Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

For the purposes of this thread, �small town� means under 15,000 people in the myon (neighborhood or township). The next step up is a �gun� (pronounced, more or less, �goon�), which means county and seem to be about the size of the average American county.

There seems to be a push by the government to bring in waygookins to live and work in these places. There have been a few threads, scattered around, dealing with life and work in these small country towns, but none of them try to deal with the whole experience. I�ve lived in two and while I by no means have the final word on the experience, do have something to say. I hope others will contribute to a single thread that will serve most of the needs that people considering these jobs.

The little town I�m living in now, an hour south and east of Seoul, has about 4,000 people. The school draws in students from two near-by larger cities (Icheon and Yeoju) who can�t go to better schools because a) their grades are not very good and/or b) their family is too poor.

Housing

Your housing will be paid for by the school, as it is everywhere. The good news is that it will almost certainly be more spacious than the average city dweller. Very good news indeed.

I would advise newbies to ask about location. I�m currently living in a high rise complex about a mile from town and school. I have a car, so it is no problem. I learned about the school from someone who liked the school, but thought transportation would be a problem. I know the last teacher sat around for hours waiting for any teacher to leave work so he could get a ride home.

This complex is quiet (I�m on the 5th floor). The last place I lived was much noisier. I lived on the second floor and all the mothers and their little kids gathered outside my window to play in the �street/parking lot� every afternoon. It was about 5 miles out of town. Without a car, I would have had to rely on the bus system.

Transportation

While on that topic, even the smallest towns have excellent bus service. The buses are cheap and frequent. However, I personally would not want to have had to wait in the rain or snow for a bus to take me to a grocery store.

Schools

Be sure to ask about the kind of school you might work for. Every gun has a variety of schools. One is �favored� and gets all the good students who may go on to good universities. The students at those schools are motivated. They see a future. Then there are several middling schools filled with kids who can�t make the cut. At the bottom are the vocational schools, supported by government money to bring in foreign teachers, where the students are largely Unmotivated because they know they are not going to get good jobs where English is needed, but they are required to take English class.

On the one hand, you could be offered a high school with classes of 15 to 20 students (manageable). Or you could be offered a school with 35 to 40 students who hate the idea of high school in any situation, but especially English classes.

Things are better at the middle and elementary level. Fewer of the good students have been sent away. You could have a significant number of good students.

Food

The last small town I was in had two grocery stores. Neither one had a meat department. I had to drive 2 miles in one direction or 8 miles in the other direction to get meat. In my current location, the ONE grocery store does have a small meat department. I usually drive 15 miles to buy my meat because it looks like better quality meat there.

Korea grocery stores do have a terrific salad section in most stores where you can load up on a large (10 or 15) variety of salad greens at a very low cost. Unfortunately, in the smaller towns, the selection is around 5 or 6 types of greens, in my experience.

A second problem: Korean restaurants prefer GROUPS of people. Two people are OK. The reason is that meat in restaurants is sold in 100 g portions, with and endless supply of side dishes. One lone diner walking in does not represent a favorable profit margin. I always have to order 2 portions in the restaurants that will allow me to do that. Many (most???) prefer to sell 3 portions or more. I have had to search for restaurants that will allow me to order 2 portions�which is more than I can eat. Many restaurants turn me away.

Socializing

Point #1 is that all or nearly all of your Korean co-teachers do not live in the town where they work. At quitting time, they jump in their cars and drive an hour or so to the nearest big town. (Korean teachers in public schools are FORCED to change schools every few years. Private school teachers are not.) This means you will be left on your own after about 5 o�clock.

If you have ever lived in a small town before, you already know that they all know each other and have known each other all their lives. They don�t particularly need a new friend. On top of that, Seoul has been a magnet for all the ambitious people for about 500 years. �All the smart boys go to Seoul�. There will be very few people able to speak English.

You will occasionally run across someone who can speak English�at the pharmacy or the dentist�s office. But essentially, you won�t hear much English anywhere.

On that note, forget TV. There is Sky TV, but it doesn�t have much in the way of English programming and you will have to sign a multi-year contract to get it.

Unless I go in to Seoul on the weekend (which means standing around the bus station, riding an hour, getting on the subway and then finally meeting up with English-speaking friends and then staying in a motel overnight) my weekend is an hour and a half of eating alone in a restaurant with a book�and a couple of restaurants won�t let me even do that because they want to close early.

So think very hard about some hobbies that you can do alone.

I have found Koreans easy to make friends with, if they are youngish. That has not been true in either of the small towns this past year and a half. The youngish people who might have been friendly have already moved out to �greener� pastures, if you can call Seoul green. And that�s too bad.

