Living Conditions

Apartments

Your apartment will probably be included in your contract, although some schools may give you assistance in finding your own place if you're an old hand and are confident doing so. Westerners grow up with the idea that middle-class people usually live in houses and apartments are in the 'projects,' but some apartment suites in Korea are pretty luxurious and are packed with space-age appliances and roomy balconies.

A hogwan will usually have its own housing arrangement for you, but some will offer you "key money" to find your own place. Some Korean apartments pay straight rent, some are owned, and a third system which isn't common in North America is jonseh. In a jonseh setup, a large payment of anywhere between $50-100,000 is paid to an apartment management. The management invests the money and pays it back when you move out, usually with a two-year committment. The hogwan may pay that money for you and then charge you the interest payment. It's not a bad system, although having straight-out housing is simpler.

A hogwan job is probably not going to have a penthouse suite, but as with work, conditions vary. There are awful stories: out-and-out lies about living arrangements given by recruiters; people in hovels above dog-meat restaurants or all-night bars; people forced to live with relatives of the directors and obliged to give their children extra freebie lessons; horribly dirty, tiny, or noisy apartments. My first suite in Korea was in a low-income area, with the typical vegetable trucks yelling out their wares on megaphone at 7 AM, schoolchildren playing their weekend game of scream-at-the-top-of-your-lungs-in-the-parking-lot-for-eight-hours, and the crappy, overcrowded bus taking me to work. They even turned off the hot water in summertime. I think those old stories about filling a bathtub with boiling water from a teakettle are hogwash; it certainly never worked for me!

It's a small country, short on space, and most apartments will probably be snugger than you expect. But I've also seen decent places. My second apartment was in a quiet area of campus with each instructor in their own comfortable suite. Even my first place had a nice ocean view, was near a beach, and was furnished. That's a plus; older Korean apartments usually don't come with anything, but schools will usually take care of these things for you so that you won't have to worry about basic furnishings like beds and stoves. It's worth asking about before you come.

Check to see if the supplied housing is free or if the school deducts part of your pay for rent, as mine did. The various fees you pay for water, telephone, internet, or 'guard' fees (my guard only watched the inside of his eyelids) can add up. Cable television, Internet connections, and cell phones are cheap and the technology is very advanced. Heating is generally provided by an ondol, a system of hot water pipes under the floor. Some Koreans like to sleep on the floor where it's toasty, and it is admittedly very nice on a cold winter night.

Apartments are usually quoted in pyeong, which is a measurement of area squared. One pyeong is 36 sq. ft. or 3.1 square metres. A liveable apartment, even for two, is 14-20 pyeong. 10-14 is a little tight but okay. Any less is ridiculous, and may be a dorm room. Avoid a dorm anyway; you don't want to live next door to other students who will get drunk and watch soccer at three in the morning. And if you're offered 25 or more pyeong, e-mail me so that I can apply for the job! :>

My old apartment

Many people won't drink the water, but I lived in the countryside and Brita-filtered water was fine for me. You can cook, and basic foodstuffs and cooking equipment is quite cheap, but if you're a lazy bachelor like I was, you can get addicted quickly to Korean convenience. Your apartment door will soon be covered with take-out pizza or chicken flyers, and delivery by crazed chain-smoking motorcycle driver is free and quick. Some places, like Chinese food restaurants, even send someone back later to pick up the dirty dishes from your hallway. Learning to order delivery in Korean is a must!

There is some haggling in the street markets, but one thing I like about Korea is that you don't have to fight over every price the way you often do in southeast Asia. The peddlers in Vietnam and Bali pestering you to buy something all day aren't here. Usually the prices of goods are more or less fixed, and there's no 'Chinese prices'— i.e. triple for foreigners— to irritate you.

Pets

Compared to the first time I came to Korea (2003), since I returned in August 2009 I have been impressed by how pet-friendly Korea has become. Apartments seem to have a sort of don't-ask-don't-tell policy with pets, and in practice there will be no problem with either bringing your pets from your home country or buying them here. Unusual animals such as lizards or rare fish won't be found, but common companions such as fish, turtles, hamsters, dogs, and cats are all available and food and other supplies such as litter, tanks, and toys are readily found in pet shops, supermarkets, and home shopping websites. You won't be able to let animals go outside freely as they will be assumed to be strays and will get kicked or run over, but if you're with them the locals can be very fond of pets.

Getting Around

If you don't want to walk, local taxis run on meters, and if you want to negotiate the price it's usually fair. By north American standards taxis are reasonably priced and can be cheaper than buses if you're sharing the ride with others. Cab drivers aren't pillars of society anywhere in the world, but they're pretty honest in Korea and personally I have never been cheated here. Sometimes the drivers are quite pleasant and are curious about you.

Subways and buses can be impossibly crowded, but they're safe and fairly cheap. Seoul, Daegu, Daejon, and Busan have large subway systems and you can buy little tap-cards instead of putting in change on the turnstiles. If you're teaching adults, keep an idea of how far you have to travel to work; you might be making that trip four times a day if you have a long break in the afternoon and want to go home for a nap. In a small town or countryside, you could pick up a bicycle or a used scooter cheaply. If you intend on riding in a big city— well, it was nice knowing you. Where should we send the body?

Getting around from city to city is relatively easy and inexpensive, especially if you're near a rail link. The high-speed train (the KTX) screams across the country in only a few hours. It's an ideal system— frequent, inexpensive, easy to use, and clean, with nice seats: everything that north American cities should have. The subway systems link to the KTX stations as well as a network of intercity buses. Some people like the buses but I find them slow and only convenient for places not connected to rail. An exception is the very plush airport buses connecting Incheon airport to Seoul.

If you need a convenient place to sleep in your travels, there's always a love hotel somewhere. Love hotels are usually located near nightclubs, train stations, singing rooms (norebangs), or beaches. The call-girl cards strewn on the sidewalk and the rent by-the-hour or by-the-night prices should clear up any doubt about what love hotels were designed for, but if you can get past that they're cheap, safe, and can be fun to stay in with their porn-movie decor and general cheesiness. Chuka-wow! And not everyone there is after quick lovin'; people taking an early flight or even travelling families enjoy their convenience. But if you want to rent a movie, you can guess what type of videos are available at the desk.

One of the unfortunate drawbacks for international tourists in Korea is that there are few actual hotels in the country other than the pricey high-end ones in major cities. You will never see a mention of love hotels in tourist brochures or websites because, of course, they don't exist— all Koreans are sexually chaste and only foreigners have extramarital affairs. You will have to trust my word that there are plenty of love hotels and that if you trust your instincts, some of them are very clean and surprisingly well-appointed with entertainment systems and whirlpools.

A love hotel room, for extra-klassy customers. Jacuzzi rooms on request!
I haven't seen a mirrored ceiling yet, but they probably exist.