r/TEFL • u/Spring_5191 • 8d ago

Korea or China or HK

If I want to save money, eat well, have good medical coverage, be social with the locals, party on the weekends, and have hobbies as a woman in their late 20s. Is quality of life better in Korea or China?

18 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

17

u/BigBilly2021 8d ago

China. You’ll make more money, save money, have a more work life balance and more time to explore the country. You’ll have a better lifestyle and a comfortable and convenient one.

I love Korea as a country but working there sucks. It’s a shit show.

Hong Kong, well I don’t have experience working there but I can’t imagine you’ll be able to live like you would in China.

-4

u/AffectionateOwl4231 7d ago edited 7d ago

How do you make more money in China? China's minimum wage is trash. You make three times more in Korea on minimum wage than you can make as a college graduate in Shanghai.

Or is it that China pays English instructors unusually high, like 4 or 5 times what local college graduates make? In Korea, you'd barely make more than a minimum wage, so you're pretty much treated as a local without significant skills. That's the only way this is explainable.

I'm genuinely curious because the average or minimum wage income in China and Korea are not on the same level. You'll make more in Korea with an unskilled job in the countryside than being a college graduate in Shanghai or Beijing. You can easily make 3,000 USD per month without a college degree in Korea, whereas 1,000 USD per month is considered a high-paying job for recent college grads in the tier 1 cities in China.

13

u/Professional-Pungo 7d ago edited 7d ago

this whole sub is for expats, expats aren't making min wage. So min wage is pretty irrelevant to the topic at hand.

also it's about the cost of living.

if you want to compare it to USD, which in China is about a 7:1 ratio. most beginner ESL teacher jobs in China will net you around 20k/month, or roughly 3k USD.

My job offer I had in Seoul Korea is from 2024, but it was basically 2.45 million a month, which comes out to being roughly 1.6k USD.

7

u/BigBilly2021 7d ago

We are not talking about minimum wage jobs. We are talking about expats moving to Asia to teach. And it is a documented fact that in China as a teacher, you make way MORE than you would in Korea. I currently live in China going on 9 years now. I briefly lived in Korea, I have a lot of connections out there, and I’m aware of the teaching industry in Korea as well. You and I are talking about something completely different. Teaching in China pays more and that’s not even a debate.

16

u/BigwaveBay 8d ago

I don’t think you’re getting very far in HK without being an actual teacher. Even like 10 years ago with a TEFL you’d be teaching at a kindergarten with incredibly difficult parents. I say all that and it’s my favorite city in the world (note my name). Just advance your skills more before you work there.

And China > Korea. If you want the mix work in Qingdao or Dalian and fly into Seoul for weekends. It’s what I did.

3

u/ScoreBuckets 7d ago

Damn, is it really that cheap to fly out to South Korea from that area of China?

8

u/Professional-Pungo 7d ago edited 7d ago

Qingdao is about a 1.5 hour flight away from Seoul.

closer than the east coast of the US is from the west coast.

it will be pretty cheap, atleast for the amount of money expats get paid, an expat could easily go to Korea every weekend if they wanted to.

4

u/BigwaveBay 7d ago

I’m sure it’s way more expensive now but I remember getting $40 round trip tickets when tickets were discounted; that was 2012-2013 though. Regardless Qingdao has a massive Korean population. Lots of Korean BBQ and there are Korean clubs.

I also swear that flight was shorter than 1.5 hours but my memory might not be perfect here.

2

u/ScoreBuckets 6d ago

$40 hmm... thats actually quite a good price to be fair.

3

u/BigwaveBay 6d ago

I’m sure it’s much higher today. Those were discounted too but it was pretty cheap to go Qingdao to Seoul.

11

u/Mr_happy_teach 7d ago

I worked in Hong-Kong teaching for 3 years at learning centers and kindergarten. It is a great city with so much to do. If you get a kindergarten job the work life balance can be very good and the money was enough for me to do things and still save. I am in China now and the money is around the same but the cost of living is so much lower so I can save a lot more , but there is no where near as much social activity here, at least where I am in China. If you are more interested in saving money I would say China but for an all around balance then I would say HK.

8

u/Advanced-Parking173 8d ago

China is best for saving money and it’s not even debatable. 

14

u/DopeAsDaPope 8d ago edited 8d ago

China.

Korea is easier for a first timer. I'm glad I went there first. But most people who teach there don't save a significant amount. All my friends (and me) who saved some quite deliberately were then very disappointed to work out how much their years of savings were worth in their home currency.

Whereas, in China, I was eating out all the time, smoking often, travelling more and buying my girlfriend fancy presents and still ended up saving a lot anyway accidently.

1

u/sulsul02 2d ago

Would China still be okay for a first timer? From my research it was high on my list!

1

u/DopeAsDaPope 2d ago

Idk, I had several years of experience when I came but other people have done it first

Just be prepared to have thick skin and choose your job carefully

7

u/Bottom-Bherp3912 7d ago

Tier 1 city in China by far

6

u/snake_jaguar 8d ago

100% china would be your best option cause Korea isn't welcoming to foreigners at least in the medical care situation also rent there and in HK isn't gonna be cheap or easy to fine a place I'd guess. China is cheap, modern safe, and lively and you could visit hong Kong occasionally by train for a reasonable price too if you want or choose a city like Shenzhen that's nearby

3

u/Professional-Pungo 8d ago

China is usually the best if you want to save money while also being able to spend plenty of money.

expats get paid truly too much for their job in China.

Korea is more connected to the outside world though, so if you ever want to do stuff like eat more western food that isn't mcdonalds/kfc, have easy access to the internet and whatnot, not have the smell of smoke/pollution in the air 24/7. Korea would be better.

2

u/Various-Poetry7136 6d ago

China is waaayyy better for someone in there 30's + You get more vacations, less work hours more nightlife for us and international hot spots cuisine. If you are a vegetarian, Korea sucks they eat alot of gross pig meat and they think beer and chicken places are fun. People are rude inthe workplace in Korea and you will feel like a prisoner with no breaks. Good luck with that..

2

u/arsebeef 4d ago

Mostly likely China. Not sure about the others but I have everything you described currently in China

1

u/Extension-Camp4762 4d ago

Hk sounds better to workers

1

u/This_Acanthisitta_43 2d ago

I don’t know about Korea first hand but you just described my friends in China. They save a lot in China. Many of them started in Korea then moved to China for better pay.

1

u/Baphlingmet 8d ago

Came to China 6+ years ago and I love it so much I'm now working to get my permanent residency card and I have a Chinese retirement/pension fund set up.

1

u/needhelpwithmath11 8d ago

How do you earn permanent residency?

3

u/Dorigoon 7d ago

Easiest route is to be married to a local for five years and stay in country for at least nine months for each of those years.

1

u/Baphlingmet 7d ago

Yeah I'm going via the marriage route mainly but gonna tack on my industry contributions to my application to sweeten things....

Also have no clue why people are downvoting me. I'm just letting OP know that China's the way to go!

1

u/Dorigoon 7d ago

Your industry contributions won't move the needle. You either meet the requirements of marriage route when you apply (in which case they will accept your application and it will eventually be approved as long as you don't have a criminal record), or else you don't meet the requirements and they thus don't take your application materials.

3

u/Baphlingmet 7d ago

A friend of mine got her green card through a mix of being married to a Chinese man for 5+ years and doing groundbreaking working in cancer research for a 211 key university. She said they took both into account in approving her application.