Korean Job Discussion Forums

[loniponi]

hi...

was planning on teaching in seoul for a year, but after all that is happening in n.korea, i'm trying to look into different cities, with medium sized populations in korea, china....

have you ever been to jeonju? do you think there are many jobs there? could i still save as much money as i would in seoul? what's the city like?

any specific opinions on schools there?

thanks.

[articulate_ink]

Jeonju is an attractive city. I was there for a month last summer and liked it a lot. It's big enough to have urban amenities but it's not crowded. Good food, very friendly people, etc. Depending on what you're looking for in a city, it has a lot to offer. Seoul (or the burbs) is more to my taste, but as a place to spend a few weeks, I enjoyed it very much and would go back. Not sure about the jobs or specific schools, but it's a major city: go look around, see what you think. I do know of one person getting badly screwed by a hagwon there but unfortunately I don't know the name of the place. It was one of those "hagwons make money so I'll set one up myself, although I know nothing about either business or education, hire a couple of foreigners, and get rich!" operations. The only other issue would be the difficulty in getting to Busan and the cities in the southeast of the country: there's no direct train connection, and buses take forever. Sorry I can't be more specific. Nice place, though. Worth a look.

[The Hierophant]

I'm currently teaching in Jeonju and can safely say that it's a nice place to live with a semi-decent variety of jobs on offer. You should be able to save as much money here as you would in Seoul, no problem.

There's also a large and close-knit foreign community here too. We have a webpage, the 'Jeonju Hub'. You can check it out here: http://jeonjuhub.googlepages.com/

There are nightclubs if you like to party, drinking holes if you like to get boozed, nice nearby mountain trails if you like hiking, and lots of historical landmarks if you're into Korea's cultural aspects. There's department stores, cinemas and supermarkets aplenty, and Seoul is only a two hour bus ride away. I travel to different cities every other weekend or thereabouts, so by no means will you be isolated here.

Jeonju is a nice balance of urban and rural. It's neither the big smoke, nor the sticks. As articulate_ink says, it's worth a look.