Well, the holidays are over and I'm supposed to be on halfdays for January, but once again the river of BS that flows from the mouths of all Korean ESL employers has struck. Oh well, that's life in the hermit kingdom (Now I know why they're hermits, because they piss off all the foreigners that come here who promptly leave as fast as their contract is finished or sooner if they know what's good for them.

Seems they've made getting teaching visas even more of a hassle. I guess they really don't want foreigners here for more than a year. With the new restrictions a lot of foreigners probably won't renew their teaching visas. We probably dug our own graves, what with the behavior of some of the foreigners who teach here, but once again were all lumped into the same boat. Korean teachers tell me they are trying to build a solid ESL program in Korea using Native Speakers, but with the new hassles all their going to get are people working for a year and then heading back home. Some teachers I talk to often express the feeling of being slaves and that their schools hold their academic careers hostage through their visas and the new laws will just reinforce this. Of course with the limited freedom in Korea for transferring from one company to another, the government probably doesn't even realize their mistake.

It seems that the law exempts the public schools, who most already have stricter requirements for hiring, and this could just be a way to try and either control or eliminate the private ESL schools in Korea, but it will probably just corrupt the system more, as per Thailand, and you'll see the private schools hire Phillopenoes and other illegals which will no doubt not improve the ESL system in Korea. Of course I'm not saying that a 'Native Speaker' can teach any better than someone from the Phillopines, but we do have the advantage that since English is usually our first language almost any native speaker can become a human tape recorder, which is all most schools want anyway.

As for me, I'll try and stay, but if it means I have to deal with too much BS, then I'll call it quits and head off early for the land of smiles, where I'm sure I'll encounter other types of BS to deal with, but then that how the world seems to turn.

Gee, usually I'm not political or too critical when I write on my sites. Guees the final straw hit the fan and I'm tired of sitting under the toadstool.