If you shot a cannonball from the Namsan tower you'd hit either Kim's or Lee's. Very old saying.
Posted on 08/11/2013 7:03:15 PM PDT by TexGrill
South Korean tutor Kim Ki-Hoon earns $4 million a year, according to Amanda Ripley, writing in the Wall Street Journal. He earns the near equivalent of an average NBA player’s salary by teaching English – primarily via paid Internet video – in the nation’s omnipresent hagwons, or private, after-school tutoring academies.
This $17 billion after-school learning market has helped turn South Korea — a majority of whose citizens were illiterate sixty years ago — into the second top-performing country in the PISA global test of academic excellence (far outstripping the U.S.). Moreover, notes Ripley, South Korea’s 93% high-school graduation rate dramatically outpaces that of the U.S. (a lowly 77%).
Kim Ki-Hoon is a contributor to, and beneficiary of, South Korea’s high-tech, free-market approach to education. As “Mr. Kim” himself notes, “The harder I work, the more I make.” Indeed, as I noted a year ago in “The Coming Age of the Teaching Megastar,” a popular educator like Udacity’s Sebastian Thrun can earn far more as a private virtual instructor to millions than he ever could as a tenured Stanford professor to dozens.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Mr. Kim, huh? I do believe that you stood on the sidewalk in downtown Seoul and called out “Mr. Kim” or “Mrs. Kim” half who heard it would turn around.
That country seems to really, really need some more surnames.
And the US has guys focusing on learning rap. Hmmm; I wonder which will lead to an era of prosperity.
I guess I’m in the wrong business. Tell me more about this....
If you shot a cannonball from the Namsan tower you'd hit either Kim's or Lee's. Very old saying.
Well to earn a six-figures tutoring salary in South Korea is not difficult. You can Google search for ESL jobs in South Korea. To earn the big bucks, go to work at a kindergarten ESL in Seoul. You could earn as much as $3,000/month salary, plus free housing. It’s best to work in a kindergarten, so you can tutor each evening and on weekends. You could charge as much as $50 or more per tutoring hour. So let’s say you do 4 hours per evening. That’s $200/day Monday-Friday, but you could earn more on the Weekends: $300-$400/day X 2 = $800. So let’s play it safe: Kindergarten monthly salary - $3,000; Tutoring monthly - $5,000-$7,000. Well now you got your six-figure salary. But please ask to get paid in cash for tutoring, you could get into some trouble with the law if you don’t.
This is not just a reflection on the free market, but on the society’s emphasis on education and learning. Korean parents who want their children to excel are perfectly willing to pay big bucks for classes above and beyond what the kids are taught in school.
ESL teaching can be lurative in Asia. It’s one of the few places, where you can just bring a diploma and come to a country without a penny in your pocket and a few months later, you have a sizable chunk of change saved up. I would recommend recent college graduates try this strategy if they struggle to find a job in the USA.
It is not quite as easy as they say. Most places prefer younger people who look like Ken and Barbie to older people with a reasonable command of Japanese and other skills beyond teaching English/entertaining. Companies, however, prefer the later and that's where I ended up.
That country seems to really, really need some more surnames.
/////////////////
LOL! Good one: What are the top three, again? Kim, Lee, and Park?
I think that’s correct.
I spent sixteen months in South Korea, courtesy of my Uncle Sam, in 1961-62, and was astonished at how few surnames those people had. My little Korean girlfriend’s surname was Chung. I think she was of Chinese ancestry.
I agree with that notion too. So I tried to branch out into creating a new career path. I eventually broke into journalism and later moved into the consulting business.
Don’t forget Sum-Ting, Wi-Tu, and Ho-Lee.
lol - you make an excellent point :) I’ve worked in S. Korea. They definitely have the “anything is possible” bug. I met a guy that speaks excellent English, his accent and pronunciation was so good I assumed he’d spent time in an English speaking country. He hadn’t, I was shocked.
It is such a shame that in this country there’s communities that have gone through generational decay, to the point of rejecting everything that is considered professional on the world stage. What is truly sad is they have no idea of what that means. What a mess. They have no idea of what they’re capable of.
I spent sixteen months in South Korea, courtesy of my Uncle Sam, in 1961-62,
//////////
Thank you for your service!
Don’t forget Sum-Ting, Wi-Tu, and Ho-Lee.
////////////
That’s right! I forgot! :-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.