For PH and anyone else interested

[Serb]

Originally posted by Seeker

Serb: I run into more than enough Russian hoodlums and whores here in seoul. I've reached my quota.

Please, tell us more about your personal experience with Russian hoodlums in Seoul. I'm sure you have pretty much to tell (it's you who said that you've reached your quota)

[monolith94]

That is soooo ****ing weird. Seeker, post a pic of you, so I can see if I would be 'up to snuff', eh?

[Seeker]

Are you kidding?

Serb:
1. The whorehouse or 'anma' across the street is stuffed with Russian pimps and whores.

2. At the nightclubs, there are Russian women who offer to sleep with you if you'll 'marry' them.

3. Groups of young Russians that set off my 'pimp radar' walk the streets at night in this area and behave agressively and drunkenly.

4. Almost every store or business I frequent will ask me if I'm Russian with a forbidding expression. When they find out I'm Canadian they're like, 'why didn't you say so' and open up completely.

5. There are a bunch of Russians in fancy cars with tinted windows in run down neighbourhoods. They stay in one place all day, unless the police come. I wonder what they could be doing? (hint: starts with 'deal' and ends with 'ing')

6. Russian women on the busses dress like whores and wear too much makeup and are rude and unfriendly. They don't have the comradeship that expats from other countries do. Instead, to be near a Russian in South Korea one feels a 'bad energy', as if invisible waves of sickness and disease were radiating from them.

[monolith94]

That reminds me of the time my geopolitics professor was in Istanbul. In the apartment above him, he could hear a russian pimp arguing with his hooker about something… He heard things getting violent and he went up to protect her…
However when he arrived there she was holding the pimp out the window by his crotch area…
He walked in, looked, and walked away very very quickly.

[The Vagabond]

OMG, LOL, what a near-apocalyptic picture of the world bullied and terrorized by Russians. This is a sad illustration of possible consequences of an economic collapse.

Let me, in the best Korean tradition , apologize for my compatriots.

On a more positive note, the more of such people are abroad, the less remain in Russia. So perhaps teaching in Russia is not as dangerous as you judge by those people.

[chequita guevara]

Why does Korea let Russians in then?

[mindseye]

the idea of just hopping on a plane and coming over was intimidating, I didn't know how much demand there was, etc.

You should be able to do some research on the web concerning demand before you choose a destination. Sure, it takes guts, but only incrementally more than accepting an overseas teaching job to begin with. Far better, I think, to take the chance and go through some personal interviews and choose your own job then to end up miserable, tied to a one-year contract in some hellhole town or "language mill" on the outskirts of town.

Also, in Korea the government requires that you get your working VISA outside the country through your sponsor.

In China you can teach on a business visa. You can enter on a tourist visa and switch inside the country. Or you can switch from either student or business visas to a full-on work visa (if your school will sponsor you), also without having to exit and re-enter.

But I felt that it (i.e. China teaching job market) wasn't really established yet and they pay for inexperienced persons such as myself was too low.

Established? There are now something like 3,000 language schools in Shanghai! Most of them are tiny mom-and-pop shops (e.g. Chinese English teacher hangs a shingle over their door), but there are still many job listings to choose from at establishments of all types. The demand here is unquenchable ... and growing. If you are a native speaker, and have any experience at all in teaching anything, you an get a job. If you have a TESL certificate, that can also easily land your first job. However, many people start with no relevent experience or certification. Once you get that first job anywhere, you can easily line up more work.

Of course, pay varies. Experienced freelanceers can easily pick 130 - 150 rmb/hr for typical oral English teaching gigs, sometimes a good deal more for corporate jobs. If you can teach IELTS preparation (the standard test used for students intending to study at universities in Canada, Australia, NZ, and UK) you can probably get 150 - 180 rmb/hr. If you can keep up an average of 15 hours per week at 150/hr, your income will be about equal to a Chinese mid-level manager in a large corporation. In other words, you can live very comfortably on about half of your income, and take time off for traveling, etc.

Another common pay arrangement is to teach "full-time" (definition varies) at a school or training center that will pay you a salary plus provide you with room and sometimes board as well. Salaries for this type of work are usually in the 6,000 rmb/mo + apartment range, and often include return airfare home after successful completion of a one-year contract.

What sort of positions do you think I will qualify after completing a full year?
Would they consider it not enough experience?

You already have enough experience to teach in China.

If yuan is about 10-1 on the Cnd dollar (I think?), can I make 230 000-250 000 yuan or more?

