Mr. Blonde Goes to South Korea

[Mr. Blonde]

It's 8AM on a Saturday and i'm up cause i'm heading to northern Seoul to Hike this beast today:



Bukhansan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


will update with pics and video later

[Mr. Mistoffelees]

Sounds like a waste of time imo.

[DDTempest]

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

It's 8AM on a Saturday and i'm up cause i'm heading to northern Seoul to Hike this beast today:



Bukhansan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


will update with pics and video later

That sir is a mountain. A beast is generally an animal of some sort.

[Dent]

Speaking of beasts, The X-Men called, it's time for round 2

[Repugnant Abomination]

Blonde,

It's looking like my girl and I might be heading for South Korea instead of Taiwan for several reasons. Nothing is certain yet, but I was hoping you could answer a few more of my questions to help us decide.

In Taiwan you're paid hourly, but I understand that in Korea you're paid salary. My concern is that while guaranteed paid is nice, they might work you into the ground. About how many hours, prep time included, do you work a week?

I've read the people are less friendly than in Taiwan. Obviously you haven't been to Taiwan, but in your experience are Korean's pretty nice?

South Korea is considered a bit of an industrial wasteland. True or false?

I'll come up with more later.

[SittinOnDubsWGW]

please post answers on here, my gf is thinking of doing the same thing actually. I believe she's looking more into japan though.

[Ugly Bastard]

LOL @ everyone wanting to go teach English in Asia.

[SittinOnDubsWGW]

I think it would be cool. Especially if you had no commitments. Living in a country where I didn't know the language would blow horribly though.

I get pissed enough dealing with all the spanish here as is and I even know a decent amount.

[ninjaface]

My brother taught English in Japan. A couple years after he came back, he went to live in Japan with his gf. They've been living there for about a year and a half now.

[f3lix]

Since I care so little about anything Repug posts, I'm wondering if I can either block all his posts or request a tl;dr at the end of each one.

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by Repugnant Abomination

Blonde,

It's looking like my girl and I might be heading for South Korea instead of Taiwan for several reasons. Nothing is certain yet, but I was hoping you could answer a few more of my questions to help us decide.

In Taiwan you're paid hourly, but I understand that in Korea you're paid salary. My concern is that while guaranteed paid is nice, they might work you into the ground. About how many hours, prep time included, do you work a week?

I've read the people are less friendly than in Taiwan. Obviously you haven't been to Taiwan, but in your experience are Korean's pretty nice?

South Korea is considered a bit of an industrial wasteland. True or false?

I'll come up with more later.

In Korea you are paid hourly OR salary, depending on the contract you get offered/sign. I personally am hourly, and its working out great for me. There are other teachers at our school/other schools who are salary and they don't get worked into the ground, its pretty much illegal to make you work any more than a normal contracted amount that will be specified, the only thing is during certain "slow times" of the year, they will send hourly employees home and keep the salary ones there, but its still pretty rare and all depends on the school you work with.

I work 3:30-10:30 Monday/Tuesday, 6:30-10:30 on Wednesday, and 3:30-10:30 Thursday/Friday, so it usually comes out to about a 32 hour work week. However, my dumb HI/the fact that i'm a "new guy" has us come in for meetings early a few times a month, but you don't really do "work" as much as sit there, and once again, thats gonna depend on your school.

My experience with people who speak another language anywhere in the world that isn't primarily English is that it doesn't matter how collectively "nice" their reputation is, you're still going be be fucked. As sittinondubs said, by far the most frustrating thing about being here is not being able to speak the language. I'm learning enough to get by, and might learn more, but honestly i'm not going to put a huge amount of effort into learning an entirely new language if i'm only going to be here for a year and its not going to directly affect my job/salary increase. If for some reason I stay longer I might learn more.

That being said, the people are okay nice. If they're calling me a "annoying fucking westerner" or saying bad shit I can't really understand them and i'm bigger than most of them anyways so its just something you learn not to care about. Besides them possibly talking shit about you which, lets be honest, doesn't really fucking matter, the only "mean" things you will encounter is being turned down from drinking establishments/cab drivers. Many will only accept Koreans as business, and many people including myself have been turned away from new establishments here...but there is no lack of "foreign bars" (bars for korean and white people) go to. Overall they are a pretty friendly/helpful people though.

South Korea is beautiful, but can also be very industrial. The Koreans do a great job of bordering both off into their sections. There is only so much they can do; there are 50 million people living in a country the size of Indiana. They don't exactly have too many options. It doesn't exactly look like this:

[Repugnant Abomination]

Thank you, sir, a lot of very helpful information.

Korea is sounding better all of the time, although out of everywhere I've researched it does seem to have the highest percentage of people complaining about not getting paid on time (or at all) and scams. Definitely something to watch out for.

The only other shitty thing I can find is that in Taiwan, after the first 6 months, you're allowed 4 weeks vacation. That doesn't seem to be the case in Korea.

Oh, another question: Do you have health care covered over there? Taiwan has pretty comprehensive health care for everyone in the country and it would be nice if Korea had the same.

[Mr. Blonde]

nope. i need to get on getting insurance actually with how much i hike and shit

[DJ FC]

In London everybody is Rich and parties like a ROCKSTAR.

Also - they speak English.

[Mr. Mistoffelees]

London ftw!

[Dent]

Fucking ants in London are huge, anyone scared of larger than average ants should back the fuck out of london, slowly, as to not startle them.
Do you have to pay for innoculations? what about maternity leave?

[Mr. Blonde]

no innoculations needed, and i don't know i'm not a mom

[Dent]

Talking about America.

[Mr. Blonde]

oh of course, how in the world did i not pick up on that.

[Dent]

I apologise for not making it so clear.
My interest in American health care still stands though, mainly due to watching Breaking Bad (Plug) and how late in her pregnancy she was working, also how it costs $200k for a cancer op? WTF?

[Mr. Blonde]

if you don't have insurance in america and you get a serious illness you are fucked. you're probably better off dying.

[DDTempest]

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

if you don't have insurance in america and you get a serious illness you are fucked. you're probably better off dying.

Or quitting your job so the hospital has no expectations of making you actually pay for any life saving surgery.

[TwoBlackEyes]

Originally Posted by DDTempest

Or quitting your job so the hospital has no expectations of making you actually pay for any life saving surgery.

That's assuming there's a life saving surgery and not just a drug you have to take for the rest of your short, painful life. Because then, you're really fucked.

[angry pancake]

Originally Posted by Ugly Bastard

LOL @ everyone wanting to go teach English in Asia.

Beep.

[Pliedes]

Originally Posted by Ugly Bastard

LOL @ everyone wanting to go teach English in Asia.

I've seen this trend going on since I first started university. Thanks to the internet our generation knows there's a big world out there, and at some point we want to see it for ourselves. I see 'teaching in asia' as another version of 'backpacking europe'.

In related news, last night one of my best friends told me that (drum roll please...) he and his girlfriend are going to go teach english in Taiwan next year! I was not surprised in the least, as his other career options limited by his english lit degree. I think he's already resolved himself to a life of teaching and this is better than babysitting whiny american kids.