Korean Job Discussion Forums

[endofthewor1d]

i'll be the first to admit that i was completely ignorant about this country before i came here. my knowledge about korea amounted to little more than 'there was a war here at some point, wasn't there?'

four years ago, i was all hyped up to do the esl thing in japan, but having no experience and not much in the way of qualifications, i settled for korea.

outside of this board, which was in a less accessable format than it's in now, i really didn't do a whole lot of research before coming. and i didn't even read all that much of this board either.

when i tried to make a mental picture in my head at that time of what i thought korea would be like, i pictured myself riding from one little village to another in the back of a truck with some chickens and goats on it. i would spend a year eating nothing but rice, fish (if i was lucky, they would cook it), and kimchi (which i didn't much like the thought of then). i would be forced to learn korean very quickly in order to survive. as for myself, i was cortez. that's not to say i wanted to slaughter koreans, but i definately intended to take over. where would i live? probably some rickety old shack in the middle of a field somewhere, where i would sit on the porch and... hmm... i'm not sure what i was supposed to be doing on the porch, but that's where my imagination put me. every now and again, an old villager would cautiously approach me to offer a piece of weird fruit, or thier daughter. as for the teaching, i would be a god in the classroom. after briefly orienting myself with the books and materials i'd be using, i'd be pouring out english as fast as these shoeless children's spongelike minds could soak it up.


as you can imagine, reality hit like a ton of bricks when i first got here... for better and for worse. get off the plane. the first words spoken to me by my new director were 'you are fatter than you look in your picture.'
as he drove me from the airport into seoul, my first impression was how much similar the big highways in korea looked to the big highways in the states... right down to the big same-shade-of-green reflective signs. they took me out for dinner. much to my dismay, that involved a buffet where we picked out different raw meats and vegetables, and then carried them back to our tables. you don't know what relief feels like until you think you're going to have to gag down a full plate of raw meat, and then suddenly find that the table comes equipped with a fire-pit in the middle. the housing? well... it was a rickety old shack, but in the city. there was a small porch, but i didn't spend any time on it. my first year of teaching was hellish. i didn't inspire a whole lot of fear and awe in my students, and i certainly didn't know how to teach. i hadn't yet shaved my balding head, so i couldn't even look scary. i got the finger and a 'puck you' from a seven year old girl. some god i was. i was also surprised (and a little dissappointed) at how much english there was around. i wasn't forced to learn korean at all.

anyways... four years later, here i am. better job, better life, better apartment. i've really settled in here. i've also grown a lot as a person and as a teacher. i'll be married soon, and i intend to be here for the long haul. the only thing that's hard to get used to is the steady rotation of one-or-two-year-long friendships. how do you other lifers handle that? do you just mainly stick close to korean friends?

anyway... that's not what i intended for this thread to be about. what i'm curious about is how your preconceptions of korea differed from the reality you faced when you got here.
be honest. i've exposed more of my naivety than i was comfortable with here. who has the courage to do the same?

[Badmojo]

I thought I'd live the same lifestyle I did in China, but save a lot more money in the process. Then reality hit me like a ton of bricks. If I ate the same food I did in China, I'd be shelling out over 500,000 won a month on food. If I went out as often as I did in China, had maids, took taxies everywhere etc, I saw quite quickly I'd have no money left after two weeks and I wouldn't be able to save a thing.

I thought the two countries would be more similar than they are. Personally, Korea reminds me more of Canada than China.

[buddy bradley]

I didn't expect so many foreigners to be backstabbing wussies pinned down by their scaly Korean girlfriends, and boy was I wrong!

[endofthewor1d]

you're not talking about me, are you?

[buddy bradley]

[PolyChronic Time Girl]

Well, I'll tell you, as a teenager I though North and South Korea were one united nation and that North Korea was called the North because it was cold and there were mountains, and that South Korea was called the South because it had beaches and it was hot....I thought that was the distinction. I remember, as an 15-year-old, asking this South Korean girl in my class if it was pretty up "north."