Life as an Expat in Seoul, South Korea

Katherine F

Where to begin…My name is Katherine and I am a 31 year old expat living in South Korea.  I’ve been here for about two months and this is my attempt to document some of my experiences living and working here as an ESL teacher. I would imagine life is the same everywhere and people experience their own individual struggles and wins, but I gotta tell you… life here is always entertaining if nothing else.

When I first arrived here I loved the markets.  Namdaemun market is one of the largest markets in South Korea and for a girl who loves to pay wholesale and loves to haggle – it’s my form of retail therapy.  So I came here on the notion I could get away from the stresses of the rat race back home. Working for a large corporate security department in loss prevention for a large telecommunications company, I loathed what I did.  Sound new folks? I’m sure a lot of you like what you do and truly enjoy going to work but for myself I had reached my max and it was time for a change. Needing some downtime to re-plan “life” (can one really plan life though?) and still needing to pay bills, I took off to South Korea.

Working here as an ESL teacher is a pretty good gig as things stand.  Your airfare is paid for as well as apartment and you also receive (if you deal with a good school) a relocation allowance to start you off. So, it’s just a matter of making sure you stay with an established school who pays you on time and doesn’t exploit you TOO much (but that is another article for another time…he he.)

That being said, I hope each passage I write fills you with images of rice fields and wanderlust and so that you too can grow to loathe ‘the man’ you currently work for and take off to Asia and stick it to the large corporate entity who has sucked the life out of you day in and day out… but I digress.  Maybe at least making you wanna travel would work for me- take a breather from the insanity of ‘responsible adult’- if at least from your armchair kickin’ it with a bottle of wine and some Doritos (very tasty combo too might I mention).