Think, then Do

I'm always surprised at how blogging has taken off. This week, I received a mail from someone at Writers.net, inviting me to submit a new blog. Accordingly, I sat down in the morning (as I was waiting for the imminent arrival of my new washing machine, the old one having started to die the previous week) and began blogging away, finished it after about an hour, saved it, and . . . nothing! Lost! I will have to go back and do it all again!

And just as I was about to write this, the browser (Opera 9.50) suddenly collapsed. Lesson: Technology is unreliable. Thankfully, what I was writing had already been backed up, so I was able to get back to the Dashboard and resume.

Anyway, to introduce myself, my name is Andrew, I am about a month shy of my forty-sixth birthday and for the last five years or so, I have been living and working in South Korea, teaching English to schoolkids. In truth, I have more than one Korea-related blog (see http://my.opera.com/fukudasan/blog/, for example) and after some badgering from a co-worker here, signed up for Google Mail, and the rest is history . . . I arrived in Korea purely by accident (i.e. this place and the place before it were never part of my plan), but it seems to have worked out quite well, and the Boss asks me to stay each year (as well he might, it saves him a small fortune) and I have learned an awful lot myself along the way. And I keep learning.

I live and work in a city called Changwon, close to the southern coast of Korea. The pay is good but the kids are often awful, and anyone thinking of coming here should be forewarned of this: modern parents in South Korea are as pointlessly precious about their kids as they are anywhere else, with similar results. They crave computer games and have no life worth writing about, travel very little (because their parents are always working) and are becoming increasingly overweight - although it should be mentioned that considering the amount of time they spend sitting down, this is hardly surprising.

Many horror stories seem to get published on the Internet about terrible bosses and working conditions, but my Boss has just helped me jump through the hoops of the new E2 visa regs and stay for a sixth year, given me another pay rise and given me not just the usual annual bonus (equivalent to one month's salary minus tax) but also the outstanding bonus for the first year here (which never materialised because the original Boss's hagwon - part of the same hagwon chain - went bust recently). Originally I worked at another hagwon in the north of the city, but my Boss moved me to where I am now after about nine months, and he has kept me here ever since.

All this on top of sorting out a newer and larger apartment - including hiring a man with a flatbed to shift everything on a Sunday morning - and this week, purchasing a completely new Daewoo washing machine. Next time you hear someone whining about how bad they think their Boss is treating them, remember these things. The fact is that in any job, the man who hires you will not fire you unless you are a bad worker, get up everyone elses' noses or break the law. In over five years in Changwon, I have known only one (male, English) foreigner be fired . . . and that is a story in itself. Later . . . maybe.

What I would say is that you must think very carefully before coming here, and when you arrive, try not to treat the place like it's a joke because you only planned to stay here for one year. If you prove to be good at your job, your Boss will be happy to ask you to stay - after all, a change of foreign teachers is very expensive out here, and often involves a third party recruiter  - and each year you will receive effectively a "thirteenth month" separation payment, even though you are not leaving!

Additionally, accommodation is free, and you are only required to pay for things like utilities. So provided that (unlike myself) you arrive here without too many bills to pay back home, you can save an awful lot of money if you don't hit the local bars each night. But my attitude in this regard has changed, too.

Above all, however, staying here (rather than travelling around each year) is to be recommended because you have the free time, in your mind, to plan for the future. You have a reasonable income, a decent style of living and free time, and you only have the one life, so plan accordingly.This is a perfect place for planning, and with the Internet to help you, you can go a long way. Take your time, plan for what you want, then make your move.

And that is what I am planning now.