Korean Job Discussion Forums

[GentleSusan]

I just felt compelled to post this after chatting with yet another broad-minded, tolerant and analytical young Korean person studying here in Vancouver.

Maybe it's a class thing since many of my students here are relatively well-off, but when I compare these kids and their open and in
idealistic natures to the mean-spirited and jaded Canadian youthculture I run into on public transit (again maybe a socioeconmic explanation here I admit) the Koreans young people compare very favourably.

Why am I preaching? Beacuse when I lived in Korea I often found myself dismissing Koreans as ignorant, racist, materialistic and ill-informed. But having been back in Canada for several years now and teaching in Vancouver's bustling ESL industry. I have a totally different perspective.

Sure you'll get the occasional Korean-power bigot who turns up, but they are few and far between and once you see this kind of narrowness placed against a more pluralistic background, it's easier to see the K-Power pose for what it is - a desperate attempt to cover a deeply ingrained sense of national inadequacy. Our jobs, as their teachers the way I see it, is to break through this this facade and after we've gained their trust to make it known to them that all humans and cultures struggle - we are serfs one and all - and that there is no insidious anti-Korean agenda at work here or anywhere that conspires to keep them in a perpetual state of downtroddedness while the rest of the world thrives unjustly.

So what am I rambling on about exactly? If you're despairing over Korea and Koreans, come and hang out in Vancouver for a while. It's astonishing at first to see how many Korean students there are here. You get a totally different perspective. Plus there's loads of teaching jobs and while the money that you save doesn't compare to what you can in Korea at the end of the day you lie in a beautiful clean city where everybody at least is trying to get along.

[GentleSusan]

Excuse my spelling and punctuation. Re-read my post and want to clarify that the final sentence was not a Freudian slip... it should have read "live" not "lie" in a beautiful city. Funny though.

One more thing: for all you Rice Kings out there... it's a lot easier to hook up with Korean girls here than it is in Korea. As unprofessional as it is, most ESL guys can prety much have their pick.

[Paddycakes]

[djsmnc]

After reading your post, I'm inclined to say that I feel there are plenty of A-hole youth around the world. The big difference is that youth in Korea don't settle their disputes with guns, and if they try to stand out and use personal expression to rebel, they'll get their rear ends kicked and be ostracized.

After seeing a number of "broad-minded, tolerant and analytical young Korean" middle school students throw cans of soda from upper floors of buildings, burn trash cans, get reprimanded for huffing "Bond-eu"...well...let's just say I wouldn't jump to conclusions based on experience with students whose families are able to pay for their education in a foreign country.

[own_king]

I've met good and bad in both young and old in Korea. Overall, though I find the younger generation to be more polite and the older generation to be more appreciative of America. A Korean middle/high (not sure) school girl on the subway swung her backpack around her shoulder and accidently hit me. She immediately said sorry and even her friend who did nothing said sorry. No ajumas doing that. Another time I was walking in Myung Dong with my friend a young girl (I'm sure middle school age) stepped on the back of my foot, so I turned around to look. She also immediately said sorry and even bowed to me. I couldn't believe it. Some kids here are really nice. After they hit university, though, they morph into something entirely different.

[GentleSusan]

Good responses.

I lived in Korea for three years and railed against the narrowness and the xenophobia. I guess that's why I find it so refreshing (and I admit, surprising) when I encounter the opposite here. And I did indicate that there is a definite socioeconomic dynamic at play here.

But the same dynamic exists among us "enlightened" westerners who make up the ESL cmmunity as well.

ESL instructors are a rarified breed... generalists with a liberal arts background most of us. Can't speak for other English-speaking countries but scratch the surface of any blue-collar Candian town, and you're bound to find a surfeit of ignorance and intolerance that might manifest itself differently than it does in Korea, but is no less ugly and disheartening.

Incidentally Paddycakes, your post was very funny. You nailed me.... I'm a frustrated anarchist pseudo-academic preaching to people who barely understand me. But all I have to do is say the word "Bush" in an admonishing tone and I'm a f*cking hero to my students. There are worse ways to earn a living. For the record - the going wage for private Vancouver ESL schools is $20-30 an hour. The problem is that our mean-spirited neocon government has savaged labour laws to the point where finding regular work in a semi-professional environment is the real struggle. But if you establish yourself you can do quite well here.

[pastis]

I lived in Vancouver for a few years and even taught some Koreans. Some of my students I was friends with as well so I'd often get invited to their parties etc. What I noticed was, for the most part, they're actually just a bunch of priviliged rich kids. They'll treat you fairly well, but when you dig a little deeper you'll find a lot of them are quite spoiled and well... shallow. The ones I knew always had the easy life, didn't have to work or anything, but complained constantly about how "bored" they were living away from Seoul. They'd just hang out in groups of Koreans, speaking Korean while getting a check in the mail from their bourgeois parents each month to "study" English. They'd end up drinking every night, and even this was boring to them. No other students from other countries had the "boredom" problem like Koreans. It turns out Koreans themselves were the boring ones.

Some of them were good friends, but they got on my nerves after awhile. That's why I started hanging out with Japanese more often, because they seemed more proactive, down to earth and just plain happier about where they weree/what they were doing.

[Paddycakes]

[GentleSusan]

Ya, Berlitz pays the least. They offered me $9 a few years back.

The comments re. the bourgouise rich Korean kids are also bang-on. There are many, certainly, like this. Much of their negativity seems to come from the fact that they have precious little standing in Canada, sobering and shocking for those who have been raised to view themselves as fundamentally extraordinary.

But when you get a good one (and there are many) goddamn are they good... and they seem to ooze character and decency.

The Japanese students are more easy-going certainly, but also transparently passive-aggressive. They also tend to be appallingly ill-informed about current events, even within their own country.

Maybe it's an occupational hazard but I talk myself in circles about my students. Within the last week I have probably dismissed them all as frivolous and shallow. So what the hell do I know? I guess there's part of me that after having spent so much of my life among Koreans WANTS them to be good. And some of them most definitely are.

[jaganath69]

[laogaiguk]

[Junior]

[itaewonguy]

I think many of the koreans around 27-35 have issues!!

the new young generation korea guys are alittle more friendly and open to us.. probably becuase they went to hakwons and have traveled more the x generation ones!

[own_king]

[rocklee]