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Hey guys,
Due to the nature of our interests (SC!) everyone seems to be quite interested in Korea as a country, and possibly living here.
I currently live in Korea, and was wondering if anyone had any questions about life over here, or anything they'd like to know? My apologies if a blog of this nature has been made before, just thought there might be some stuff people may find interesting. I know for me, Korea was very different from what I expected.
Just so you all know, I am not here in any gaming capacity, I'm an English teacher at a co-ed high school.
Cool, well if there's anything you'd like to know, fire away 
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Man I just got back from visiting there after not being there for 8 years, it's changed so much!!
Just curious, how'd you get interested in teaching there?
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How long have you been teaching? What's your ethnicity?
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Korea (South)11589 Posts
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Do Korean girls love English speakers? I'm assuming your not Korean, so are they friendly to foreigners?
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I have been thinking of this for some time now. In Korea can you, like go up to a girl and start talking about starcraft? o.0 And would she be capable of saying SC-related stuff that is clever.
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How much does starcraft actually come up? Like, is it natural for people to sit around and talk about the OSL as finals approach/after finals like u would any other big sporting event, or is it fairly limited to high school kids and that sort of thing?
what percentage of the population would know what you're talking about if you said "I think flash deserves the title bonjwa"? (Note i dont, i was just using a popular sc name with a popular sc reference without actually mentioning "starcraft" anywhere)
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Im mainly wondering about the SC Pro teams and how much Esports has integrated into the community.
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How big is gaming really over there (from observation only)?
I've always wonders what it's like to walk downtown in such a huge city?
How prevalent is North Korea in the News? Every day or just once a week or less?
The atmosphere in E-cafes there how would you describe it?
What are the restaurants like there?
How is the general mood outside on the street?
How crowded is it?
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What's the point of a QA blog if you don't......answer?
edit* my bad. 
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I'm South African, and White.
My great-grandparents are from England, so thats my "descent" if you will.
I got interested in teaching because an agency in South Africa that recruits for Korea came to my University and told us all about it. It was one hell of a sale's pitch Great pay, little work, completely new experience. Really cool. Been teaching for 6 months.
In answer to your Q CaucasianAsian, I'm gonna assume South Africa to be a "western country". Daily life there is pretty similar to America and Europe (been to both) so I'll assume South Africa qualifies
Anyways, daily life is definitely different. It's quite a culture shock. The food is completely different, and just all the little mannerisms and stuff are a lot to get used to. The language is obviously a big problem, the English here is NOT very good, despite the amount of learning they do. I stay in more of a rural area, a small city about 2 hours from Seoul. The English isn't as bad in Seoul but where I am it's pretty terrible. Have to get by with some rudimentary Korean and a lot of hand gestures It isn't too much of a problem though, and you quickly get used to it.
Transport in Korea, aside from Seoul which has a subway, is pretty much all buses and taxis. The buses are incredible, they go everywhere and are never even a minute late. The taxis are great too because they're really, really cheap. A 10 minute taxi drive somewhere will only cost you a few dollars. And I literally mean like 3-4 bucks.
There are very many bars and restaurants, a LOT more than are necessary. Most bars and restaurants I go to, its not uncommon for our group to be the only people there. Apparently they get subsidised by the government, thats how they keep operating. It's pretty rare in Korea also to find a "club" as we know it, i.e. no dancefloors. Most of the "clubs" are just really fancy bars with pretty lights, nice seating etc.
Being an English speaker here is very strange. In Seoul people aren't too bothered, as there are a lot of foreigners there. But where I am its crazy. My first week at school was like nothing I've ever experienced. The girls would all come up to me and say like "hello" then run away screaming and giggling. The first time I walked into my classes the girls all screamed, and i mean literally SCREAMED. It was like I was on TRL or something.
It's very common also to be walking down the street and for girls to tell you you're handsome. You;ll just be walking and girls will be like, "very handsome very handsome". It's really weird at first but you get used to it quite quickly. What might take longer to get used to is how you hear the same things from boys just as often. Boys will often say "very handsome boy" in the same manner. Boys here in general are very feminine, and touch each other a lot. It's a lot to get used to, they'd definitely be considered gay in another culture, but they're not.
But it's quite easy to adapt, and once you've settled into your general daily routine, found the places you like to eat and the bars you like to go, daily life kind of becomes quite normal It's all about the first couple of months, they're definitely the hardest. But you get used to the culture, whats bad and whats good, and pick up a little bit of Korean and things are OK!
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Starcraft is not as popular as you think it is there. People know about it, play it but it's not like total strangers in the subway start talking about a proleague match
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CA10829 Posts
On July 06 2010 13:51 OpRaider wrote:
What's the point of a QA blog if you don't......answer?
are you serious? the thread had only been open for 20 minutes when you posted that
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Yet another foreign teaching english in Korea? I wonder why the koreans can't supply their english teachers with local professionals.
