Hello friends and family! This post isn’t for you haha. Sorry. I suppose you can read it, but I really wanted to give information to people applying to teach in Asia; specifically, Japan and Korea.
[Edit: I edited this to be more relevant to my current situation. If you notice any errors, please let me know!]
Before Pat and I applied anywhere, I couldn’t find any information on which country would suit us better. So, before I continue, this is entirely my own experience. Take what I write in here with a grain of salt. The smallest things can not only change your experience, but what I value may drastically differ from what you might find important.
I’ll try to break it down into the following categories so skip ahead to the points that interest you if you don’t want to read this whole thing haha. (You can press the link in the table of contents to jump to that point.)
- Teaching English – Our Experience
- Daily life
Teaching English
This entire post is mostly catered to those that will be coming over to teach English. It is the most common way that people are able to live over here. I have no knowledge about other ways to get a job in either country, so I can’t really comment on that.
There are essentially 2 different paths you can take for each country; you can teach at a private school or public school. We have taught at a private school in both countries and for a public school in Japan. We are currently applying for a public school in Korea.
The common public school options for Korea are EPIK and GEPIK. For Japan, it’s Interac or JET. The JET programme is the highest paying, but the most difficult to get.
https://www.epik.go.kr:8080/index.do
http://www.interacnetwork.com/recruit/global.html
http://jetprogramme.ca/ (Canada), https://jetprogramusa.org/ (USA)
To teach in Korea or Japan, it was necessary that you have a 4 year bachelor’s degree in anything. I took an Applied Business Degree with a major in accounting. Patrick took a Bachelor of Arts with a major in history. The reason it is mandatory has to do with the Visa requirements. If you come on a holiday visa or spousal visa, you may be able to get a job at a private school, but it is quite rare (personally, I haven’t heard of anyone doing this so it may not even be possible.)
If you are looking to teach at a public school, it is most definitely a requirement. The 4 year degree can be in anything. You don’t have to major in Asian studies, teaching, or anything like that. Some places will pay higher if you have your teaching license or a master’s in education.
Secondly, you should take a TEFL/TESL/TESOL course. They are all the same thing. There is no official requirement for this certificate, but it helps. Some schools do require it, so you may as well get it. Again, some places will pay higher if you have it.
We took the 100 hour TESL course with Oxford Seminars. 60hours of it was classroom time and 40 hours was an online grammar component. The course was really good. We had class for 10hours on Saturday and Sunday for 3 weeks. Our teacher was someone who had taught ESL, so she was able to give us a lot of useful information and was able to answer any questions or concerns we had about the process.
Lastly, there are some documents that you will need to get once you have started your application process. You will most likely send in an application form along with picture ID and a resume. When we applied to EPIK, we needed 2 reference letters at this time. At other places, they were needed later. If you are worried about not getting the correct documents, I recommend going through a recruiter. We used Oxford (the school we took our TEFL certificate with) to help us find our private school positions.
Once you have been accepted for the job most schools, or recruiting agencies, will require a notarized copy/apostille of your degree, your TEFL certificate, your passport, and your criminal record check. FYI, the criminal record check needs to be the national one (it sounds like common sense, but trust me, it’s easy to make the mistake…) and it can take a long time. You cannot travel without it, so get it done quickly. It needs to be less than 6 months old, so don’t get it too early either. You will also need to send in your original transcripts, your signed contract with the school and any additional documents they request.
Okay, that’s about all I’m going to talk about for the general stuff. From here on it is what I experienced at each step of the way. As you will see, I can’t speak about the JET Programme or any of the Korean Public school system.
The first place we applied to was JET. Unfortunately, my husband got on the waiting list, but I didn’t even make it to the interview. So, I really can’t give much information on the JET programme except that it is a lot of paperwork and starts really early. You start the process in October to start in the following September. So, nearly a year early!
*Warning* Applications for the September start are basically over by March. So, if you apply for the JET program, apply for other places as well. You don’t get your results until late February or early March.
Around the time we were aware that we weren’t going to be part of the JET programme, our choices were extremely limited. We utilized the career search option that Oxford Seminars offered. We were able to get a position in Korea at a hagwon (a private school).
As for applying for Korea, the process is not too bad. We had a phone interview with the director of the school. We had an awkward 3-way call, but it went alright. When we found out we received the job, we were sent our contract and had a chance to review it, sign it and send it back. From there, the visa process took place. We needed to send our TESL certificates, bachelor’s degrees, criminal record checks, transcripts, passport copies, and the hagwon contracts to the Korean embassy in Vancouver. Since we are pretty far from Vancouver, we had to send notarized copies of all our documents by mail with the visa application form.
Once the visa application was accepted, we had to send our passports to the embassy. They put the visa in the passport and sent it back. Once that is all settled, you will organize when they want you to arrive. Depending on your school or agency, you may pay for the flight and they will reimburse you OR they will purchase the flight for you. The schools in Korea usually pay for the flight (and return flight when you finish) and your accommodation. Schools in Japan, apart from JET, usually don’t.
While we were finishing our contract at the hagwon, we needed to decide what we were doing for the next school year. We planned on staying at our school, but certain circumstances prevented that from happening. Once again, we were in a time crunch. We didn’t know that we weren’t staying until around April. We really weren’t interested in working for another private school (they can be kind of risky… I’ll talk about that later). Desperate, we contacted Oxford to help us out to find a position in a public school in Japan or Korea.
