My first ESL job was South Korea at a Wonderland school. I lasted there about six months and took off. I have posted here about that hellhole, and you can look for it under my name if you like. This was my very first job, received no training, help or guidance and was spied upon by some members of the staff.
http://raoulschinasaloon.com/index.php?topic=6769.15This was my post concerning China vs. Korea for teaching.
Usually the schools here in China will not require the number of hours that a Korean school would demand. One thing (of about 1,000) I hated with that school was that I had to go there six days a week, with the weekday being a looooooooong ass day, like 9 AM to 6 PM with small breaks between. Public school jobs wont tax you for time so much. I say avoid the private schools, because some of them will require a lot of hours with poor pay
The Koreans kids I taught, about 90% of them were assholes, mean, violent (literally)trolls. I did have some sweet kids, but they were a small minority. I have taught in China for 10 years, and while yes, some kids could be mean dickheads, the vast majority of them are much more friendly and respectful.In the 10 years I have lived in China, I have never had Chinese kids act as horribly as the Korean kids.
Koreans by and large dislike foreigners. There are exceptions to the rule, but by and large they do not want to know you. Chinese are the polar opposite. They want to know the foreigner. At least in Hangzhou, the foreigners all have Chinese friends, associates, wives and lovers. Chinese are a strange lot to be sure, but my opinion of them is that they are nice, kind, sweet people.
I hated Korea but Korean food was the bomb. Even the food that was cooked at the school for the little kids. Supermarkets are also better in Korea. Korea had sweet pickles, which I cannot find in China. Korea did have a lot more choices in westernized fast food and whatnot
China to me is more fun than Korea. Korea just sucked. I lived in a suburb called Anyang which was so soulless. This was back in 2000-01 before what we know now as social networking, so there were no foreigners to meet with. The Koreans by and large wanted nothing more than to leave Korea (and this is the South, not the North).
You are not going to make as much money here as in Korea. Ten years ago I was doing privates making 40,000 Won an hour at people's homes. This is hard to find in China. By and large, no one official would care if one is doing part time work in China. In Korea, each building has a door guard that will spy for the police to catch foreigners teaching on the side (look it up online.) and deporting them.
