i) Adapt. If what you're doing isn't working change what you're doing. It can take some learning to get along in Korea. A little diplomacy, politeness, flattery etc can go a very long way in Korea. Keep the big picture in mind and try not to focus on all the little inconveniences that inevitably occur and which may include things like substandard housing, minor lies and cheating (if major you should try and change jobs), weak curriculum, babysitting operations, xenophobia etc. If you get into a major tiz every time somebody rips you off a bit on your overtime pay, or on your taxi fare, or because they lied to you about your apartment etc then you're probably have a rough time here. In the West we tend to have quite high standards regards lying and cheating and so. But this isn't a first world country over here. If you try and apply those Western expectations you're often going to be disappointed. Think third world rather than first and you won't be disappointed. Its not really eg Thailand but its closer to Thailand than say Japan or what you're used to at home. You need to step back and eg if you've been cheated out of 200000 of overtime or whatever look at what you're making for the whole year, 20 mill or so, and just put it down to the costs of doing business in Korea. Other costs like taxes at only 7% are very low here. So leave Western moral expectations at home, keep things in perspective and you be much happier.
ii) Make an effort to learn about maximizing your teaching skills. Yes teachers do sometimes get fired, sometimes with just a days notice. Sit in on other teachers classes to pick up tips, copy copy copy, have a look at the fun educational games on Daves Cafe http://www.eslcafe.com/ideas/index.html etc. Basically the better teacher you become the better things will go at work which is where people in Korea get stressed out. After all you don't hear of tourists here getting stressed! Another thing is a lot of people here in Korea (including myself initially) try to skimp on work outside the 30 hours teaching time, esp on prep, but this won't give a great impression to your boss. Also if you do become a really good teacher, and they can see that you are, you can command much higher salaries like 2-2.5 instead of the usual 1.6-1.9
iii) Type of hagwon: For your first tour of duty its better to teach in a good chain school like ECC that has a strong curriculum. A small mom and pop operation probably won't be able to give you the support you need. Another thing is that If you're not from Nth America and you have a strong accent try to avoid teaching adults since they will complain and complain and mostly behind your back to your boss. Needless to say this won't make you look good (no matter how great you might be with the kids) so forget about getting those higher salaries and you may be lucky to hold your job. This will also enable you to avoid those early morning classes (starting at like 7:00 am) that teaching adults entails. In fact even for those without accents try to avoid split shifts, Saturday work, and lots of compulsory overtime, if you can. Most hagwan jobs have at least one of these though, but its possible to obtain one without any of these (I have).
iv) Talk to at least two (theres always one with a brown nose involved in some mutual back scratching) and preferably all the teachers in person (they can easily fake emails) before signing anything. You will usu need to be applying in person to be able to do this since almost invariably they will only give out one email address. If you can't apply in person post a query on Daves Cafe and check the greylists. This is vital! Its amazing how many teachers still don't do this and hence the heartbreak that still happens for some. Ask them lots of questions including things like how many teachers have left before completing their contracts, do they pay in full and on time etc. Refer to question 7 for other questions worth asking.
Also note though that they may have some constraints on how honest they are able to be when talking about the school (esp if its by email since it sometimes comes back to bite them). If they're waiting for their last pay check, severance pay and airfare money (say $3500 all up) they may not be able to be completely honest! This particularly applies if theres only one foreign teacher since they know exactly who is putting the bad word out. Also schools can be reluctant to supply more than the one brown nosers email because even at OK schools often the teachers are stressed/depressed/homesick and have at least a couple of complaints. You will find if you insist on speaking to at least a couple of the teachers they will usu just pass you over since they may just assume you will be put off even if you just want to know if the teachers there are paid in full and on time. Also getting 50 job applicants asking for a school reference every time they advertise can be a lot so they don't want to bother the teachers by giving out their email address.
v) Learn Korean. The more you learn the better things will go with your boss, work mates and your students. Most teachers in Korea don't really pick up much (unlike say Japan) but the best teachers (read: best paid) I've seen all learned and used a good bit. It also makes a big difference to how smoothly things go generally.