We tried to apply to GEPIK, but due to the fact that we were applying as a married couple AND we were applying late (applications open in February), we were told that we probably wouldn’t get placed together. That obviously would not have been ideal so we cancelled our application. At this point, it was around June or so. We asked our recruiter at Oxford to find anything in Japan for us, even private school.
Japan is quite difficult to apply to and they are very specific and picky. Most companies would only interview you, in person, in your home country or in Japan. If you weren’t living in Japan, you couldn’t interview in Japan. We obviously weren’t going to fly all the way back to Canada to do an interview. We were willing to fly to Japan for an interview, but that wasn’t allowed for some reason. There was only one company willing to do a skype interview. One. Again, if we applied earlier this wouldn’t have been such an issue, maybe.
We gave our application form, an essay about why we wanted to teach in Japan and a resume to the recruiter. For some reason, we didn’t need a criminal record check or notarized copies. I had scanned versions of our degrees, TEFL certificate and passports. That seemed to be sufficient for this company. It took a while to get our visas finalized. We had a skype interview with a representative first and then once that was successful, we had an interview with the company. We were working in Korea at the time so the paperwork was absolutely awful. There were a lot of documents that had to be mailed, filled out, signed, and mailed back. The process took a long time. I think if you were applying from Canada, you would have an easier time honestly.
To make matters worse, we had to leave our home at the end of August. We took a 1 month vacation in Thailand while we waited for everything to get sorted out. Once the visa documents came in, we flew back to Korea and went to the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. It was difficult and frustrating because of the language barrier and such, but we made it. This company was one of the few that pays for your flight so that was nice.
Now, again, I think we had a unique experience so I doubt anyone will have quite the same experience. But I’ll talk about it anyways. The first thing I did when we applied was look up the company on Google. Now, of course, there will always be more bad reviews than positive, but don’t take them lightly. Really see what people are complaining about and it will help you with the interview process. For example, this particular company had many negative reviews regarding travel, so I was able to ask about the travel. Some things are more important to some people and may not be important to you, so do your research.
Okay, sorry, that was a tangent. But, both of these private schools had some pretty negative comments online and we experienced a lot of the same negative situations, so just be aware.
After 8 months at this school, we changed again. This time, because we really didn’t enjoy where we worked. I’ll talk about that in more detail later as well. We applied to Interac; a public school company in Japan. It isn’t run by the government, but placements are in public schools. Since we already had a Japanese visa, we really didn’t have to do a lot of paperwork at all. We needed to give an application form and our scanned copies of our documents. Before we could work, we had to change our visa type. This was a simple process of bringing the required documents from Interac to the immigration office with our residence card. It was annoying, but easily doable.
Lastly, this brings us to present day. We are currently applying to EPIK. We miss Korea and would love to go back before we head back to Canada. Applications open in February and they take applications on a first come first serve basis. When you apply, you need to fill out an application form, attach a passport photo and 2 recommendation letters from past employers or professors. If you are a student, one of the letters needs to be from a professor. That’s as far as we got with that. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it to the interview stage, so I can’t comment much on EPIK. Sorry. I had many friends with EPIK and their only complaint was that they had to be at the school for a certain number of hours regardless of whether there were any classes or not. For example, the students may have the week off, but you don’t.
Private schools will be different at every school. Everyone will have a different story to tell.
Our first private school in Korea is what’s known as a Kindy-hagwon. This basically means that a good portion of your day will be with kindergartners. Now, the reason that this is different than the majority of hagwons is because of the hours. Our school was was from 9:30am – 6:30 pm. We taught the kindergartners (aged 4, 5, and 6 years old) from 9:20 to 2:30. Then, from 2:20 to 6:30 we had the elementary and young junior high school students (aged 7 -13 years old). Most hagwons are after school hours (So from around 2pm-10pm or so). Students go to the hagwons in the evening when they are done public school and their other after school clubs or activities. They are also known as cram schools.
Our schedule was the same every week, which was nice. It was a busy schedule and we were truly exhausted. I can’t remember what it looked like exactly, but here is a rendition of what it kind of looked like.
But! I do know that there were 5 or 6 blocks in the morning and we usually had one or two of those blocks free. We had 2 different kindergarten classes. We didn’t just teach English, we taught normal kindergarten classes in English. For example, we would have an arts and craft or easy science project taught in English.
In the afternoon, the classes were strictly English classes. I mostly taught the intro level classes, but my husband taught more of the medium level classes and our other foreign co-worker taught the higher level students.
As you could see, we didn’t have that much time off in the day. I guess, by law, the hagwons can’t have you teach more than 30hours a week. We worked around 28-29 hours a week. The extra 10 hours in the week were spent doing lesson planning and paperwork for the company. We were required to plan out the entire month for every class. The kindergarten classes were the hardest since there were so many classes and books that we needed to plan out. These schedules needed to be made carefully because they were given to the parents. The parents needed to be able to see what their kid would be learning and when.
I would say that private schools in Japan aren’t as prevalent as they are in Korea. I mean, there are a lot here, but in Korea there are so so many. There are probably 3 on every block. It’s crazy. English isn’t taken as seriously in Japan and is seen as more of a status thing to have your kid in an English pre-school.
