Well, I never realized how strong that animosity was until I saw this:
The education authorities have set in motion a long-term plan to cut back on the number of foreign English teachers, trimming several hundreds of jobs at primary and secondary schools in Gyeonggi Province from this spring semester.That's right. SoKos hate "whitey" so bad that they have effected an economic downturn in order to engineer an excuse to reduce their numbers. Vicious.
According to the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education, the budget allocated to hire foreign English teachers fell to 22.7 billion won ($20 million) for this year from 30 billion won in 2010.
Seriously, though, while it would really, really, really, really suck to think last December that you had a job come March but only in February did you find out you wouldn't, that's life in the real world. You were hired for a one-year basis as a temporary worker with no guarantee of renewal.
And Kushibo sympathizes. Really. I was promised three years of a teaching assistantship but, thanks to the Hawaiian economy floating in the toilet bowl, that was axed at the last minute.
It sucks.
But the same article notes that Seoul is slightly increasing its number of English-teaching hires, while Brian suggests going to China or going to school.
And of course, there are always hagwons.
Ha ha. No, seriously. China or a TOEIC certificate. Go.
"You were hired for a one-year basis as a temporary worker with no guarantee of renewal."
ReplyDeleteThe primary reason why I left after almost a decade, and though I miss friends and life in Seoul, I am better off where I am now in so many ways. People who can go elsewhere do. People married to Koreans or who have no viable alternatives stay and hope for the best.