Quote: (03-10-2012 02:28 PM)Vacancier Permanent Wrote:
Thanks for the detailed reply jdreise, much appreciated.
I'm not looking to teach English at this time but heavily contemplated it a few years ago and almost went through this Tefl International that someone in here posted earlier (3 weeks in class training followed by 4 months in the boonies) and also almost went to Japan teaching. This was back in 2007. Btw, how does teaching in Korea compare to in Thailand?
No worries. I’m glad I can contribute something to the forum. I’ve been getting more out of it than I’ve been giving back up until now.
Compare Thailand and Korea….hmmm. Where to start?
Well, first of, maybe we can start with the kind of foreigners they attract. Korea has lots of kids right out of university that are only there because they can’t find a decent paying job back in the States or UK. I’m 27, so when I say kids I mean 21, 22, 23. I guess I was one of them even though I had a couple years of work and travel experience before I went. For some of them it’s their first experience abroad and I think that’s where you get a lot of the sob stories about people being miserable that are all over message boards warning people not to go to Korea. They don’t have any experience in other cultures so the culture shock that is East Asia is twice as bad for them. You also get lots of middle-aged people who would otherwise be working in a call center or cubicle farm back home. Not saying that’s a bad thing, but a lot of people there aren’t travelers. They’re there to work and save money and carry the notion that the economic situation back home will improve next year so they can start their nice little corporate career. They don’t take time to adapt to the culture and complain obsessively about you name it; Korean driving skills, Korean fashion, the language barrier, and lack of good Western food, for example. I remember reading posts from dashglobal complaining about the situation there and alarms were going off in my head…
You also get a lot of cool Westerners of all ages that are there because they like to travel and understand that teaching is a good way to save some money and immerse yourself in another culture. I have some friends that saved a good amount of money in their year or two there and are using it to fund their travels. I did the same. I used some of that money to take a 5 month trip through China, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand, then combined the rest of that money with my other savings and invested in real estate.
There are also some of the strange/dorky/awkward types that are there to find their Asian bride, but they aren’t as prevalent as here in Thailand. I’ll get to that in a little bit…
When I was in Korea, there was a foreigner male/female ratio of about 40/60. It’s good to be a decent looking, in-shape guy there because you can pull Korean honeys and the Western girls get dick-starved. Fucking expat chicks in Korea is extremely easy especially after they know that you’re regularly getting with K-girls. As we all know, bitches can’t control their jealousy. If you’re in a big city like Seoul, Busan, Daegu, etc., the expat teacher population is large so there’s always some foreigner event going on. The K-girls in big cities are predictably more open to foreigners also.
You can save good money in Korea too. Most people who finish their one year contract leave about $12,000-14,000 richer without really worrying about what they’re spending and not doing any extra work on the side. That’s the rule. I was the exception. I put away 21k in 15 months but worked hard to network some good side gigs and was conscious about my spending habits—not to the point where I limited myself though.
I’ll be honest about Thailand… It rightfully has a reputation for attracting the dregs of Western society. I don’t mean just sexual deviants, drugs addicts, idiots, and alcoholics, even though there are undoubtedly those, but I see a lot of the silent, social outcast types here. I work with a few of them and can see where the sexpat stereotype finds its legs. These are guys that don’t have the ability or drive to amount to shit back home so they’ll probably be here working for peanuts, treating their ESL job like a 9-5 gig, and living like outcasts the rest of their lives. I know a few guys that have been here for 8-10 years and haven’t even taken the time to learn how to read Thai, let alone speak it. It’s pathetic. I think you find these guys are attracted to Thailand because Thai society is tolerant of people that don’t cause problems and it’s much easier for them to find a girlfriend or wife. They’d die alone back in the States.
I'm not a pathetic loser so I’m getting along fine out here but sometimes wish I had a few like-minded friends to bounce ideas off. Even though I have Thai friends and more than enough girls on my plate, I feel a lot more socially isolated in Thailand.
That's the big difference between here and Korea. In Korea, I could call up some of my teacher or military contractor buddies, head down to the bar, drink beer, play darts, shoot the shit, and watch baseball. You can’t do that in provincial Thailand.
Like I said, I’m out in the sticks so the situation is different here compared to BKK. That’s a global metropolis that has every kind of expat and expat comfort that you can imagine. I’m here until my contract is up but even with all of the perks of my job and a plethora of hot Thai girls, I couldn’t stay in rural Thailand indefinitely. I get bored easily so I have to get out of here every two or three weeks. I have a motorcycle so I like to head up into the mountains on rides and I try to go to BKK or CM every few weeks. Getting out of town is an added expense that I didn’t include when I said that I live well here on 11-12k. My trips to the city will usually run me 3000-4000 baht. Just something to think about.
If I was pulling in 90-100,000 baht a month I really do think I could live in BKK indefinitely but wouldn’t want to stay there long term on a salary like 60,000. It’s a transportation hub so it’s easy to take cheap flights all over SE Asia, which, besides BKK’s entertainment options is really appealing. Maybe in ten years when I have some more investments that are paying out every month I’ll consider settling in someplace like BKK or Phuket. Like it’s been stated here before: arbitrage. Right now, I’m reluctant to work in BKK for 40k/month even though my RE income from back home would make my actual monthly earnings more like 65-70k.
I’ve just touched the tip of the iceberg on what the social life is like in both countries but I could go on more about respective cultures, girls, working condition, logistics, etc. Compared to crowded Korea, Thailand feels wide-open. Once you’re outside of BKK there’s lots of space here. Korea is so developed that it can feel almost suffocating at times. I don’t have that feeling in Thailand.