We were once again placed at a school that taught preschool and elementary school students. But, we had the additional class of babies, so that was interesting. The first class of the day was usually the baby class. We had students from age 0-3 years old alongside with their parent. This school, and many eikaiwa’s, are not as frequent of a thing for the students as they are in Korea. In Korea we saw the kindergartners every day. We saw the elementary students 2 or 3 times a week. We were really able to get to know the kids. Here, however, we saw the students every two weeks. It was quite difficult to create a relationship with them at all.
In addition, their English level was much lower. It was difficult for them to remember what was taught to them 2 weeks prior. The foreign teacher is not really treated as a teacher in the Japanese private schools (or some of the public schools) and is used more like an entertainer. I know this sounds harsh, it was just our experience. At our private school in Kyoto, we were told that ‘fun’ was number one. Games were the focus. (To put it in perspective, I met the owner of this company and he couldn’t speak ANY English… like at all. So, yeah, they see it as a business, not a school.)
The schedule at our particular company was quite odd. We didn’t go to the same school every day. Actually, we basically had a 2 week repeating schedule in which we would go to a different school each day. The hours were 10am – 7pm. Again, since we are teaching the babies and preschoolers, the classes are much earlier. If you are placed in an eikaiwa that teaches elementary, junior high, or high school (or even adult classes are popular in Japan), you will likely have the afternoon shift.
We didn’t have weekends off. Actually, weekends were our busiest days. Saturdays were mandatory working days since they had the most classes and students. We didn’t get national holidays off. If the classes were cancelled, we were required to do some marketing (handing out flyers or balloons) in the malls that the classes were located in or attend meetings.
As for regular days off, since we didn’t get weekends off, as long as we had 8 days off within the month and didn’t work more than 14 days in a row, our days off were scattered throughout the month and rarely regular. This meant that there were multiple times were I needed to work something like this: 7-9 days in a row, get one day off, work another 5 days, get one day off, work 1 day and get another day off. It was incredibly frustrating and exhausting. As a single person, this may be great as you can do stuff during the day when most people are at work. As a married couple, this was the worst type of place to work. We rarely had days off together and essentially never had 2 consecutive days off. We couldn’t explore Japan and felt exhausted.
Okay, so I can’t quite make the same type of schedule as the other school since it’s so bizarre, but I’ll try. They don’t have blocks like our other school did. The Japanese teacher at the school chooses times for each class and every classroom has a different teacher so this is just an example.
The free time is to be used for preparing for class or learning Japanese. The disadvantage at this particular school was that it was placed in a Mall. People could easily peer through the window so you needed to always act professionally and appear to be working. We weren’t given a computer or any machines to help make materials. If you needed to print, laminate, or photocopy things, it needed to be done on your own time outside of working hours.
For the most part, the public schools aren’t going to change much. They are generally Monday to Friday and have an 8:30 – 4:30 schedule. You can teach anywhere from 10 to 25 classes per week. Our most recent position, at Interac, I had 11 classes a week at a High School. Patrick worked at a Junior high school and had about 16 every week. For both of us, our classes are 50 min long. If you teach elementary or preschool, I believe the class times are shorter. This schedule is based from Interac’s website, so it has 20 classes. I think many of the junior high schools have about 20 classes or so.
There is a lot of free time that can be utilized to learn Japanese or prepare materials for class. You will likely have a desk in the teacher’s room with a computer and a printer. It is easy to make worksheets and talk to your fellow coworkers.
At the hagwon in Korea, we taught our classes on our own. It was quite rare that the Korean teacher would join us in the classroom, except for the really young class (the 3 and 4 year olds) where the Korean teacher was with them the entire time. There were definitely a lot of difficulties without a Korean teacher there to help, but I think it was beneficial for the students. It really forced them to use English for any question they had and simple tasks like going to the bathroom or needing tissue/pencils/erasers etc. Since this was our first time teaching, it was a bit overwhelming, but I think we have become much better teachers because of it.
The way this school was set up was that the students had half of their classes with the foreign teacher and the other half with their Korean teacher. For the afternoon classes, the Korean teacher time was used to talk about complex English grammar in Korean. Then, when they came to the foreign teachers’ class, they would be practising speaking, listening, or writing using those grammar concepts. We used a textbook that they were required to finish by the end of the year. How we taught the material was up to us. We could use any additional materials such as songs, worksheets, or games to reinforce the concept that they needed in order to fill in their workbook.
As long as their workbooks were filled out and the kids had fun, the parents were happy. If the parents were happy, the director was happy. Some parents care about the English ability, others care only about the kids happiness, while others may not care at all.
This brings me to the interesting situation of private schools. The parents are the customers and the private school is a business. Before it is a school, it is a business. This means that the teachers have to be very careful about what happens in and outside of the classroom. As a foreign teacher, you will never deal with the parents directly (well, you shouldn’t), so it’s not really something you have to worry about. Just be aware.
When we went to the private school in Japan, we had a very different experience. The school we were at was extremely structured. In training, we were told exactly how they wanted their class ran. Basically every minute was accounted for. For example, for a 45 minute preschool class:
- Sign their attendance book and give a sticker.
- Sing a song
- Do basic questions. Ask students in a circle for their name, age, favourite colour, etc.
- Sing another song
- Show and repeat flashcards for month’s topic.
- Play a small game
- Do some tracing or colouring in their workbook
- Sing a song
- Say goodbye.
