My Observations

My best estimates: 20% of English teachers who come to Korea stay one year or less 33% (1/3) up to two years 80% up to three years Those who stay longer than three years are put into another group. I would say those who stay more than 2 or 3 years are a different class of English teacher. 10% 3-5 years 10% 5 - 10 years less than 1% more than 10 years One may disagree with those numbers. I put a little thought into it. I don't thing the real figures are too far off. The attitude of those who stay a few years or less is much different than those who stay longer. In addition the long termers are more likely to have better jobs such as university jobs or to be more settled in Korea. Some own homes, apartments or are married or in serious relationships with Koreans or other foreigners living in Korea. I decided to write about this because, not only do I think about this sometimes, but recently I met an English teacher who has been in Korea 14 years. She told me that when...

My favorite animal in the whole world and Koreans don't like them! Almost all cats are stray. Few in Korea keep them as pets. I can see not liking strays when you see them only eating out of trash cans and getting into cat fights and screaming in the middle of the night. After thinking about it during the time I've been in Korea, I decided that Koreans think cats are like rats. I told this to a Korean friend who agreed. There is a cat shelter in Seoul called Nabiya. They have a website and a Facebook page. At this time they have about thirty mostly adult cats who are ready to be adopted. They aren't completely tame. Likely most were strays before coming to the shelter because most cats in Korea are. The difference between stray cats and cats kept as pets is quite drastic. I've explained to a few Koreans about how they're different when raised in a home. I really don't know why Koreans don't like cats. It seems so many around the world like them. Chines...

Ok it doesn't usually take that long, but Korean students can and do take a much longer time to go through college from start to finish. I'm talking about getting one four-year Bachelor's degree. There are some reasons for this: 1) military service for young men 2)study abroad 3)taking a semester/year off for work, rest, or to study something such as English 4) Korean age - the way in which Koreans determine a person's age which results in everyone being 1 or 2 years 'older' than they would be in other countries. One thing that I find interesting is that Koreans seem to think there's nothing wrong with students taking their time to get through college. In the US when I was in college students were encouraged to go through in four years. They could study abroad or intern, usually for a semester, but still finishing in four years was still considered better than 4 1/2, 5 or more. There was strong discouragement towards taking time off, taking a year off to...

Want to write a short post about something I've observed. I know one young Vietnamese woman in Korea who graduated from a Korean university. One time I talked to her and found out that she plans to stay in Korea for some time. I asked her if she wanted to marry a Korean man and she said no because Korean men's culture was too different, with the drinking and so on. The drinking was the only thing she said actually to help explain the cultural differences. This reminded me of a Taiwanese student I knew of in Korea. Though I didn't really know her personally, I knew that she had a plan to study in Korea for two years, and I saw a little writing she wrote about Korea which was published in a book for her university's students. She really talked about the drinking. I can't remember all she said, but after writing about the drinking culture in Korea for a bit, she wrote a sentence like this: "Koreans, why do you drink so much??" Coming from the USA which is...

There must be others in Korea blogging about this now. A little note: I can't say that every sentence I write here is going to be original, but I'll write original posts when I can. Chusok must be on everyone's minds now. It falls this year mid-week which means three official holidays, Tues - Thurs, Sept 21 - 23. Some working Koreans are going to get an extra day that week which would be Monday or Friday and will therefore have a six-day break instead of three. Big difference. Many will have only the three days. People who are government workers or bank employees will have just three days. Those offices must be open on all non-holidays of course. One schoolteacher friend will get the six days having Friday off. I'm not sure but I guess a lot of schools will do this. For those who have just three days it may be a challenge. Many Koreans leave home and drive across the country to spend the holiday with their families. Some lucky ones go a short distance. I've heard it...