For a fuller exploration of these questions refer to the link: Korea Tips
A lot of people struggle over here though. Even those who learn how to make it work for them, or who have just been lucky, still tended to struggle a bit for the first few months. A lot of people never seem to come out of a state of being stressed out and/or depressed. But the main cause is work. If you can get that right through a) finding a good job b) by developing good teaching skills (how to keep the kids in line etc) c) fitting in or learning and adapting, everything seems to flow smoothly for the most part(although you may still get homesick). So why don't those less fortunate souls leave? Well the short answer is that they do eventually give up and leave. Some leave within the first few months, others take 2 or 3 years. Why up to so long? Well a common pattern seems to be that they often feel theres just a couple of things majorly wrong with the job and if only they were put right it would be okay. So they finish that job which can take a year with regular contracts and then take up a new one. But then the new one turns out to have a another major problem or two. So they move again thinking "if only these other couple of things were different". And so it gos on until all of a sudden three years have gone by before they may finally give up thinking theres always going to be something wrong.
Questions you might consider asking for a hagwon job include:
i) Does everyone get paid fully and on time?
ii) What are the average class sizes? For kids double the size is double the work and you should take that into account.
iii) How many people left their contracts early and under what circumstances?
iv) Were they freely given their Letter Of Release or not, do
people who finish get their severance pay?
v) How many hours of overtime do you do and is it optional?
vi) Are you happy there and why or why not? Any complaints like about eg lying?
vii) Whats your apartment like as regards TV, furniture, hot water (some have none!)?
viii) What air conditioning and heating do they have at the school (amazingly you hear of the odd school that has little or no heating in winter)?
ix) What cable channels do you get? Some places can't get any English TV programming. Personally I can only absorb a new culture so many hours in a day.
x) Whats the school like as regards management, curriculum, co-workers, students etc?
Extra questions to ask for a university job include:
i) Whats the deal with vacation? How long is it and does it get taken over with compulsory teacher training?
ii) Is there a contractual limit on how much overtime you have to do?
iii) Do you teach kids as well (a lot of Unis have been "hagwonised") or just university students?
iv) How many compulsory office hours do you have to do on top of you 15 or so teaching hours?
i) No early morning adult classes at around 7:00 AM so you don't have to get up at 6:00. To get this you just need to teach at a kids school like ECC Or Kids College. Advantages? You can go out at nite and thus have a life.
ii) If they say verbally that they have no weekend classes you can have it put into the contract. Sometimes schools expand and add weekend classes. Advantages: you can go out Friday nites or/and do lucrative Saturday moonlighting at another school or with privates.
iii) That they promise to pay severance. Some schools leave it out of the contract. A whole months pay is not to be sniffed at. I've heard of someone getting them to divide it into 12 monthly payments to make sure they pay it since quite a few end up not paying.
iv) That they at least on paper have proper procedures in case you want to leave or are fired. They may not follow it but if its not there in the first place you might be a bit worried.
v) A clause to avoid is where you are heavily penalized if you
leave even just a couple of weeks short of your year long
contract. Eg typically you will be asked to pay your airfare
there back and also they might say in the contract that they
will only pay 70% or so of your last months salary or that you have to pay the recruitment fee back. Needless to say this is both unfair (after working there so long) and highly
unattractive because so many people end up having to leave
their contracts early because of an unsatisfactory work
environment. Apart from the airfare I wouldn't sign anything
where you would end up having to lose so much on penalties. And as for the airfare you are usu promised a round trip ticket if you stay the whole year so if you stay at least half a year try and point this out and have the clause altered so if you stay over six months you're no longer liable for paying the airfare to Korea back. Remember though that they don't like to make any concessions so you have to think of what your priorities are in the contract area.
vi) Another undesirable clause is where they take out a portion of your pay for "telephone or bill security". This can often be quite high, up to 600000 won and it serves a double purpose of discouraging midnite runs. Also some schools simply never pay it back. You should consider the schools reputation before signing to this.
vii) A clause you might want to add is that any extra overtime
classes are voluntary. The advantages are obvious. You can
avoid being overworked (I heard of people sometimes being
forced to work over 50 hours a week following the last Asian
crisis) and its far more lucrative to moonlight at 25-35/h
instead of working extra hours at 15/h or so that the school
will pay. However this is another clause they may be reluctant to agree to.
viii) Get them to specify in the contract what furniture and amenities the apartment has. Remember what they often call
fully furnished we would call partly furnished. Ifs theres no bed or TV etc get them to throw it in. They will probably
agree since its fairly standard.
ix) Often they have a clause whereby you are not allowed to work for any other schools. If you are considering wanting to
moonlight legally then you will need to get rid of this.