The only freedom we had was what game we wanted to play. Even the songs were based around their monthly topic. You would do the exact same thing for every preschool class you had for the 2 weeks. The last 2 weeks would be a different game because you don’t want to play the same game twice. As you can imagine, this was quite tiring and boring after the 10th time you have taught it. That being said, this would have been a perfect starting job. If you are worried about your teaching skills, don’t. Many schools in Japan just want you to make the kids happy.
These classes utilized what’s known as team-teaching. This means that you and the Japanese are teaching the class together. She may do some translating for the students and help with behaviour. This made it easy for the kids to only communicate in Japanese and really didn’t give them the motivation to speak English at all.
In the public school, it will vary at every school. Generally, there will be a textbook to follow. The lesson plans are usually completely up to you, but some schools use their foreign teachers as tape recorders. What I mean is that some teachers literally don’t teach at all. They are used for pronunciation and grammar checks. At my high school, we follow a textbook quite loosely. We use the topic and key words and grammar points, but don’t necessarily use the book itself. I am in charge of the lesson plan and how I want to teach the concept. Generally, we have a worksheet and a speaking activity. Our school focuses on public speaking and using English for communication. In other words, we show them how to use things in real life situations in addition to giving them the confidence to speak English with their peers.
Patrick teaches at a Junior High school so the focus is a bit different. They are trying to teach vocabulary, easy grammar and have fun with English. Pat plays a lot more games with his students than I do.
~Holidays and Days Off~
Okay, I think the last thing that I want to cover is holidays.
I don’t think I mention it earlier, but at the private school in Korea, we had a regular schedule from Monday to Friday and we had every Korean public holiday off. We had 10 days holiday for the year. We weren’t able to choose when those 10 days would be. We had 5 days off around Christmas and 5 days off in the summer. Luckily, they were paid days off so we didn’t have to worry about having a smaller pay check the next month.
We had 3 sick days for the year. They were pretty strict and needed a pretty good reason to miss work. Actually, fun story, our foreign co-worker was so sick one day and had to go the bathroom to barf like every 30 minutes. Everyone knew what was happening. Everyone could hear him. Everyone could see the paleness in his face, yet nobody said anything. If he wanted to go home, he would have had to go to the doctor, get checked out, get a doctor’s note, come back and they he could leave. So, instead he just toughed it out. So, it was a bit of a culture shock for us.
Also, we didn’t have any additional days off for the year, so we had to be aware of that when our family wanted to visit. They had to plan around OUR schedule. We had no wiggle room. At all. Since hagwons are private schools, the parents are paying money for their kids to go to this school. If the foreign teacher isn’t there, they would complain. Seriously.
A similar situation happened for us at the private school in Japan. We had 10 days of holidays that were predetermined. Since we didn’t get weekends or public holidays off, we really did get 5 days off at a time. At the hagwon, we would have the weekend, 5 day, then weekend again. This gave us 9 days in a row that we had off. At this private school in Japan, it felt like we had less time off because of that.
We also had 10 days of paid holiday that we could take. It sounds like it would be basically impossible to get those all at once. Many people would use them to get stat holidays off with their family or to make their predetermined holiday a bit longer. Since we saw the students every 2 weeks, it was a bit easier for the company to juggle us around and not shock the parents. They were able to change which school you went to since the curriculum was the same for every single class. So, if someone took a day off, I might fill in for them at their school and vice versa.
We also had sick days that we could use a lot easier. I think we had 6 or something? I don’t remember. We didn’t have to get a doctor’s note or anything. I do have a horror story, if you will, about this as well. I had the stomach flu. I taught the baby class in the morning and started to not feel well. My stomach was in a lot of pain. It got worse as the day went on. I had 4 hours before my next class, but I didn’t know if I could make it. I emailed my boss. Well, the response was not what I expected.
He said “Well, the school needs to have XX amount of classes with a foreign teacher for the year and if you aren’t there, than we can’t fulfill that promise. It is too late of notice to have someone fill in for you.” So, because they didn’t have enough classes with foreign teachers earlier in the year, I have to stay? When I said I would tough it out, but I didn’t know if I could go in the next day he said “well, Friday is one of our busier days. If you miss tomorrow, no one can cover you. The parents are expecting a foreign teacher tomorrow.” I was obviously not happy. My stomach flu did not get better. It got worse. I worked for 4 days before I was able to go to the doctor. He said that my intestines were very inflamed and I should have come in earlier. So, once again, the business is more important that a person’s health.
Okay, so when we went to Interac, the situation was much better. Not only did we have weekends and public holidays off, but we also had a good amount of vacation days. They are fixed because it is a regular school… We follow the school system’s days off. During spring break, we had 2 weeks off. In the summer, we had 3 weeks off. In the winter we had 2 weeks off. We had 5 days for paid personal leave that can be used to cover sick days. If you don’t use your personal day, you just don’t get paid for your sick day.
It was really nice to have so much time off, but unfortunately, most of this is unpaid. This means that In September and January, you will have a very small pay check. They were both basically cut in half. If you want to compare it to the Canadian/American system, it’s similar to how teachers have 2 month in the summer off that are unpaid.
The general rule is that private schools pay higher than public school. Except for JET, this is true.
In Korea, we got paid 2.1 million won (~$2500) per month. We also received health benefits, but I don’t know what was included in that. I only ever used our health insurance once and it was to go to the dentist.
