Teaching in Korea VS. Teaching in Thailand

About a month or two ago, my friend posted a blog on my facebook wall about a fellow ESL teacher who taught in both Thailand and South Korea and was comparing the two places.  I wanted to offer my comparisons on teaching and living in both countries to help any of you out there who are also making the decision to teach abroad.

VS



Keep in mind that I was teaching in Chiang Mai for 14 months and I have been just outside of Seoul for about 2.5 months.

1. Weather

The weather in Thailand throughout most of the year was very pleasant, not overly hot to my taste (mid-high 80's and low 90's) and the rainy season wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting.  We had some crazy monsoons at times, but they didn't last long and soon enough the sun was back out drying it all up.  The worst time of year in Chiang Mai is between February - April-ish, when it's the hot, dry season.  Not only was it hot, but Chiang Mai sits in a valley where farmers are burning in the mountains, so the city is overcome with horrible pollution (which, for unfortunate reasons, makes for some beautiful sunsets everyday).

The weather here in Korea is pretty unbearable.  Let it be said that I have never experienced so much rain and humidity in my life (and I lived in England for 4 years).  I am constantly wet with sweat and sticky and horrible-ness...there's no point in drying when you get out of the shower because two seconds later, you're wet again.  I always have the dreaded upper-lip sweat...well, actually my head and well, just everywhere, is sweaty.  I'm hating the summer weather here so much that I never expected these words to leave my mouth: I can't wait for winter.  (I'll probably be whistling a different tune come winter, but I've heard it's cold and dry here the in winter - being a Colorado native, I can handle cold and dry winters)

Weather Advantage: Thailand. (This is changed to a TIE after the update listed below)

UPDATE (September): Alright, so the humidity has finally deceased (thank GOD) and now the weather in Korea is absolutely perfect. Not too hot, not too cold, nice and cool at night...seriously perfect. But I'm not going to lie, those summer months were horrendous. 

2. Food

I haven't really taken to Korean food.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good dill pickle every now and again, but having pickled food all the time is too much.  And no, not everything is pickled, but a lot of side dishes are, mainly kimchi, the national dish of Korea.  A lot of the food is served cold and I don't really fancy a cold dish of noodles, even in the summer heat.  I find most of the Korean food to be very bland, with the main flavour being red chili's - too hot for this delicate flower!  Koreans eat a lot of beef (which I like) and also a lot of seafood (which I don't like).  I'm generally not a picky eater, as you can tell by my waistline, but I've decided that Korea is a great place to start a real, life-changing diet.

The food in Thailand, however, was just amazing.  You could find anything you wanted in Chiang Mai, most of it costing between $1-$5 (the higher end of that being international food)  Thai food is packed full of bursting flavours - from street food (which was my favourite) to a sit-down restaurant.  International food was everywhere as well, thanks to nationals from other countries who move to Thailand and open restaurants.  I dearly miss the food in Thailand.  Check out my Thai food blogs here and here.

Food Advantage: Thailand for sure!

3: Beverages

At this point, you know I enjoy a good beer.  But neither Korean or Thai beers have satiated my appetite for a good brew.  Actually, I got INSANELY sick on Thai beer - and it wasn't from a hangover.  I won't go into details to spare you, but I was sick for a good 4 days and in the most pain I've ever been in my life...I'm not a dramatic person, but I wanted to die.  I'll leave it at that.  Thai beer isn't regulated by the government - especially Chang, so you could be getting 2% beer or 12% beer.  It's like playing Russian Roulette with a shitty brew. 

Also in Thailand, they have this completely ridiculous law that you can only buy alcohol in stores at certain times of the day....I can't quite remember the exact times but it was between like 9-11am, then 5-9pm.  EVERY SINGLE TIME I wanted to buy a bottle of vino for the evening, was at the store between 11am and 5pm...Non-alcohol selling times.  It annoyed the fuck out of me.

At least in Korea there is more availability of European and American beers (with no selling regulation times) - and they're not too much more expensive than Korean beer, so purely based on that...