The nice things about rural Korea, the fresh air, the trees and grass, the stars in the sky, the QUIET, are nice.


Compensation

There is a provision for extra pay for living in a rural location, but it is arbitrarily given. I haven�t received it in either of the 2 places I�ve worked. Other people in much larger places have gotten it. Go figure.


Last year I wrote a few posts on the thread �Swampville� that you might glean a few things from. Maybe not.

Other people have had better experiences in rural Korea than I have had. I hope they add their 2 cents to the thread to bring some balance to it.

[nautilus]

tell me again when I'm 50

[Smee]

I'm in a small town of 16,000, so a little over Ya-ta Boy's limit. I like it most of the time, but sometimes I go crazy. By and large the only people I "talk" to are my elementary students.

Housing.
I like my place. I'm not picky, and I guess if I were expecting a palace I'd be disappointed. It has 3 rooms, and is twice the size of my officetel. I really dislike the bathroom, as it gets that sewage stench every week (pretty common in older buildings). There's mildew behind the walls, so the tiles move around and occassionally fall off. But, I live alone, it's quiet, and spacious for a single guy.

The day after I moved in they brought all new furniture and appliances, which was part of the county's budget this year. I was very pleased with that. And, aside from some hardcore cleaning the first few days, there was and is nothing to complain about.

Teaching.
This is hard. Last year I taught in a hagwon in Bundang. My lowest level students there are on par with my highest level students here. I teach elementary school. grades 2-6, and most of my students don't know a lick of English. A few can communicate basic needs and can ask questions. It's resulted in a major shift in my style. Gone are small talk, writing activities, reading exercises, and worksheets. Now, everything centers around repitition, games, songs, and chants. That's fine, and I'm not belittling the students I have . . . but it's definitely challenging. That said, I enjoy teaching most of my students. Some have attitude problems (obviously), and some are unreachable because their skills are so far behind. With 35 students in a class, very often without a coteacher, I leave school some days wondering if I've done anything.

Transportation.
It's good. Even my town has buses that go to Seoul, Seongnam, Busan, Suwon, Daegu, Gwangju, etc. And, for all other points, Gwangju is 80 minutes away, and I can transfer there.

Social Life
Very little. There are a few foreigners here, but different schedules means little interaction. On the plus side I've met a lot of Koreans, and I've been immersed in a lot of Korean culture (that was something I really wanted). One negative, IMO, is it's a little harder to shake the blues. It's harder to escape the no-English zone that is my town.

But, the Koreans I've been around have been incredibly kind. It's not that they've gone out of their way . . . they just treat me fairly, and don't treat me poorly for being a foreigner. I've been able to chat with a few nuns at the nearby temples, I've been able to get along with my coworkers, and I've been able to make good impressions with my neighbors and landlords. It's nice to feel like a part of the community. That said, there are times that I really miss socializing with a group of foreigners.

I have a computer and the internet in my place this year, which has been great. I have cable TV, which I watch occassionally, but I usually turn on viidoo and watch college football (well, they got rid of the ESPN feed, so I'm not sure what i'll do now, haha). Also, the computer allows me to make cheap calls back home, and it gives me something to do when I'm feeling crappy.

Miscellaneous.
*I haven't received any extra pay for being in a rural area. As the OP said, it's arbitrary. Some counties in other provinces were offering it, even though their population was twice the size of my county.
*People judge me based on me, and not on the other foreigners they deal or work with. This is b/c there haven't been many foreigners to pass through. This obviously makes work a lot easier, which provides for some nice benefits.
*I haven't been put off by any staring. Here, a nice "annyeong haseyo" will put you over with the locals. The staring and comments were far more extreme in Gwangju and Seoul than here.
*There are a lot of mountains, beaches, temples, and other scenic things, and I don't have to take a long bus ride to get there. It's a great way to relax, to see more of the area, and to meet some like-minded locals.
*There is almost no English spoken here. But, I find Koreans (especially at my school) are more willing to try if I make the effort to communicate in Korean. For the first week, no one could say even "hello," but since then I've had conversastions in English with most of my coworkers. Most people in town don't know a lick of English, but I find them patient with my Korean and eager to communicate.
*In closing, I think my work experience has had a very big impact on my impressions of small-town living. If I could have a job like this in Seoul or Gyeonggi, I'd probably take it. Compared to my hagwon this year, there are so many positives. I don't dread going to work every day, which makes me work harder, which makes a better impression on coworkers, which makes my day easier, which makes me work harder, which . . . and so on.

[dogshed]

I've been in my place about a month. My apartment is bigger than the descriptions I've seen dave's of the big city apartments although it does have Korean plumbing.