In addition, your flight to and from Korea was paid for. Housing was also provided. Our housing was furnished and we didn’t have to pay for anything except gas and electricity. When we left, we were given a severance pay of around one month’s salary. If we were to resign, we would have gotten a resigning bonus.
The starting wage if you work for EPIK is 1.8 million (~$2150) per month if you don’t have TEFL and 2.0 million (~$2400) per month if you do. The EPIK website says that medical insurance is provided and 50% is paid by the employer.
Similarly, they pay for your flight there and back, provide housing and give a severance pay at the end of the contract. In addition, you receive a renewal allowance of one month’s salary if you stay for an additional year.
As for Japan…
The salary we received at the Eikaiwa was 250,000yen (~$3000) per month.
Our private school in Japan paid for our flight, but I heard that is quite rare. Housing was not included. Actually, housing was quite expensive. In Japna, you generally have to pay one month’s rent worth for a deposit and some places require key money. Key money is a gift to the landlord that you do not get back. Also, often times you will pay a cleaning fee when you move in or move out (or both depending on the place).
The private company provided us with medical insurance. Again, I don’t know the details. I used it for when I went to the hospital for the stomach flu. Since I’m used to paying nothing in Canada, I can’t even comment on if it was cheap or not…My American friends say its cheap.
The salary we receive at Interac is a bit lower, at 230,000yen (~$2750) per month. Unfortunately, there is no opportunity for a pay raise. There are opportunities to move up, but they include more duties outside of teaching.
I’m fairly certain that Interac does not pay for your flight. We were already living in Japan, so it wasn’t an issue for us. They didn’t pay for our way back. Since this company is not technically a full-time position, health insurance is not included. We were required to get that on our own with the government. It was about 35,000 yen/ month (total) for my husband and I. Also, it is required. It isn’t an optional thing. If you don’t get it, they will eventually just take it out of your pay check. It happened to a friend of mine.
I think that’s all I wanted to say about teaching English. There are some things I’d like to talk about in regards to just living in both countries.
Living in Japan vs. Korea
I want to give you an idea of what it is like to live in the country regardless of why you come here. I keep thinking of new things to add, so this may be an ever-changing blog. There are of course a lot of interesting cultural differences from North America, but there are also differences between the two countries. I think that there is a misconception that all Eastern Asian countries are very similar, but I think that isn’t really fair. They are their own countries with their own history and unique way of living.
Well, since I was just talking about money, why not continue?
On the surface, you may think that Japan is where you will make more money. You would be quite wrong. Not only will you have to pay for the flight and housing fees before you even see your first pay check, most things in Japan are pricier than in Korea.
Don’t just believe me, please look at this website!
First, is rent. As I mentioned before, rent is covered for both public and private schools. If you are in a situation where you need to find your own housing, I’ve heard it is around $400 – $500 per month in a rural part of, well, not Seoul. In Kyoto, we paid about $800. In Kawasaki, we pay about $950. We pay more because we are foreigners and don’t have a guarantor. Most apartments in Japan require a guarantor.
If your company won’t act as a guarantor, your rent will likely be much higher. If you can, go to a realtor. They will help negotiate and communicate in Japanese. I wish we had done that, but both times we looked for housing we were so far to where we were moving. For example, when we looked for a place to live in Kyoto, we were living and working in Nagoya. When we looked for a place in Kawasaki, we were living and working in Kyoto. Trying to find housing while away is a bit more difficult. You don’t have the option of looking at the place or going to a realtor in person.
[Edit: After living in Japan for 3 years, there were some huge cost that I forgot to mention. Bills in Japan were very different than in Korea. In Korea, we only paid for things like utilities. In Japan, we paid for utilities, of course, but also some unexpected bills. Pension, healthcare, and residential tax are huuuge bills that you won’t see in your first year. They are apparently based on your first year’s income. I don’t think that they are based very fairly though because I’ve only ever heard people complain about these costs when they had low-paying positions.
These 3 bills ended up taking a huge chunk of our paycheck each month. Pension was actually the worst. It was for sure the most expensive of the 3. We had to pay it every 3 months and it was 36,900 yen/month each. Holy eff. So every 3 months, my husband and I have to pay 70,000 yen worth of bills at once. Healthcare was 35,000 yen/month total, as mentioned before. And lastly, our residence tax was 20,000 yen/month each. So, for one person, that ends up being 49,800/month (20,000 + 35,000/2 + 36,900/3). So, point of all this is that after the first year in Japan, start budgeting. It can be quite a jolt to pay an extra $6,000/year.]
Next, is the cost of food. For someone like me, food cost is very important. I don’t like cooking so I eat out often. For lunch food like kimbab or bibimbap, it usually costs around 5,000 won ($5). Our school provided us with lunch for free. I often ate it, but it wasn’t enough food for my husband. For dinner, it ranges from 5,000 to 12,000 won. Even something like bbq is not badly priced. I think it was like 8,000 won for 200g of meat. We were able to justify going for bbq once a week or once every 2 weeks.
In Japan, there isn’t much for less than 1,000yen ($10). You can get gyudon (meat and rice bowl) for fairly cheap, but it is definitely not healthy or the best quality. Prices in Japan seem very similar to those in Canada. I’d say most people cook at home here. That being said, you can eat for cheap here, but there aren’t as many options.
That brings me to an interesting point. Buying groceries in Japan is slightly cheaper than eating out. In Korea, I felt like groceries were more expensive. Unless you went to a market, it wasn’t worth buying groceries.
