Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Moldy Rutabaga]

This is the sort of poll question-- again-- that could either die quickly, or become a fight between the if-you-don't-like-it-leave type and the Korea-haters. But I feel philosophical today. And to my knowledge, no one has (at least recently) actually come out and posed this question.

Do you actually like living here as a teacher (or other); or do you simply tolerate it? I'm curious.

Ken:>

[Captain Corea]

So far the results seem positive.

[Bulsajo]

Good poll question, I don't think I've ever seen it here before.

[eamo]

As I said in another thread.....Korea has been good to me. I won't say it's a great country but it's a country that's been good to me.

[Zyzyfer]

I haven't lived at home for an extended period in several years, so I'm pretty settled down here. Just rearranged the furniture and now the apartment's finally getting functional so I'm in a good mood.

[Wishmaster]

Korea is a decent place to live. Certainly, there are things here that are completely illogical and mind-boggling. However, there are a fair amount of pluses. The goal is to have a long-term plan and realize that you won't be doing the ESL thing forever.

[jlb]

There definitely is a lot of good things...cheap food and entertainment. Great transportation for travelling around Korea. Shorter working days than most of us would have back home.

Too bad the job situation at some of the hagwons isn't so great.

[bobbyhanlon]

i like it a lot. 'apologist' and proud, baby!

[fidel]

Korea for me is Seoul/Gyeonggi do because that's where I spend the majority of my time.

I used to love the place, now I like it but with an increasing intolerance creeping in. I imagine if I stayed a few more years I'd come to hate it? Why?

I think probably because of a combination of a few things

When you have been here long enough and get a good insight on the political/economic/judicial systems the more you learn ho it is rotting within through incompetance, corruption, nepotism and greed.

I have a young son and a significant minority of Koreans have scant regard to 'his' safety. They do things without regard to people around them and by default place my son at risk. For example I was in Olympic Park yesterday and I had to scamper to scope up my son who was on a walking path because some middle aged man had ordered Chinese food to be delivered and the restaurant obliged by sending out one of those lunatic motorbike delivery boys to the park. Getting to the park was dangerous enough , one of those cardboard ladies decided to haul across her massive cart across the road around a blind corner in front of an off-ramp to a bridge. I missed her by inches but if we had hit her cart full on we would have surely crashed.

Traffic jams abound and are slowly driving me insane. I went to some island last weekend which was about 80 km's from my apartment. It took 2.5 hours to get there, and 4.5 hours to return MADNESS.

THe fact that the nearest swimmable beach is about 160 km away is a bummer (2.5 hours - 10 hours of driving time).

Teacher wages in my opinion are peanuts (I know this is subjective but like I said before it depends on where you are coming from, if you've never had a job before then this is heaven but for many of us who had successful jobs it isn't a hell of a lot).

The air pollution is getting worse and I hate the stuff.

Unless you are wealthy like apparently Jongno Guru is and can live in a large house of your own, you have to live in an apartment and for me apartment living is a step down from living in a tent.

Fortunately I have an exit strategy and am happy to be leaving at the end of this year while I still have some positive thoughts on Korea.

[SuperHero]

[peppermint]

not good, not bad, just where I happen to be

[Demonicat]

It sucked a$$, until I met friends, then it became awesome. Now, I'm looking around for year 2.

[crazylemongirl]

If I had more days where I hated Korea than liked Korea I would leave. Life's to short to be stuck in a place you hate/

[jinglejangle]

[TheUrbanMyth]