vietnamese, Indian) etc. Not a bad place to live. Don't know anything about Chung-Ju.

[Underwaterbob]

Decent sized (30-50) fairly friendly foreigner community. There's no Costco or Homeplus, so western food is difficult to come by. We have an E-mart and a Lottemart (Korean, Walmart-esque). English levels are very low to non-existent in 99% of the population. 20 minutes away from a decent ski-hill. 1.5 hours from Seoul.

Chungju has a population of 220'000. It feels more like a city of 22'000. The same general rule applies to most cities in Korea, they feel like a city with 10% of the population in terms of variety and size.

[speakyword]

in regards to the spelling mistake. I was just a bit confused because my recruiter spelled it chung-ju in the email and then in the link to the city's website she sent me it was cheongju.

Thanks for the info though! Sounds like a nice/two nice places to live. Hehe. I will try to sort out the proper name of the place

[Johnny5]

posted about Chungju.

[asams]

get the recruiter to give you the name of the city in Hangeul then we can probably help you out more

[Underwaterbob]

When your recruiter says the name, is the vowel a long oo sound like in 'mood' or 'food', or is it a shorter sound like the 'a' in 'fall' or 'ball'? Assuming you have generic North American pronunciation, the former is Chungju, the latter is Cheongju.

[zeppelin]

[speakyword]

Very helpfull! I think Chungju is way too rural for my liking at this point. It looks gorgeous but I don't want to live there. Thanks everybody!

[speakyword]

Oop, recruiter just clarified she was talking about cheongju

[zeppelin]

CheongJu is great.

It's small enough to feel homely but large enough not to get boring quick. It has a friendly and diverse ex-pat population, couple of cinemas, decent shopping (Homeplus, E-Mart), 3 universities in the city, Football (Soccer), Ruby, and Ice Hockey ex-pat teams, lively bar and live music scene, close to decent hiking and the countryside and about 45 mins from the Suanbo ski resort.

It is also close to Seoul - you are only an hour and a half away from Gangnam by bus. The neighbouring city Daejeon is on the KTX lines for express services heading south - You can be in Busan in around 3 hours by train or 4 by bus.

[Frogis]

I live in Chung-ju. It's pretty sweet, I enjoy it.