Drinking is the next important thing on my list. Drinking domestically is much much cheaper in Korea. Buying domestic beer and Soju is incredibly cheap. If you want any imported drinks, it was much more expensive. In Japan, domestic stuff is slightly cheaper than imported, but not by a significant amount.
Those are the costs to matter to me, so please do your own research for things that you find important.
As I said before, I eat out a lot. This will obviously be a preference thing so I’ll try not to be bias. I already talked about the price, but let’s look at they types of food available. Also, remember that if you are in Seoul or Tokyo, these things will probably not apply.
In Korea, they have a very large variety of Korean foods (duh!). Foreign food, however, is harder to find and not as well done as it is in Japan. So, if you like Korean food, you will love eating in Korea (sounds obvious, but I don’t know how else to explain this). If you are someone that needs American, Mexican, Italian, etc food, you will prefer living in Japan. Korean food is generally quite spicy. If you aren’t good with spice, don’t let that deter you. Before I left for Korea, I honestly thought that I’d starve. I didn’t. I actually loooved the food.
Korea has a few more “interesting” types of food. Since Korea was a third world country not so long ago, there are a few things that may seem really shocking. The first that I can think of is called bundangi. It is a silkworm pupae. Not my thing. This is often served as a side dish or sometimes you can see it as a street food. The second is chicken feet. They are crazy spicy and are full of bones and cartilage. I didn’t mind the texture, but the spice was death worthy. It was seriously the spiciest thing I’ve ever tried. Third, is my favourite food. It’s called makchang. Makchang is pig intestine that you would grill, just like samgyeopsal. It is chewy and fatty, but I like it!
How about eating culture?
In Korea, there are many restaurants that are meant for groups. It is not as common to do things by yourself in Korea. Of course you can, but it isn’t really that common. People drink and eat in groups. Also, a lot of restaurants require you to cook your food at the table. It is cooked at the table in a single pot and you share from that pot. Double dipping is really not a thing there. Because of this, sometimes it can be difficult to find a place to eat if you’re on your own. For example, if you love dalkgalbi, you may not be able to find a restaurant that will have a single order of it.
I love Korean food and, when we were thee, we rarely felt the need to eat foreign food. There was enough that we could eat something different every day. The price point made it easier to try many things without feeling like you were wasting money. I could be wrong, but I feel like Koreans eat out more often so there are more options. There are definitely more restaurants physically available. Their culture is a bit more social, so it could just be that there are more places to meet with each other.
Also, Korea has a lot of street food. I love street food in Korea. It’s so great. It is also everywhere.
I hope that makes sense…
Food is very much a personal opinion so I can’t really convey what I mean.
Personally, I only really like a few types of Japanese food (like sushi, ramen and curry) and find the variety to be lacking. Since everything is a bit pricier, I am not as willing to try as many different types of food. I often crave foreign foods here. Also, it seems that there are fewer healthy food options. If you want to eat healthy, you eat at home (it’s the same in Canada, tbh.)
Japanese food is a bit more recognized world wide so there are definitely the foods that you will recognize. Sushi is amazing here and is not so expensive. Well, actually, that’s not entirely true. You CAN get it for cheap, but you can also find expensive places as well. Also, I’m not sure if this is accurate for everyone, but it seems that the serving sizes are smaller here than in Korea. It’s fine for me, but sometimes Pat needs to get a snack later. It depends where you go.
As for weird foods, there aren’t as many. You can find intestine as well, but generally in soup. Some yakiniku places have it. It is good here, too, but not as good as Korean style (in my opinion). Another weird thing we like is beef tongue. It is a bit tough and salty. It’s good. There is also a lot of seafood here. So, you can find squid, octopus, and even jellyfish.
As for street food, it is really good, but you don’t see it as often. I have really only seen street food at festivals.
Lastly, opposite from Korea, a lot of places cater to single people. It is easy to do things on your own and not feel weird. There are a few “standing” restaurants where you can go in, eat and leave in less than 10 minutes. Now, that’s what I call fast food. You will often see business men go into a ramen shop, udon/soba place, or gyudon place and finish their meal in less than 10 minutes. It’s crazy. They will inhale boiling hot ramen like air.
Here are some food pictures! ( I have apparently taken less food photos in Japan… I don’t know why… sorry about that!
I’m only talking about toilets because they are different than in North America. You may not think this is a place you would experience culture shock, but you would be wrong.
In Korea, the toilets are hit or miss and everything in between. They range from what I call a squatty potty to Japanese style ones with bidets and seat warmers. Now, what makes them so interesting is that you never know what you’re going to get. It’s always a surprise.
I remember at one pub we went to, you opened the door to the bathroom and had to climb a set up stairs to a squatty potty. There was no girls or boys toilet. It was a urinal and a squatty potty in a stall. I could literally pee at the same time as Pat. So weird.
Another time, we were eating in a fairly fancy Vietnamese restaurant. You go through the toilet door and suddenly, you are outside. Outside! You walk along this outside path to essentially an outhouse.
Another place was like a strip mall? There were many restaurants lined up together. You go to the toilet exit and you were in a secret hallway that ALL the restaurants were connected to. You walk along this hallway to a regular public toilet.
Lastly, one time I went to the toilet when we were partying outside. A building that was part of the university was open. After getting lost in this closed University building (that was obviously only opened for the toilet) you gind the toilet. The toilets were heated, played music, and even had a bidet.