I get 2,000,000 won including the bonus. Someone posted a link to a province that was offering 2,000,000 plus the bonus for 2,200,000 total. Maybe I should have gone there.

I am a 4 minute walk from the middle school and high school. Once a week I meet with some teachers at the grade school at about an 8 minute walk if I walk slow. A little bit farther are shops, small grocery stores, bars, a Family Mart convenience store, and the towns largest grocery store that's not that great.

Taking the bus to Wonju requires that I leave Wonju by 18:00 or pay for a hotel and the bus takes too long to bring back anything perishable.

I have both smart and stupid kids in all grades. I guess they don't separate them here.

-Jeff

[dogshed]

I think the thing with the staring is that here I'm sure they all knew I was coming before I got here. As soon as they saw a white person they knew who I was. In Wonju a little girl in Emart was freaked out by me. -Jeff

[Roch]

Ya-Ta:

This is one of the best posts in a long time on Dave's. It is very informative, interesting, and balanced.

Hat tip to Ya-Ta Boy.

By the way, where did you purchase your automobile and did a colleague assist you with acquiring it?

Take care, and do not forget to smile a lot: The locals will, over time, see you as a cult-like figure - and we all know how more than a few Koreans go ape over cult figures in a big way, eh. So, instead of being The Duke of Kensington, you could be The Foreign Swami of Anywhere-Ri, R.O.K.

I'm totally serious about the status that could be all your's if you just put in a bit of effort, Carpe Diem, etc., etc.

Do you like this idea? I could fine tune it if it does not suit your fancy, etc.

R

[livinginkorea]

I worked out in the sticks in my first job and will never do it again as there was very few native English speakers there and the sounds of dogs being beaten ringing in my ears will never leave me. I think there are enough jobs for Seoul and the surronding cities out there. Plenty on worknplay

[oneofthesarahs]

Sometimes reading the posts on this board, I feel like I am living in a completely different Korea, and I am thankful for it.

I'm not saying you are all a bunch of whiners (but let's face it: you people got ISSUES ).

But seriously, living in a small town is awesome, and I feel like I don't have half the problems everyone else talks about.

My apartment is huge, for one thing. I can save a fair amount of money because everything here is cheap as heck. It's quiet when I want it to be, but it's still big enough that I can do things on the weekend. I've taken up bowling, which I used to hate back home.

Because there aren't really any foreigners here, there aren't many pre-concieved notions about what I am supposed to be like. As such, I am automatically the most interesting person in the room no matter where I am. Everyone goes out of their way to help me out. All I have to do is put on my "Help! I'm a confused white girl out of her element!" face, and people practically trip over themselves to help me. All of the Koreans that I've interacted with have been unbelievably kind. At first I was worried that I was just some sort of temporary novelty to them, but I feel like I'm really starting to develop some really interesting friendships that I will never forget, even though we have problems communicating sometimes.

The staring is probably a little worse here than in other areas (once I made a guy walk into a pole because he was too busy staring), but everyone in my neighborhood is getting used to seeing me, and they delight in running over and telling me hello.

I agree that it is a little harder to beat the blues sometimes, but usually a phone call from home or a hug from one of my students will make things all better in a jif.

It's just what you make of it. Things became 110% better for me when I stopped trying to hinge my happiness on meeting other westerners. Now I'm just enjoying life and laughing off the inconveniences.

[ajuma]

I've been in the "no foreigners but me in a town of 5,000" situation, and it was ok...but somewhat stressful. That was back in '96. Stared at? Yep! Buses going to the "city" used to slow down so everyone could get a look at me!! The closest big city (Ulsan) was a 45 minute bus ride away! It was ONE MONTH before I saw or talked to another foreigner!!!

BUT!! I had a great time there...eveyone went out of their way to help me out...I got rides home with strangers who tried hard to communicate with me.

I've also lived in a pretty big city (Ulsan, 1 million people) and that was ok...great hagwon, wonderful boss and lots of foreign friends.

But now I think I have the best of both worlds. I'm in a uni town with 30 (next semester 42!!!) foreign teachers plus 35+ international students, in a town of 5,000-20,000 people (depending on if it's during the semester or between). The storekeepers are friendly, helpful, and comfortable with dealing with foreigners...I NEVER get stared at, except by a few newbie freshmen or people from out of town, and one store owner has gone as far as to stock some "western-style" foods!!

I'm close to mountains, lakes, temples and not too far from the ocean. The air is clean, traffic not too bad and I'm a 5 minute walk from my uni! What could be better??

[Ya-ta Boy]

[Yu_Bum_suk]