The International Graytlist Rankings

(1) South Korea

No, coming number 1 in this ranking is not a good thing!!! Korea has a seriously bad reputation compared to any other country. You only have to look at the complaints on Daves Cafe every day to realize somethings wrong. A large part of the reason for this is that the teachers in Korea are so active on the internet, unfortunately for Koreas sake. After all most teachers in Korea get their jobs through the internet or agents who advertise on the net. This is in marked contrast to most other destinations like Taiwan and Japan.  Most of the complaints about Korea are over extras like not getting  severance pay, the free but substandard housing provided. If Taiwan or China typically offered these extras I'm sure they would have problems too. Actually petty cheating in Taiwan and China are even more common than Korea and lying is just as frequent. Where Korea really stands out though is in their not uncommon practice of not paying people all their salary not to mention the problems as mention with their extras like severance pay.in the latter two countries are just as common as Korea. In short Korea usually has the most serious cases but you're more likely to get cheated in China or Taiwan. Why don't the latter two have such a bad reputation then? Two reasons: 1) Teachers in Korea get their jobs through the net unlike China or Taiwan and and far more familiar with forums like Daves and 2) For the Chinese its nothing personal, its just about money so they avoid interpersonal conflict and are far more mellow so things don't blow out of proportion with teachers leaving heavily resentful and sending off bitter letters to blacklists.    If you go here take enough money for a rainy day. They can have awful weather.

This is not Korea. Still dishonesty in Taiwan and China is far more rampant than Korea although it works in different ways. They just worship money. Its nothing personal and they will often smile while offering to rob you blind. Whereas in Korea they will usually cheat you after the fact, by for example by not paying you your last months pay, the Chinese will usually do it at the start or as things progress. For example if they sense you are broke they might just offer you two thirds the going wage. If  you're in Taiwan you will know its way to low, and you don't have to accept, but you may too broke to say no. Another common ploy is once they get your work visa they may think they have you by the balls since they can cancel the visa anytime and you have to leave the country. So they may load you up on unpaid office hours with telephone testing and the like. You can leave but you have pay for an air ticket and getting another visa can be problematic. Apart from things like this though, and lying, short changing teachers etc problems don't tend to get as serious as you get in Korea but strangely there are even less legal recourses. So if you get caught out theres not much you can do apart from leave. So why do Taiwan, China and Korea have these troubles? Well theres cultural factors of course but a big factor is the lack of legal protection in these three countries. Japan has good protections and a safe visa system (you own the work visa not the employer) and so has hardly any trouble compared to other countries. Even Thailand has a better visa system than Taiwan. In Taiwan even if you have finished your contract you still need a release letter to work somewhere else if you want to work legally although in practice many end up working illegally. Basically they own you if you have an ARC which gives a lot of room for abuse. In short it rains a lot in Taiwan but usually without the serious storms you get in Korea.

(2) Taiwan and China

Many complaints come out of the Middle East especially Saudi Arabia. However the nature of the complaints are very different from those that typically come out of Asian countries like Korea. Korea has many serious complaints of a contractual nature like not getting paid. In the Middle East the complaints are more of a nature like difficult or even abusive students, incompetant management, having to give failing students good grades, babysitting rather than teaching (even more so than Asia), students not studying like Asian students do, low teacher morale and so on. Unfortunately teachers coming to the Middle East have to realistically expect most of the above things as being an almost universal  part of teaching in the Middle east and have an idea of how to cope or they shouldn't go. Unpleasant weather, make sure you have the right gear before you fly off.

(3) Middle East