230,000? I think you have miscalculated the cost of living here. At that rate you could own a gorgeous house and a car! That's upper-executive level pay. You should be able to earn over 100,000 rmb/yr at 15 hrs/wk over the course of the year. More if you get lucrative gigs, are willing to work more hours, etc. It's not too difficult to line up other English-related work as well. I do editing and voice acting, friends are on tv series and in films. Only requirement is a white face. At a 100,000 rmb/year you can lead a comfortable upper-middle class life in Shanghai.

[Seeker]

"6,000.00 CNY China Yuan Renminbi = 1,124.05 CAD
Canada Dollars "

"2,100,000.00 KRW
South Korea Won = 2,703.138 CAD
Canada Dollars" (plus 1 months bonus pay for completing the contract)

According to XE universal currency converter (per month).

So SK is still a better deal, it sounds like you're doing a wider variety of stuff. Maybe some other year.

Monolithic One: You would get in.

Russians: I'm sure there are some nice ones, somewhere.

UR: I'm aware of the COL difference, but I plan on going back to Canada, where 20 000 bucks can dissapear if you sneeze to hard.

What I'm really interested in is speculation about China letting its currency 'float' (somewhat), that would change the whole picture, what are the odds of it happening?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Seeker
So SK is still a better deal, it sounds like you're doing a wider variety of stuff. Maybe some other year.

Seems that way, although the living costs in China is lower.

Originally posted by Seeker
UR: I'm aware of the COL difference, but I plan on going back to Canada, where 20 000 bucks can dissapear if you sneeze to hard.

Wrong person.

[Seeker]

"Wrong person."

d'oh!!

[mindseye]

So SK is still a better deal

Seems that way, although the living costs in China is lower.

UR is right. You can't compare by just converting currencies to a common one, because that does not take into account the local buying power of the currency in question. This is the classic mistake of those who quote mortifyingly small incomes of "exploited" workers in developing nations. You have to compare your SK salary to SK's cost of living and the Chinese salary to China's cost of living.

For example, with regards to the US dollar, the exchange rate is about US$1 = 8 renminbi.
But, nearest I can figure, the relative buying power is closer to US$3 = 5 renminbi.

A big difference! A decent dinner at a local restaurant will cost you something like $17 in the US, but only about 25 rmb here, not 135 rmb (which you'd arrive at by using the exchage rate).

[Urban Ranger]

25 RMB is cheap. What's in it?

[Alexander's Horse]

I think teaching overseas is a great idea for the adventurous among you

Nothing like living in foreign countries to broaden your horizons. Every day is an adventure and you feel really alive.

Just be sure you retain a secure financial base in the country you come from.

I knew Westerners in Bangkok who basically could never go home because they had not built up any assets or savings in thier home country. They were respectable folk with good jobs but would be destitute if they went back. It was really sad.

I knew other people who had rental properties and other income like pensions which basically allowed them to live like kings because of the much lower cost of living in the Third World. This is the preferable situation.

Its okay if you're just a kid and you have your parents behind you but for those who are a bit older, 30's and up, you need to have an exit strategy from this kind of work/life. Don't sell the home to teach abroad!

[Graag]

Having spent many hours looking into it, but not actually doing it, I feel well qualified to say it is an excellent thing to spend some time doing. A friend of mine may even do it soon.

Either way AH is quite right, I met similar types in Bangkok. Unless you particularly want to be divorced from your native land (not such a bad thing), always have a backup at home. It isn't fun being screwed over somewhere wierd and foreign.

And if you go to Japan to teach (a personal ambition of mine), you get paid sh*tloads!

[Serb]

Originally posted by Seeker
Are you kidding?

Serb:
1. The whorehouse or 'anma' across the street is stuffed with Russian pimps and whores.
...
Blah...blah...blah...rasist crap...blah...blah...blah

6. Russian women on the busses dress like whores and wear too much makeup and are rude and unfriendly. They don't have the comradeship that expats from other countries do. Instead, to be near a Russian in South Korea one feels a 'bad energy', as if invisible waves of sickness and disease were radiating from them.

You should change your neighborhood. The things you described have nothing common with nationality, it's about cheap neighborhoods, where poor people live. I wonder if in cheap Canadian neighborhoods things are better.
Have a nice day, you... nevermind.

P.S. Keep telling your fascinating stories about bad Russians. I guess the real reason why you hate us is Russian gay with whom you...