Basically they want all your energies focused on their school. But moonlighting is where the real money is. Don't let them tell you its illegal. It is legal to do one extra job if you
have your primary employers permission via a Letter Of Consent and you have obtained permission from immigration (costs about 60000 won to apply)
Country vs Seoul/Pusan:
Pros: People are much more friendly, more traditional the "real" Korea with rice paddys and so on, its more beautiful (the cities probably aren't the most aesthetic cities you will have seen).
Cons: The people don't speak English as well in the country so its harder to connect to the kids and you might get lonely. There won't be as many, if any, other foreigners. You will be more of a "celebrity" though whereas in Seoul you will be virtually invisible. The nite life sucks. Not as many facilities or as much to do generally. Having said all that I personally would still prefer living in the countryside or the smaller cities (eg Taejon), if you're just here for a short-term stint (lack of company or loneliness may be a deterrent to a long term stay), except for one major problem: the money. Sure base salaries are similar but the real money in
Korea is to be made moonlighting. You can easily
increase how much you can save by 50-100% through
part-time work in Pusan/Seoul. And working in the
smaller cities it just that much harder to get privates or extra part-time work. And even when you can it doesn't pay as well and if its a small city your boss may find out and threaten to report you to immigration for taking his students and working illegally. Also if you're just working on your base salary you might as well go to Thailand where with a CELTA cert you can get a good job and make nearly as much as they pay in Korea for your base salary. And given the choice between Thailand and Korea where would you go? Well lets see, Thailand is one of the most popular tourist spots in Asia and Korea is one of the least popular. A no-brainer. So for Korea really just leaves Pusan Or Seoul. With the possible exception of Taegu the other cities are just
too small to provide the opportunities that you want.
Seoul vs Pusan
Pros: Seoul is bigger, more cosmopolitan, has more
amenities, more to do etc. Also the pay, not so much for the base salaries but for privates is higher by an extra 15000 Won or so. The people are more polite and urban and speak with a nice accent unlike in the south (eg Pusan) where they have a harsh accent so if you really want to learn Korean the north is better.
Cons: The people are much less friendly (ie you won't be a
celeb in Seoul where theres lots of foreigners) than in Pusan (10 mill people compared to 4 mill) and ex pat community is tighter in Pusan so even if there are more foreigners in Seoul you may make more friends in Pusan. If you're looking to pick up a Korean girlfriend theres much more competition in Seoul with thousands of GIs. Seoul doesn't have Pusans beaches but is wealthier so can be more aesthetic with nice
parks and more trees along the side of the road. Theres a perception that Seoul must have worse pollution than Pusan but actually Pusan gets slightly higher on the readings because its mostly surrounded by mountains.
I personally had a very positive experience in the smaller towns where the people are so friendly. Before long though I ended up in Seoul/Pusan seeking Western friends and a larger ex-pat community not to mention the extra money. The best thing is to check out both for yourself if you can.
i) The most important thing with Korean culture is to be aware of its hierarchical nature largely based on your respective ages and positions. Everybody has a title, even the cleaning lady is Mrs so-and-so. Actually to be asked to be called Mr X can be a concession on their part. You should not call your boss that but rather by his title "Won Jung Nim" which means boss or president. Other factors go into the calculation of respective standings including whether you're married and so on. So when you first meet someone they often ask how old you are and so on even through it might be considered slightly impolite to us foreigners. Part of this cultural thing is that shop assistants are usually very friendly and even a bit servile. The counter side to this is that, even through your boss will make allowances for you being a foreigner, and although perhaps not explicitly, in his heart he will expect some servility from you. Now of course were not going to buy into all of this crap, and many Koreans themselves are trying to leave it behind, but you should still be aware of it. And in practice when negotiating with your boss its a good idea to always be polite but also assertive if necessary. After all their are plenty of Koreans out there who will roll a naive foreigner if you give them a chance.