Beverage Advantage: Korea

4. Transportation

Transportation in Thailand was ridiculously insane.  I mean, c'mon, I got hit by a freakin motorbike for fuck's sake (oh wait, I'm not supposed to bitch about that anymore).  But public transportation in Chiang Mai was pretty simple for the most part.  Just flag down a red truck or a tuk-tuk and if they wanted to take you somewhere you were on your way.  Depending on how many people are in the red truck, though, you could be headed all over the city before reaching your destination.  I also kind of miss my Orange Rocket...feeling the (polluted) wind in my hair, scootin' around the back allies of Chiang Mai...

Public transportation in Korea is pretty great.  I have a subway stop right outside of my apartment and a bus stop on the opposite side of my small city, maybe a 15-minute walk.  The subways are pretty cheap and so clean you could eat a meal off the floor - although I don't condone that sort of silly behaviour, and you'd probably be told off by an ajjuma (who of which I will address in the Cultural Differences section).  I'm told you can get from one end of the country to the other in a mere 5 hours, which is pretty sweet...especially considering I spent 25 hours on a bus going from Trang (Southern Thailand) to Chiang Mai.

Transportation Advantage: Korea, although public transportation can be pretty enjoyable in Thailand.

5. Finding a Job

I found it relatively easy in both countries to find a job.  In Thailand, it's more of a "right place, right time" thing.  I walked into the learning centre where I received my TEFL certificate and the owner said they had an opening at a school, if I wanted it, it was mine.  Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

For Korea, I found an agency that helped find the perfect fit for me.  I felt with a year's experience I could be more picky (and considering the experience I had at the Thai school, I wanted to be sure I wasn't repeating shitty experiences in a different country).

Both the Korean agency and the learning centre in Thailand helped me with the visa and work permit paperwork, which made things much more stress free in that department.

Finding a Job Advantage: Tie

6. Immigration

Like I just mentioned, my agency in Korea and the learning centre in Thailand both handled the heavy load of visas and work permits.  All I had to do was get documents together and prepared.

I didn't need much for Thailand.  It's not required (yet, or when I did it) but I had an FBI background check and my degrees from college.  I think that's about all I needed if I remember correctly.  (And at this point, you don't need a "real" degree to work in Thailand...).  However, my visa in Thailand was a "multiple entry" visa, therefore, every 3 months, I had to take the 4 hour (one way!) trip to Myanmar to cross the border and back again (I can say I'm probably one of the few people in the world that has walked into Myanmar and back to Thailand on crutches as my 90 days were up about 3 weeks after my accident and with my freshly-casted leg).  I had the option of changing my visa to "single entry", then I would have had to report to the Immigration Office in Chiang Mai every 90 days (Chiang Mai Immigration is not a fun place to spend your time...believe me), but if I wanted to leave the country during my holiday, I would have to pay a $30 fee, so I opted for the scenic drive to Myanmar.

For Korea...the paperwork is intense.  You need the FBI background check, copies of degrees notarized and apostilled - and I feel like I'm leaving something out here because I was so stressed getting everything together.  It didn't help that I was trying to get all of my paperwork together while I was in Thailand, sending it back and forth to the US for apostles and crap.  It stressed me out, and it takes a lot to stress me out.  But since the 90-day thing in Thailand is annoying...

Immigration Advantage: Korea

7. Learning the Language

I admit, I didn't really put a lot of effort in learning Thai, and for that, I'm a hypocrite.  I learned very basic Thai, the most important thing I felt I learned was "Can I have a discount?" and how to say "hello" in Northern Thailand - it's different, and pretty beneficial (which I will talk about in Cultural Differences).  I didn't even try to read Thai.  I was really lazy about it.  Thai is a very difficult language to learn, which is probably why my efforts were lost.  It's a tonal language, therefore, if you're saying the word "banana" and you say it in a different tone, you could be asking for a bunch of "dicks".  How fitting is it that the word "banana", a phallic symbol, is only tonally different for the word "dick"?  Or am I just being immature?  ;-)

I've put a lot more effort into learning to read Korean.  It's insanely easy.  So easy, in fact, that I've been lazy about learning all of it.  That sounds really stupid, but it makes sense in my head.  Saying that, I've only learned a few words, "hello", "thank you", "space", "music" (the last two were from my students, they try to teach me one word a day...I've only remembered 2).  I'm shit at learning languages - and I'm a language teacher! Ha!

Learning the Language Advantage: For speaking: Thailand (and that's only because I know more because I was there for a longer amount of time).  For reading: Korean.

