Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Globutron]

Talk about Culture shock.

The light switches are vertical, the car driver seat side, the colour of the lights, the distance you can see to the horizon, the grass, the road signs, the buildings.

Then there's the fat people, the ugly and stupid people. Oh lord the abundance of horrible people.

The prices, the monoton line of franchises such as boots, argos etc. The dull, plain landscape with about one small hill every 600 miles.

the fields and grass is nice, mind.

I just don't wanna be here. i planned on returning in June but I'm thinking earlier now. I don't think I can stand it here. I met some very awesome and special people just before I left and had no time to hang out with them.

Anyone else come back to realise how much it sucks? People on here seem to love complaining about Korea but everything that is said is completely not exclusive to Korea, and is basically all within the UK, and worse.

Probably USA, too. Man I wanna come back.

[cyui]

Why is it bad? Your family? Hell..if I remember correctly, weren't you the one from Anyang who was on here complaining about how bad your boss was just a month ago or so?

Don't you have any friends there? Things must be pretty bad there if you wanna go back to Korean ESL?!

[Totti]

The UK just seems so dull and boring compared to Korea. Add that to the cost of living and a conservative government, it makes it easy to go back to Korea.

I've been back five months and had planned to return in the summer, but couldn't handle it either and am going back in a week.

It's nice having 'real parks' here, but to be honest I miss the neon signs and general blade runner feel to Korea!

[NYC_Gal 2.0]

What town are you from that it's so bad?

[AsiaESLbound]

You are not confined to the UK, you can go hang out and even work in another E.U. country. Going to Spain might be a more pleasant sunny option for you right about now. You'd be surprised how easy it is for you to get a job anywhere out there if needing a little to slide you by. You don't need a visa and have an automatic right to stay indefinitely in the E.U. Unfortunately, the problem is transport and rooming aren't as cheap as it really could and should be, but many say Spain is better on the wallet. You can even legally teach ESL in Spain and the Czech republic without the onerous visa process Americans face.

I feel like OP about where I come from, but there are 49 other choices within my country though many are just the same boring setting of a very slow limited economy on a main street of franchise restaurants and WalMart nearby. The dead historic town square sits about 2 miles away where the long closed railway station and rooming houses sit dormant with the shiny newer police station being the only modernization in the past 15 years while every thing else was neglected. I too feel sick about home and yet I haven't left Korea yet nor seen home in nearly a year and a half. I'll be fine as long as I can find an affordable place to stay with high speed internet which proves to be the problem again and again when home as they just don't have a real studio room for $200 to $400 a month anymore other than dorms for uni students. Accommodation, employment, and such are a real conundrum and that may lead me to really expand further afield. Like my situation, if facing no inheritance, teaching in the KSA is a possibility to stack up some savings that can outright buy you your own house.

[comm]

[Junior]

[Radius]

Don't you have any friends back home that you can go out with and have some fun? I can't see how going back home can be worse than Korea socially, unless you were some complete loser--not saying you are OP.

[eamo]

I only ever go back to the UK for 2 week visits every 2 years.........and strictly only in the Summer when all my family go to our holiday home in the country.

The prospect of spending Winter in a UK city is too depressing. I'd be happy for a couple of weeks while I'm enjoying all my favourite foods and drinks and whatever else I'd been missing....but that wouldn't last long.

[Globutron]

[ESL Milk "Everyday]

Going out with your friends from back home can be fun for some people, but it's not so fun when they're going on and on about things you haven't been a part of for a while and if they also can't relate to/don't really care about where you've been and what you've been doing.

But it's not just that, it's also the fact that all of these things that you used to take for granted are suddenly really apparent to you and it kind of freaks you out or at least causes anxiety... it's sort of like realizing that where you came from isn't what you thought it was-- and that applies to people most of all.

So yeah, it's not really as simple as just going out with friends, unless you have some really amazing and genuine friends (not just drinking buddies or whatever), which most people don't really have. So you sort of have to either force yourself to get through it in whatever way you can and re-adapt, or I guess you could give up and come back to Korea... but then if you plan on making a life in your home country, it will just get harder for you the longer you're away.

But I think that after a while, you will get to a state of mind where you just say 'okay, I'm not going to be torn between these two worlds anymore' and then you pick one and say 'this is it'... because going back and forth is what will drive you over.

[Globutron]

Yes, that's a good point. I do have sufficiently awesome friends, but still. I imagine the best of people to get sick of 'weird, IN KOREA...' Over and over.

Fortunately I never planned on staying in the UK. In a world of mass globalisation and travel being so relentlessly commonplace, I don't see why anyone should. I think we're approaching a new age, the world is local to the developed world.

Having said that, being aware of how sucky the UK has always been for me, I never really... appreciated my own words until now. It's not like I've come back and realised new things that are bad, I just start remembering previous aspects that I used to just tolerate and accept as a part of life.

Now that's all different and the crumbiness has multiplied. maybe indeed as the above poster implies, I will go back to Korea after a few months and notice how suck it is compared to UK. And then I will finally understand the average Dave poster.

[nukeday]

i think, partly, you're making a lot of the same mistakes that koreans who have spent time in the west (specifically i've heard this from people staying in canada and america): comparing a large urban center (which anyang is part of) with a rural/suburban area (small town england, in your case it seems)


Seoullite: Oh, in America...there's so little traffic! And everyone lives in a house and has a yard! But, there aren't many 24 hour restaurants or stores.
Nukeday: Ever been to New York City? Chicago? LA?

Maybe you just prefer urban areas.

[Wangja]

[ESL Milk "Everyday]