Korean Job Discussion Forums

[crescent]

I was in Korea for 14 years. Arrived before Dave's shed it's best posters and was rebranded into the stale, sanitary place it is today. I burned out after 6 years but tried to stick it out much longer, having a university post at a major school with 9 teaching hours per week, 4 month paid vacations, and a lucrative side contract contributing to, and editing all publications made by the City of Daegu. Even my first hakwon job was far above average in all respects. I was extremely fortunate all around. Great jobs, great contacts, great friends.

Lurking here now, I get a kick out of the lifers, repeating their mantra of the need to learn the language, or that the social dynamics are the same back home. Those statements, I'm afraid, pile up to be the dankest, rankest load of horse crap on this site.

I didn't begin to burn out UNTIL I learned the language.

When I started to understand what people were saying about me, and westerners in general as I rode buses, stood in lines and sat in public places, it was the beginning of the end. Then came the rise in income taxes, the aids paranoia, increasing and poorly executed regulations, the drug witch-hunts, the downsizing and the stagnating salaries.
And, then there was always the pollution, yellow dust, traffic, overcrowding and extreme humidity.

Leaving Korea was the best major decision we (my Korean wife and I) ever made. The thought of having our kids in the Korean school system made leaving even that much easier. Thankfully, after 4 years in Canada, my wife has continually expressed feeling far less social pressures and judgements, greater freedom, greater equality, more opportunity, and in general a far less stressful existence.

[nicwr2002]