Up to Departure

Now I've been working at getting to Korea for a while.  After I finished my degree I jumped straight into a TEFL qualification, which I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed and got a lot out of, which I suppose would have been something if my qualification had come to naught.  So with two qualifications in hand, a BA and a teaching qualification I was set to go off into the world and teach English...or so I thought.

I have had a couple of friends work in Korea already and one that is currently there, so initially they were the ones that pushed me in that direction, but after initial inspection of the benefits I was raring to go.  On the outset Korea seems to take the biscuit. The wages are better, yet the living expenses are low, flights reimbursed (which is good since it's so far away) and no rent on the accommodation.  So yeah I was looking at the monetary side of things initially, but it all looked good.  However anyone that knows me would say that money is not my main concern, I really don't spend that much.  But money has it's uses and I have great plans for my future and in a Capitalist society it is money that greases the wheels to get me where I want to be.  So teaching in Korea may well provide me with the means to achieve them, or at least allow me to reach the next stepping stone.

Money may have been a large driving factor initially, but I am also in it for the experience: the experience of teaching and of being in a country with a culture alien to my own. 

At one time such a venture as this would have seemed crazy...um wait...no it still does.  So perhaps I should say at one time I would not even have dreamed of doing this.  Up until I was 19 I had never been outside the island of Britain (if you are one of my American friends and you don't know what Britain is yet...well I'm fed up of telling you, find out for yourself), but in my first year of uni I was presented with the opportunity to study abroad and I leapt at the chance.  Anyway a year later, this being the second year of my degree I was living in the USA.  Living in the USA really gave me a drive to explore new places and experience new things and people.  However I am not much of a holiday goer, so when I travel I do it for quite a while, it would seem.

So with Korea checked down as my destination all I had to do was get a job.  That would of course determine when I would start and there-by when I would be done.  Unfortunately I entered the job market during the crash of the economy worldwide, which I am sure many of you can appreciate.  Yet when one looks at the sheer number of jobs on the internet for English teachers in Korea one would be surprised at how long it can take to find a job, I know I was, but then again my search was hampered by misinformation in the first month of my search.  Which I guess I will get onto now...

Prior to the end of my TEFL course I had gotten very excited about Korea and had spent many hours on the internet scanning through information and other people's advice.  One piece that I had been led to believe was from a reputable source told me that I should not approach too many recruitment agencies because otherwise schools will be bombarded with your CV (again my American friends you should look this up, but I'll translate this for you: resume) and then not take you seriously.  Well all I have to say to that is BOLLOCKS.  Screw that, my advice is go on a website like Dave's ESL cafe and from the job board grab as many recruitment agency contacts as you can and send them wave after wave of your interest, picture and CV.  For every 5 emails I sent out perhaps only two would reply if I was lucky and even those that did would rarely offer you a job (this could be different during different times of the year though).

This sort of thing is very time consuming and a huge pain in the arse, but it is what must be done.  Unfortunately during this point and throughout the whole of this process I have been out of any otherwise work, so I have been forced to go to the job centre each week and sign on to the dole.  Now that's a whole other story which I think would most probably turn into an epic rant, but for anyone who's been out of work for any period of time, especially those in the UK you can probably see how this actually impeded my job seeking.

Anyway, I did finally have some successes on the job front, I had an interview...well no actually I did not, it was, well to be honest I have no idea what it was.  The employer phoned me asked for my email and that was the end of it and I never heard from them again, it sounds like the end to a bad story I know.  So I just wrote that one off as just one of things that you have to go through to get a job.  I had had previous to that another interview for a private school (hagwon), but they couldn't offer me anything till February, so I moved away from that.

However more recently, at least on the scheme of things with my job search I came across the recruitment agency that did help me to find a job in the end.  I am choosing not to disclose the name of the recruitment agency or the name of the employers, one because I am sure I will say some things out of frustration and I would neither want them to see this nor offend them, because on the whole they have been very good (although if this ever reaches the broader population and you are looking to do a similar thing, you should contact me and I will send you the name of the agency).

So it was through this undisclosed recruitment that I finally got myself a job.  Of course it was not as simple as that, it never is.  There was much bureaucracy and red tape to get through just to get the application to the right place and on time.  I must say though, this application was to a public school education board (for any Brits, this is not public school as we would know it, this is just bog standard government funded schooling) and the public school system is more difficult to get into, but at least so far as I am told better, or perhaps simply more secure.