Japan is also interesting, but there are really only 2 types. Fancy or squatty potty. But, unlike Korea, it was pretty easy to guess what you were going to get. Restaurant, bar, mall, etc will definitely have a fancy toilet. If you are in a park or train station there will definitely be a squatty potty. Sometimes, there is a very basic American style toilet, but even with those, there will always be a squatty potty as well.
Obviously, the two countries have their own languages. This may seem like a silly thing, but before deciding where you want to go, listen to the languages. If you find one to be irritating or bothersome, don’t come. Seriously. You will hear it constantly around you. Also, be a cool guy and learn at least how to say hello and thank you. The locals will appreciate it and you won’t give foreigners image of being ignorant.
Secondly, you may be interested in learning the language. Well, in that case, I want to give you some pointers I suppose.
The Korean writing system is quite easy to learn and will help with your daily life a lot. It is a phonetic alphabet. This means that even if you don’t know the meaning, you can sound out the word. If you can read it, you can read all signs and menus without a problem. If you want to learn Korea, I recommend Talk to Me in Korean. They are a (mostly) free resource with a TON of information. http://talktomeinkorean.com/
Hangul:
(Hangul is like building blocks. Each piece represents one sound. You put them together in a block to make a syllable. Example: ㄱ=g ,ㅏ=a ,ㅁ=m, so 감 = gam. Pretty easy. My name = 캐이틀린 = Kae-i-teul-lin)
The Japanese writing system consists of two phonetic alphabets and one with Chinese characters. The two phonetic alphabets aren’t too difficult, but will take some practice. Kanji, the Chinese characters, on the other hand are very very difficult. They have many meanings and pronunciations associated with each of them. There are kanji you will see on a daily basis (there are about 2000 basic ones.) All three are used on signs and on menus.
Katakana:
Hiragana:
(Both of these writing systems have one symbol that represents a consonant and a vowel together. n and the vowels are the only exception. This makes writing foreign words really strange since vowels are often added in the middle of words. My name = ケイトリン = Ke-i-to-ri-n)
Kanji:
(this is just a sample. There are thousands of kanji. In use, sometimes their meaning don’t really mean anything. Example: 金曜日= Friday. 金=gold, 曜= day of the week,日=day)
I recommend taking classes once you come over. I took a Korean class after living there for 8 months and I regretted not taking them sooner. I would have taken Japanese classes, but the hours that I worked at the private school were horrible. Now that I’m at the public school, I am taking classes. It helps a lot. It really makes getting around easier and it makes you not feel so alienated. It’s easy to feel lonely when coming abroad. If you have even a little bit of the language, it will be easier to make friends and feel more connected with the community.
Also, I hate to be this person, but if you don’t learn any of the language, you really give ALL foreigners a bad image. Remember, you may be the only foreigner that a local has interacted with. If you don’t even try to speak the language, you give ALL foreigners living there a bad image. They will make assumptions about how we are lazy, ignorant, or don’t care about their culture. Just, try. Even just the basics. Hello, thank you. That’s all.
Speaking of language…
If you live in Seoul or Tokyo, language probably won’t be an issue. There is English everywhere. The farther you get from the big city, the less English you will see and hear. When I go to Tokyo, I’m always surprised that the staff will speak to me in English or that English menus are available. I didn’t go to Seoul too often, but it seemed to also have a lot more English than anywhere else.
This sort of brings me back to teaching. The English education system is quite different in both countries. It seems to be taken much more seriously in Korea than in Japan. At the private school in Korea, my students were basically in a English-Immersion type of environment. I could have conversations with these children and they would answer fairly well. They would of course miss articles like “the, a, an” etc, but they could form the majority of their sentence on their own.
In the private school in Japan, they memorized words or phrases, but had no concept on how to make a sentence of their own. If I asked them any variation of the phrase they memorized, they had no idea what I was saying. At my high school, it isn’t too much better. They can communicate, but usually the sentence structure needs to be given to them. Their writing is quite good, but their spoken language is quite broken and difficult to understand. My 4 year olds in Korea spoke better English that the 16 year olds at my high school in Japan.
This may not be important to most people, but I figured I should add it in. Fashion in both countries is quite different. I’m going to generalize, so you know, this doesn’t apply to EVERYONE… okay?
Okay, so from pure observation, I would say that Koreans care about their appearance much more that Japanese people. But, like, almost too much. Even the men in Korea are generally very stylish and look put together. They don’t wear makeup like the internet would like you to believe. Some men MIGHT wear bb cream, but it isn’t common.
Unless you are in Seoul, the entire stereotype about Koreans all having plastic surgery is also false. The most common procedure is to get an eyelid surgery so they can have what is known as a double-eyelid, but I would not say the majority of people are getting procedures. This one in particular is a very small procedure with a short healing time, so it isn’t as crazy as people think. The problem with this fabricated statistic is that cosmetic things like mole removal or laser hair removal are also considered plastic surgery and up that stat. Anyways, Seoul does not represent the entire country, so please don’t think that everyone is getting these procedures done. While living in Daegu, I didn’t meet anyone that got any plastic surgery.