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I thought about something like this for a possible career in the future, what basic qualifications(education) do you need to pursue this kind of career (teaching abroad in Korea)
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On July 06 2010 13:42 red_hq wrote:
How big is gaming really over there (from observation only)?
I've always wonders what it's like to walk downtown in such a huge city?
How prevalent is North Korea in the News? Every day or just once a week or less?
The atmosphere in E-cafes there how would you describe it?
What are the restaurants like there?
How is the general mood outside on the street?
How crowded is it?
From my observation, gaming is huge. After school, which ends at 5pm, or as late as 10pm for the diligent students, the boys all go to PC bangs. The PC bangs are considered a big problem in Korea, and you'll often see things in the news about them, and measures being taken to counter the problem. The government is trying to introduce new laws that limit the amount of time people can play, and start to slowly throttle their bandwidth if they spend too long playing games.
Walking downtown in Seoul is crazy. I mean the city itself is massive, so there are many different "downtowns". It's just a really, really busy place. There are so many people, and everyone is always in a rush! The amount of skyscrapers are unbelievable. I mean in some areas every single building is a massive skyscraper. They love to just build up and up, because there's not much space in Korea! Apartment blocks especially are very prolific, massiv eones.
The atmosphere in E-cafes is quite jovial. Everybody plays most of their games there, and you often go with friends so its a very social place. They can sometimes be a little dank and depressing though. You'll occasionally go into one and there will be a scattering of people, all sitting by themselves, and you can see they've been there aty least 24 hours! its a bit unsettling.
The restaurants are divided into 3 kinds I'd say. There's the traditional korean restaurants, which pretty much all serve the same kind of thing (most commonly strips of meat u cook in the center of the table on a big gas heated plate, then wrap in big cabbage leaves and eat, with a number of korean side dishes). Then there's the Western restaurants, which range from Italian food to burger joints. These are most common in seoul, in the more rural areas its mostly traditional food. Lastly, you get the "fusion" restaurants. These are chinese or japanese places that'll also serve korean stuff, or korean places that serve korean food but you sit on chairs and there's a definite western influence.
lastly the fast food places, aside from lotteria which is basically korean mcD's, are almost all pizza and fried chicken places. Every place in korea that sells pizza, sells fried chicken as well. You buy them together as kind of a deal, lol. Don't ask me why.
General mood on the street depends where you are, and what time it is. In Seoul, it is very crowded, and people are generally busy and have somewhere to be. On weekends though, or holidays, or more rural places, people are generally quite happy and talkative. Koreans really get along with other koreans. Some of them really have no interest/dislike for foreigners though. They're a very proud people, and think Korea is just the best place on Earth.
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What that other guy said is right, in answer to some of you guys talking about Starcraft infliltration into the community.
It's not like people talk about it ALL THE TIME, but it is really popular. I mean, compare it to how often you'd hear people in the US talking about football?
It's the same kind of thing. Almost all the boys in my school though play it, and are happy to tell me that their Zerg or Terran will crush me, lol. They also all really want to play me, I'm too scared haha.
But whether or not everyone is interested, almost everybody knows what it is.
One of my fellow teachers told me he's played 20 000 games of SC1, but he never plays anymore. I was like, you don't play at all? even on weekends or something? and he said no.
It seems that its popular amongst kids, but this country is so so work-driven its incredible, once people start working that quickly becomes their whole life. I guess he felt he didn't have times for games anymore.
As for girls, some do like SC, but its way way more popular with boys. The boys go to Pc bangs, the girls go to jinjubangs, which are like, saunas where they all get naked and bath and sit in steam and stuff. Lol, no, I'm not kidding. Stop drooling. 
As to necessary qualifications, all you need is a bachelor's degree, and a passport from UK, SA, US, Canada, Aus, NZ or England. They only take nationals from those countries.
But if you have a TEFL/TESOL/CELTA course to your name, or your degree was in English or Linguistics, you get paid extra
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On July 06 2010 13:54 fabiano wrote:
Yet another foreign teaching english in Korea? I wonder why the koreans can't supply their english teachers with local professionals.
Koreans find it very, very difficult to learn English. There are 3 other english teachers at my school, and their English is not great. They want native speakers so that they can hear the natural speech, the right pronunciation, etc. My english teachers will often ask for my help with english problems they're having.
In fact, I have a class where I teach the teachers!
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Can you elaborate on those "mannerism" and other general social conventions western people might not be familiar with?
Also, the popular belief tends to dictate that asian are shyer than westerners, is this true in your experience? How diferent is it to get to know people during work or other social friendly events? WHat about making contact to a random stranger in the street?
nice blog btw, very educative
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how did you find out about tl?
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EPT