8. Cultural Differences

Korean people are really nice.  There have been many times when I'm walking around town and some cute old lady will come up to me and shake my hand and talk to me in Korean - I have no idea what they're saying, but they seem really sweet.  I've made friends with my Korean co-teachers who go out of their way to help me.  However, Koreans also seem afraid to speak English.  I've read that they don't want to make a mistake, therefore to save face, they don't speak in English, even if they know it.  Not all of them are like this, but I do have the feeling that some Koreans speak more English then they let on.  There are also these superheros called Ajjumas.  Perm-haired, old Korean women (not like the ones who come shake my hand) that pretty much make up their own rules about civility.  You can spot them by their perms and sun visors.  If you still can't point one out, soon enough, one will push you out of the way to get on the train, or step out in traffic, magically stopping every car on the road.  I've heard legends of ajjumas telling off young Koreans and foreigners for sitting on the "old people" seats on the subway, though I've never witnessed this in action.  It's only a matter of time, I'm sure.

Thai people, on the other hand, will rip you off at every chance they get (something I noticed over time).  They see that you're foreign so they automatically think you're rich.  Many times you're charged double for "Skin tax".  It took a toll on me (and my bank account) after a while.  That's where the language factor came in to play.  When I would say "hi" in the Northern Thai way and ask for a discount in Thai, Thai people were much more accommodating.  Thai's are also pretty nice - to your face.  Being in Thailand for 14 months, I could tell how much more fake their kindness was.  They look at you and see a dollar sign with legs.  A tuk-tuk driver tried to charge me $40 for a 2 minute taxi ride once, I kid you not.  I was still on crutches at the time as well.  What a dickhead.  I threw 40baht at him ($1.20) and crutched off, fuming.  My first apartment was a 5 minute walk to my school.  After my accident and when my leg was in a cast and on crutches, I had to take a taxi to school everyday.  I never caught a sympathetic break, even for a 2 minute drive.  It was really disheartening.  In general - after a period of time - Thai culture just became really disheartening altogether for me.  Not all Thai's were like that and I met some genuinely nice Thai people, but for the most part, that's how I felt.  I hope it doesn't happen like that in Korea.

Cultural Differences Advantage: Korea

9. Health care

I loved the health care in Thailand.  It was cheap, the hospitals were clean and most of the doctors studied in Western countries so they could speak English.  I'm a little concerned, though, that my ankle hasn't healed properly, but I'm not saying that's because of shitty health care in Thailand.  You can walk into a pharmacy and get any kind of medication you need.  From going to a clinic in the hospital, to being in the emergency room, to having an emergency root canal at the dentist, I have no complaints about the health care in Thailand.

I haven't had much experience with the health care here in Korea, besides my pink eye episode, so I can't really give a full evaluation of the health care here.  I did have an eye exam last week and was told the optometrist spoke English.  He didn't.  And the "pink eye" doctor didn't speak English, either.  Given the health care in Thailand and what I heard about living in Korea, I was expecting more here...I think I set my expectations too high.

Health care Advantage: Thailand (Changed to Korea after the update below)

UPDATE (September): With all of the recent pain I've been having in my ankle, I ended up going to one of the main hospitals in Seoul.  I couldn't be more impressed.  I only talked with the family doctor, but they told me more in 30 minutes than the orthopedic doctors did in Thailand - who would usually spend 5 minutes with me without telling me anything useful.  I've been referred to an orthopedic doctor here who only works with the foot, so we'll see where we go from there.  Based on this one, much better experience, I'd like to change my Health Care Advantage.  I'll do further health care updates in separate blogs.

UPDATE (May 2014): In case you don't follow my blog...I now have LOADS of experience with the Korean health care system.  After visiting the orthopedic surgeon in September, I found out I needed surgery on my ankle.  When the Thai doctors took the xrays from my initial accident, they only took a xray from one angle...the angle that didn't show the fracture in my ankle.  As a result of walking around on an untreated broken ankle for 1.5 years, I've trashed the shit out of my bone and joints.  I had surgery last December and am slowly on the mend (still walking on crutches, but it's feeling much better).  My doctor here is thorough and I go back every month for further xrays to check on the progress of my healing.  If you want to know more about what it's like to stay in a Korean hospital, read Korean hospitals and the road to recovery.  Also, I'd like to add that I am NOT at all happy with the Thai healthcare system...Hindsight is 20/20.