Okay, now that that’s out of the way…
Fashion in Korea really follows trends. If something is trendy, I swear, everyone is doing it. When we lived there, overall style skirts were popular. So many girls wore them. Even hairstyles follow trends. I can seriously spot a Korean man in Japan just by his haircut. The last trendy thing is makeup. Their makeup style is all very similar. They go for a fairly pale skin tone with a gradient lip that is bright red or pink. They have subtle eye makeup that is really supposed to just enhance their natural look.
Speaking of makeup, in Korea, makeup brands each have their own store. In Canada or Japan, you buy makeup at a drug store and all brands of makeup are there. In Korea, you go to the brand that you like. For example, if I want an Etude House lipstick, I need to go to Etude House. I can’t just go to the drugstore. The same is true for skin care. Also, A lot of makeup and skin care in Korea is Korean. You will rarely see foreign make up brands. I mean, how could they when they don’t have makeup in one store?
Japan is a bit more like Canada. It varies a lot. People wear what they want. Usually you see business men in suits and they are the majority. Dyed hair is really uncommon here. You will see many girls with a brown hair colour but that’s about it. It is so rare to see blonde, red, or any funky colours. I haven’t noticed a trend with clothing, but there are some makeup trends. It is quite trendy with young girls/high school girls to have very bright blush right under their eye. Even though it is a trend, you would never see a woman rocking that on her way to work.
I would say that both countries are very well dressed and care about their appearance. Japan seems to be a bit more conservative with their style, and Korea seems to follow trends a lot more. Nobody is leaving the house in sweats or pjs like I used to do in Canada.
~Attitudes towards foreigners~
This may be a bit of a sensitive topic because I don’t really want to generalize an entire country of people. That really isn’t fair.
Hmm..
Well, let’s just say that there is a bit a spectrum of how people react to foreigners.
- Used to foreigners – usually a positive outlook
- Had a bad experience – have a reason to hate foreigners
- Oblivious – No interaction or predisposed reaction towards foreigners
You will see number one in the bigger cities, especially in Japan. You will see number 3 in the smaller towns. In this case, you may literally be the first foreigner they have interacted with. It is you that will change them into a one or two, so you know, be nice. Number 2 seems to be in certain touristy places or military run areas. They deal with foreigners that don’t care about their culture at all. They have met or interacted with rude, loud, and disrespectful foreigners. Unfortunately, I think Seoul has many of these types of people. The only rudeness me and Pat ever experienced was in Seoul. Daegu was mostly number 3. People were so excited to see us. They called me cute, or Pat handsome. They were genuinely so excited that I could speak some Korean. If I spoke Korean at a small restaurant, I would get free things, like pop or side dishes. I haven’t experienced that in Japan really.
The smaller the area, the more you will find the oblivious people. Most people are very friendly, regardless of what their experience with foreigners is. I think that people in Korea and Japan are so friendly and helpful.
Also, I want to let you know, I am a white Canadian. I have the advantage of being Caucasian and being from “basically America”. People of colour, LGBTQ people, Muslims, or any other “visible minority” (for N.American standards) may have a different experience that I have no idea about.
Travelling in both countries have their own set of advantages and challenges.
Let’s start with Korea. Korea is a pretty small country. There aren’t too many places to visit. In addition, there really isn’t much information in English. That being said, you have a lot more money to travel and transportation is much cheaper. The KTX (the high speed bullet train) is not badly priced and hits the major cities in Korea. To go anywhere else, you need to figure out how to use the highway busses. Word of warning, if you need to get around, I recommend using Naver. It is the Korean version of google. Google in Korea, other than Seoul, doesn’t allow street view and is sometimes inaccurate. Naver is great, but is only in Korean. Learn your hangul and use Naver instead of Google. Trust me, it is so much better.
Japan is actually a lot bigger than I thought. There is a lot to see. There are so many touristy things that you can see across the entire country. The problem is that you will likely have less money and travelling costs more. The shinkansen (the high speed bullet train) can reach most places in Japan, but is quite expensive. It can be around the same price as flying!
Since Japan is quite used to having foreigners, it is easy to find travel information. It is usually fairly easy to find what bus to take or what you can expect to see. Once you get there, though, it will likely be crowded. You will see foreigners at all the famous spots. Personally, it bothered me because tourists generally don’t know how to act appropriately. They don’t respect the culture and really give foreigners a bad name (haha, do you see a theme? I’m obviously bitter about this… seriously though. I hate that I’m judged because of what ignorant tourists do.. ugh). This can turn a number 1 into a number 2 (from above) pretty fast. This means that in these heavily touristy areas, service staff isn’t as chipper and accommodating as they usually are. But, Japanese people have incredible service so it usually isn’t an issue.
Lastly, this sort of has to do with travel. Festivals. Festivals in both countries are great. They are so interesting and I really recommend attending one. In Korea, we went to a cherry blossom festival and a chicken and beer festival. In Japan, we have been to cherry blossom festivals and some parades. I recommend just googling “Festivals in Korea/Japan 2017” and see what interests you.
Well, whichever country you choose to go to, both are great. They both have their advantages and disadvantages. They are also quite close to each other so it is quite easy to visit both.
Basically, if you are looking to make money, go to Korea.
If you are looking to see a lot of different places and things, go to Japan.
If you love eating out and drinking alcohol on a budget, go to Korea.
If you need variety in the food and drinks available, regardless of the cost, go to Japan.
**If you have been to either country and think that I have misrepresented anything, let me know! This was my experience, but I want to be as accurate as possible**
Kaitlin and Patrick's Blog 