Shortly after my application had been processed I was given a phone interview, which I believe went well and perhaps an hour later or so I had the job, so I can only assume I did do well, or at least I checked the boxes they were looking for. So I had the job.  I could not believe it...no I mean I literally could not believe it.  By this time I had become utterly fed up with the application system and job seeking that I didn't see this as a real job.  However shortly after that things really got stressful.

There were many more forms to fill in, applications to send off for, jabs to get and plenty of in-between time to stress.

The application process time took 2 weeks, this being the time it took the school/board to work through my documentation and provide me with a contract.  This I am told is very standard, however during this time the recruitment agency was pushing me to have everything ready so that the day I got my contract I could send off for my visa, so that the day I got my visa I could leave, so that the day after I arrived I could start.  As you may have guessed things did not go that way, they never do.

First off I got my contract...or did I?  No I didn't I got another guy's contract!  And what was I told to do, oh just tipex over it.  Bah, incompetence, but I went ahead with it and after a day of uming and ahing with my recruitment agency I was urged to send the doctored contract off for my Visa.  To be fair the embassy did accept the contract in the end, but dodgy or what?  But one good thing did come out of it, i got in touch with the guy whose contract I had and we became friends, mostly out of being in the same situation, but I tell you I'll take what I can get. Oh and also if you're wondering, no he did not have my conract, he just had another copy of his.

In between there was a delay with my visa and the application was sent back because I was told I had forgotten to add a checklist.  "A fucking checklist?"  I wanted to say, but no I kept stum, better not to rock the boat.  So dutifully filled in the pointless form, which basically repeated information already provided and sent it off again.  Unfortunately this ate up about 2 days and a weekend, so it finally appeared that I was not going to be going when the recruitment agency kept demanding me to get there for and my start date was pushed back from the 1st to the 15th, which in the end has even been tight.  But I would like to note here that during the process the recruitment agency made it very stressful for me by constantly moving the goal posts, I am not sure whether this is standard or not, but I did not appreciate it one bit.

Anyway, this incredibly long section, that being the opening of my blog is nearing the present.  I am currently waiting on my visa's arrival.  It should have arrived today, but what with the snow and Britain's inability to deal with it, things have been delayed, but hopefully not by too much.

Now this is up to date, but there is other information I would like to share here.  This bit is only really relevant to those that have any interest in teaching in Korea and probably only really relevant to those from the UK.  But if you are really bored I'm sure continuing to the end of the blog will fill some time and hey, you've made it this far.

Documentation

So first thing and this is a biggie, I'm sorry I'm the one to tell you this, but if you're from the UK and you are going to work in Korea for less than 2 years, you still have to pay UK income tax.  Yep, hurts doesn't it, that's because you are still a UK resident.  That's a hit of 20% of your wage right there.  Also you are going to need to get a certificate of UK residency because if you don't have one you are going to have to pay Korean tax on top.  Basically all you have to do is send a letter to your local tax office and tell them that you are going to teach in Korea and that according to the dual diversion agreement that you require the certificate so that you don't have to pay tax in both countries.  But this is going to take about 2-3 months to process as I am finding out the hard way, so you should get on that right away.

Next up, you are going to have to fill out a P85, this tells the HMRC where you're going and what you'll be doing.  Of course after finding out that you'll still be paying UK tax you may well want to tell them to sod off, but the chances are without it you are going to be paying excessively.

There is however some good news if you like money and you can be persistent when it comes to bureaucracy, you can probably fight the system and tell them that you should only be taxed UK taxes for half the year because you abroad for at least half the tax year, that is unless your contract is April to April, then you are a lucky bastard and may get away with the full year.

Another form I have come across is my student loans repayment, of course this may not apply to all, but to those that do have to deal with it, the forms do not cover my situation at least.  I was going to deal with that one today, but since the office is in Glasgow and snow refuses to bugger off they're not open, so that'll have to wait for another day.

Oh one last thing, I get to sign off from the job centre this week, yay!

The goodbye

So that's it.  That's my opening blog.  Yes I know, it was uber long.  Longer than I first thought, I would be almost surprised if anybody reads all this, but oh well.  I'm sure my later updates will be more interesting and perhaps more mad capped once I'm over there.  In fact if I can find internet access after I arrive, I'm sure I'll have plentiful stories from my 16-18hr journey across the world, but you must forgive me because it may well be incoherent as in all likely hood I may have been awake for 24hrs or more.

Right well I guess I should post this and send the blog address out so that people can see this and no doubt soon I will receive comments where I will be berated, ah the internet, don't ya just love it.

*Final note, if my spelling and grammar sucks at all, you should take heed that this was written in the early hours of the morning and by the time I was half way through just decided it should be written all in one.