• Crime is very low in Seoul, and simply doesn’t exist in the smaller towns.

• People are generally very helpful and understanding of the fact that you  might not have any idea what you are doing. They are surprisingly eager to help you learn their language, and quite understanding of people who speak their language poorly.

• The cost of living is extremely low. It is possible to subsist on 50,000 won a month (but it’s kinda boring).

• Apartments are almost always included in your contract, and are usually quite spacious and comfortable.

• The food is very healthy, and you can loose weight if you discipline yourself to eat as the Koreans do.

• For all the grief the students will give you, they are generally hard working and take pride in that fact. Hard work is a major component of the national identity.  

• Koreans are quite respectful of older people, far more so than in the West, where youth seems to be everything.

• The work is more exasperating than strenuous or difficult. Have a good sense of humor and be patient with the kids, and your day will be over before you know it.

Korea – the Bad News

• Koreans don’t take the concept of “contract” as literally (or seriously) as Westerners do, and labor disputes can take months to resolve.
  
  Some Koreans Have Problems
  with Foreigners

• While Koreans are very hard working, they are also very disorganized. It is not unusual for them to change a plan, a schedule, or a teaching method literally overnight. If they tell you about it ten minutes before you have to teach the class, consider yourself lucky. A lot of times they simply forget to tell you at all.

• Koreans hate fat people. If you are fat, chubby, or even just slightly overweigh, your students, boss, waiters, strangers on the street will comment about it. If you are obese, you will be treated as an open object of ridicule.

• Korea is about as vegetarian-friendly as a barbeque restaurant in Texas.

• Koreans are intensely xenophobic.

• Korean beer is horrible. Like, Miller High Life Light horrible.

• Some employers can meddle in your personal affairs, including entering your apartment without telling you beforehand, forbidding you from dating certain people, etc. (this is pretty rare, but there are horror stories.)

• There are no good drugs to be had, and the drugs they do have are lame, expensive, and carry terrifying legal repercussions.

• Koreans openly discriminate on the basis of age. One of the first questions a Korean will ask you is how old you are, sort of like the American question, “So what do you do for a living?”