10. Quality of Work life

I didn't particularly enjoy the school I worked at in Chiang Mai.  In a typical lesson, I would spend a good 20 minutes (or more) of a 45 minute lesson on behaviour issues.  The students were disrespectful, lazy, and didn't really seem to give a shit about learning English.  I think they felt that their English lessons were a break from Thai classes and they could do whatever the hell they wanted.  Many times I felt like I worked at a zoo.  During feeding time.  And the foreign teachers were the main course.  Class size was 20-30 - and that's small for Thailand.  We didn't have much support from the Thai teachers or Thai staff at the school.  There were rules regarding making copies - if you needed worksheets printed, you had to print a proof of the worksheet at least a week in advance to get it approved and copied by the administration department.  I mean, we all know that teachers don't know how to work a copier.  The Thai teachers weren't extremely friendly - save for one, out of about 20.  The pay was abysmal - it was enough to live on, but not enough to save or pay bills back home.  We didn't have sick time at school, so when I was hit by a motorbike and off work for 2 weeks, I had to pay a teacher out of my own pocket to teach for me.  It's not like I asked to get hit so I could have a nice little 2-week vacation.  Speaking of vacation, we were told at first that we would have 2 weeks.  Then we were told only 1 week.  After much bitching and moaning, we got our 2 weeks.  I've heard from my fellow teacher friends that are still there that they get 1 week this year.  There was just a lot of BS to deal with and the students didn't make it worth it.  I wanted to quit after my first month.  But I stuck it out.

Korea, on the other hand, is quite the opposite.  I've read horror stories, but I haven't heard any from people I know.  Maybe I got lucky this time, and not wanting to repeat my last experience, I was extremely picky when looking for work.  With students who are younger than those I taught in Thailand, I can have a conversation with them - in English.  They're eager to learn and we have small class sizes: between 2 and 13.  We have staff support, I've made great friends with my Korean co-teachers, we all count on each other for help.  There's none of this copy-machine malarkey.  We are paid considerably well...1 month here is more than 2 months combined in Chiang Mai.  The school pays our rent and covers the cost of flights to and from Korea.  At the end of the contract, we get a full-months severance pay.  We have 10 sick days and two weeks of vacation time.  All of the planning and prep work is done for us, so basically, I go to work, teach, then go home.  It's fantastic.  I still don't want to teach for the rest of my life, but I definitely prefer teaching here. 

Quality of Work life Advantage: Korea.

UPDATE: September 2014
I wrote this blog after only having been in Korea for 2.5 months.  It has now been over a year and I've been back in the US for three weeks.  My attitude towards Quality of Work Life has ever-so-slightly changed towards Korea.  The last six months of my time there sort of went downhill.  The last two months, my experience really soured.  Management at my branch was, well, not great.  They absolutely love you when you're new.  When they get sick of you, you definitely know.  I felt a lot of the negative treatment towards me was due to having to walk on crutches for 6 months, therefore I wasn't able to follow the 'company policy' of standing the entire time during a lesson (we taught for 6 hours straight with a 5 minute break between lessons...).  However, although management turned out to be shit, my Korean co-teachers and my students made up for it.  Even being back in the States, I still talk to some of my students, who I very much miss teaching every day.  I still prefer teaching in Korea over Thailand, but the politics of teaching in Asia are just too much for me...My experience in Thailand wasn't great.  My experience in Korea became sour.  I know it's not like that at every school, but as for me, I'm done like dinner!

So there you have it.  A 5 - 4* advantage of Korea to Thailand, with 1 coming in as a tie.  I think overall - the issues that are more important to me (Quality of Work life is the main one) - Korea wins.  Thailand is a great place to vacation, but after a while, I hated living there.  My quality of life in Korea is a thousand times better and living here is easy and doable.  Insanely fast Internet, a great and free apartment, I've made friends (something that was really difficult for me in Thailand - most people I met were backpackers), many of my favourite bands play concerts in Seoul if they have an Asian tour.  Korea is just better for me.  Now, if only it would cool down...!

*After my two updates, the score has changed to 6-3 to Korea with 2 coming in as a tie.

If you want to see how my points compare to the blog that started this one (however, I have some different criteria), check out the original Korea vs. Thailand blog.

Happy Trails!