ii) Now Korea is changing and younger people (under 25) no longer observe many formalities but for older people esp there are some worth knowing. The most important by far is the practice of bowing. For older people this gos down really well. Its not so important who gos first or who gos the lowest (if you're interested the junior person gos first and the lowest but not as far as the Japanese) but it will always produce a good impression. This and addressing people properly are the two most important things. Remember unless they're young kids don't use their given (what we usually call first) names.
iii) Drinking etiquette: Traditionally its rude to pour your own drink. Hold the glass with two hands when being served a drink by your older friends (and younger friends to be on the safe side). Then fill their glass. If with your boss you can turn your head away from him when taking a drink although its not really so important since you're a foreigner.
iv) Other tidbits: When you are given something take it with two hands or at least your right hand, never your left. A variation on this is to place your left hand on your right arm or over your chest when accepting something. This will also go down quite well. Other no nos include pointing at someone, extending your legs out towards someone, touching adults on the head, wearing gloves inside etc. Okay thats basically it, not much really. But be warned they will do many things that we might consider rude! Eg pushing in front of a line is very common in the bigger cities like Pusan (although not so much Seoul where people are more polite).
So basically if you keep your usu consumption habits you're going to spend a lot more money than if you change your habits and eat the local food etc which is delicious. How expensive it is in Korea is up to you to a fair extent.
The prices below are for outside Seoul. In Seoul even at a convenience store things are about 10% higher and other things can be even more expensive.
Movie ticket -6000 for a new release.
Video rental -400 to 1000 depending on whether its a new release.
T-shirt -5000 for a knock off.
Levis Jeans -120000, its a foreign article
Internet cafe -1000-1500/h usu although can be cheaper. They call them PC Bungs
Bread -2000-2500 for a loaf.
Eggs -2300 for 24
Coffee - 2000-3000 usu at a cafe but can run to 5000 in Seoul.
Cable TV -about 25000/mth but can be cheaper.
Dry cleaning -usu 2500 or so per item
Soju 360 ml -1000 at a convenience store.
Gin and Tonic -5000 at a bar.
Budweiser - 4000 at a bar.
Anchovies etc -1500-2500/100gms For similar prices you can get other typical Korean sidedishs include pickles, prawns,
lotus plant etc. Note these are prices at an up market department store. You can get them a lot cheaper at the markets but they don't measure these foodstuffs by weight at the markets.
Yagwon -20000-25000 or so a nite and 300000/mth at the cheap (may not have hot water at this price) end of Korean motels.
Hite/Cass beer 640 ml -1900 at a convenience store.
Budweiser 330 ml 1300
355 ml 1800 at a convenience store.
Marlboro Red -1900 at a ...
Coke 250 ml 550 at a ...
Mineral water 2 l -1000 at a ...
Haagen-Dazs deluxe ice cream pint -5500 at a ...
Milk 1 l - 1350 at a ...
Gillette Sensor razors 6 pack -7600 at a convience store.
Deli sandwich -1500-2000
Apartments/Housing -You're looking at roughly 5-10 mill won "key" money plus 250000-300000/mth rent. Finding a place can be a major hasslel and with all the deposit required most teachers prefer to get the school to provide accommodation.
i) Outsize clothes range seem very limited.
ii) Things like deodorant, antiperspirant, tampons etc
iii) Brand name drugs like Panadol.
iv) Certain Western food items can be difficult to obtain like spices (they have salt and pepper), not much in the way of cheese although its got much better just in the last couple of months at my local place.
v) Woolen thermal wear (they have polypropylene although its not cheap).
vi) Fashion labels can be difficult to obtain esp outside Seoul. Even getting a pair of Levi jeans can be bit of a mission little own something like Gucci. Most clothes here seem to be produced locally with lots of knock offs. Koreans actually dress quite well in a formal kind of way. You can usu piece together something if you hunt around but its nothing compared to what even Taiwan offers which has quite good shopping, nearly as good as Hong Kong.
