Korean Job Discussion Forums

[yangtheman]

I am in completely different situation than most of you guys here. I am not an ESL teacher, am a Korean-American, and was hired by a Korean company and moved here about two weeks ago.

I've lurked around and posted several times before moving here. At then, I was.....too idealistic. Being a Korean descendant, I was defensive when you guys talked about some of the foul Korean stuff.

Having being here for two weeks, used all kinds of public transportation (bus, express bus, subway and taxi), and been to Seoul, I have to concur with most of guys here. It's totally different when you actually experience it.

Even though I speak Korean, since I haven't been back in Korea for 15 years, I am pretty clueless about many things. People seem to quickly realize I am not a local....and because of that I've been also taken advantage of. Now I can understand some of things you guys talk about here...... If it's not that easy for me, I am sure it's not easy for many of you, at least in the beginning. It's been only two weeks, so maybe things will get better.

Anyhow, I am also keeping a blog of my experience in Korea (with my company name left out for obvious reason). You will find many spelling and grammatical errors since I didn't proofread the postings. Reading about working for a Korean company might give you fresh perspective (or not).

http://workinginkorea.blogspot.com/

Cheers,

[chronicpride]

Good luck and thanks for the blog update. As for me, I moved to a private blog only for my friends and family back home. My last public blog, which I linked around, attracted some bad attention. I usually carry a balanced perspective of living and working in Korea and is reflected in my posts here and my blogs on my site. Another teacher came on it and trolled me for not being more blindly and overwhelmingly in support of teachers and not more thoroughly damning of schools. As if he was a neo-con republican and I was bi-partisan. *sigh* Sometimes I curse Korea for giving people too much access to the internet.

[Azure]

Thanks yangtheman. Your blog is real and touching. My heartfelt wishing you all the best.

[cellphone]

I just saw your post now, haven't yet checked into your blog but will, but wanted to say right on, it's nice to hear once in a while people actually confirm at least some of what esl'ers are saying about life over here instead of being ridiculed so much. It's also great that a second-gen guy (or Kyopo) can still take a realistic approach to seeing the reality rather than being biased towards, say for example an incestrial heritage or whatnot. Look forward to reading about what you are seeing...

[Ya-ta Boy]

I really enjoyed reading the whole blog. Sounds awful so far. Hope things settle down soon so you can start to enjoy the better side of Korea.


Everyone notices the apparant disorganization of things here and ends up wondering how Korea could get to be the 11th largest trading country. I have a theory about it. The disorganization is deliberate. They don't want other countries to know Korea is growing. So at night there is a big secret meeting of people at the top who straighten out the problems made during the day.

Anyway, good luck with the new home, new job and new baby.

[Kain067]

Interesting stories. I really want more info from the "inside" in this country, since I know the outside is a whole hell of a lot different.

By the way, my uncle is the vice president of the Capital division of the certain "conglomerate" you work for. Write me a pm sometime. Maybe you guys would have interesting perspectives for each other.

[just because]

Good luck yangtheman and don't let it get you down.

Some of the best times of my life have happened here for me as well.