Quote: (04-12-2011 08:00 PM)Gringo Wrote:
That's my dillema, I want the fun times and laid back lifestlye of South America but the pay of Japan or Korea. I have no interest in teaching English I just want to live abroad for a while and do it for totally selfish reasons.
Yeah, that's everyone's dilemma. Think of it as a direct lesson in labor economics. If a cool place to live paid well, then everyone would go there and drive wages down. So, it wouldn't pay well for long.
Only shitty jobs; jobs in shitty places; and hard to train for jobs pay well in any profession. Otherwise, too many people want the jobs and the wages go down.
If you just want a live abroad experience, then I STRONGLY suggest that you avoid North Asia. Especially now that Japan is fucked. After one year in South Korea, I promised myself that I would never again go and work in any one country just for the money. Its just not worth it.
That being said, some people LOVE S Korea and permanently expatriate there. Its about the individual. However, there is a strong current of dislike for the country in the ESL teacher community, for various reasons which I tend to view as small but cumulative annoyances that add up to a potentially shitty experience. Some of that is what S Korea lacks as much as what it possesses that is annoying. When you're dealing with a shitty situation and there is no tropical beach, bumping foreigner friendly nightlife district, or other amenities to make up for it, then you can quickly get down on the country. The bone numbing winter cold (Siberian winds) is another factor. Before S. Korea, I hadn't been aware that I could feel cold that deep in my bones.
I have a suggestion but I won't post it here due to not wanting to feed the market mechanism above described. If you want, you can PM me. My suggestion isn't for a well paying secret paradise that no one knows about, but rather the best bet for a person with your goals, who MAY want to make some money after a year or so of getting acclimated.
If you want to teach in South America, then you can easily do so and live well by local standards. You can do this almost anywhere in the world. Where it gets tricky is when you want to save money. The thing is, the only country's that are even remotely worth going to for money are South Korea, Japan, and the Middle East. The other countries, while some may allow you to save a little more or less than the other, provide so little savings potential that its not worth to choose one over the other due to small differences in savings.
Therefore, unless your going to Japan, South Korea, or the Middle East, just resign yourself to living a subsistence lifestyle with any incidental savings being icing on the cake. You should choose purely on where you want to go based on lifestyle, culture, and the ability to get enough work to live stress free; but not on the ability to save.
This perspective should help you to make the right decision about where you want to go. The better the country is, and the more fun that you have, the less you will notice your subsistence level pay. If you want to save, then put your head down and do your time. And, yeah, girls can make your time a little better anywhere. But they aren't a reason to justify a country, as they are available everywhere except the middle east. And pussy isn't going to right a bad situation, and it can potentially add to it.
