Congratulations Uzique. I am really happy you have the opportunity to experience something like that.
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +635|3719
thank ye macbeth. you know i would only encourage you to do something similar too.
That's huge Uzique--very happy for you. Will you be keeping the folks here updated while you travel?
The shape of an eye in front of the ocean, digging for stones and throwing them against its window pane. Take it down dreamer, take it down deep. - Other Families
i will be here every single day from a cafe in hongdae or itaewon to tell dilbert he is a schmuck.
So what made you choose SK?
Doing the the Lord's work.uziq wrote:
i will be here every single day from a cafe in hongdae or itaewon to tell dilbert he is a schmuck.
The shape of an eye in front of the ocean, digging for stones and throwing them against its window pane. Take it down dreamer, take it down deep. - Other Families
I want to see 3 new kimchi recipes on my desk every Monday.
Congrats.
Congrats.
it's just by far the best 'base' in that region for your average westerner. modern, convenient, relatively affordable, high level of english language skills and literacy (yes, i know, but spare me; i'm not learning a brand new language to fluent level for the sake of 12 months, and korean doesn't really have the global usefulness that something like mandarin would carry). fastest internet in the world, super modern city transport (that's like a dollar per day to use), amazing food, good culture scene (lots beyond k-pop and k-drama). oh and the women are of course the best in asia, let's face it.Larssen wrote:
So what made you choose SK?
japan might seem the obvious choice but as well as being very expensive (same as living in the UK effectively, and i want to cut my hours not increase them), english fluency is very low, and it's just a pain in the ass in so many ways for foreigners to exist there for longer than a holiday-term. i mean day-to-day things like bureaucracy, medical care, even being able to withdraw cash and pay for things in shops ... japan is basically still in the 1980s for its services, for some reason. plus, japan has been super closed off during covid and not interested in giving out visas.
china: just no. we're covered that extensively here before. taiwan would be a maybe but i figure a place to stay for 3 months on a tourist visa. based on scant research onto the topic over the last 12 months, it seems that most advice trends towards avoiding china. it has become a far more hostile environment towards gweilo foreigners in the last few years since xi started upping the ante.
the rest of indochina looks very good and is always highly recommended in the 'digital nomad' subculture but it seems more of a tourist/backpacking/travelling style thing. i don't really imagine myself in an apartment in saigon or bangkok, working remotely.
one of my best friends did the TEFL thing after we finished university, segueing into working in offices in china and generally travelling the region. he said whilst places like japan have their more unique stand-out attractions, by far the most liveable city was seoul. public transport links are everywhere, open spaces and mountains/hiking are always near, world-class coffee shops litter almost every other street, etc. it just seems very, very amenable to the sort of remote/freelance working lifestyle that i want to lead. you can basically get 100Mbps mobile internet using a dongle anywhere in the city.
there's a large english-language publishing industry, predominantly educational and business writing, for obvious reasons, in places like south korea and japan, so who knows, it'll be good to make some contacts out there and see what it's all about. if i had any expectation of being there for longer than a working holiday visa stay, of course i'd look into language classes, etc.
Last edited by uziq (2020-12-01 15:54:38)
Ok but I went to an onsen theme park in Japan and they throw buckets of scented food colouring on Japanese people at set times, who revel in the knowledge that they're soup:
Consider it.
Consider it.
Last edited by Pochsy (2020-12-01 15:54:58)
The shape of an eye in front of the ocean, digging for stones and throwing them against its window pane. Take it down dreamer, take it down deep. - Other Families
haha. japan does look insane and i 100% intend to go there for several months. one of my good friends just commenced a TEFL contract there, after waiting for almost all of the year for japan to accept new incomers, in the city nearest to SK (fukuoka). so one of my friends is in the region already. i'm planning to live in busan, a nice beach city, for peak summer and into fall, and it's a short ferry-ride to japan from there.
i really want to go to a music festival in japan but we'll see how that pans out with covid this year. it's been on my bucket list for all of my 20s. it's this really beautiful outdoor ambient/electronic festival in the mountain highlands, a sort of perfect weekender.
i really want to go to a music festival in japan but we'll see how that pans out with covid this year. it's been on my bucket list for all of my 20s. it's this really beautiful outdoor ambient/electronic festival in the mountain highlands, a sort of perfect weekender.
Last edited by uziq (2020-12-01 15:59:54)
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +635|3719
I hope you find an Azn girl to settle down with out there and have some hapa kids. Most hapas are bitter at their ancestry so you should give at least one of them the middle name Mac to really rub it in.
Can't say enough good things about Japan, honestly. I do agree with your general assessment though; nice to visit, not to stay. My recommendation would be to do 2 weeks and make use of the Japan Rail Pass that'll get you onto all of the bullet trains. Logistically the best choice I made in my month there and enabled a lot of day trips/overnighters that otherwise would have been cost prohibitive.
On the music festival--one thing I found really tough was all of the social traditions/mannerisms that really run deep in Japan. It's little things, like who bows first, or who sips the tea fist, or who can and cannot be left alone together. Now, if you get it wrong the typical Japanese person isn't going to drop-kick your uncouth ass, but my recommendation would be to bring along someone who can excuse you in Japanese when you get it wrong.
On the music festival--one thing I found really tough was all of the social traditions/mannerisms that really run deep in Japan. It's little things, like who bows first, or who sips the tea fist, or who can and cannot be left alone together. Now, if you get it wrong the typical Japanese person isn't going to drop-kick your uncouth ass, but my recommendation would be to bring along someone who can excuse you in Japanese when you get it wrong.
Last edited by Pochsy (2020-12-01 16:09:28)
The shape of an eye in front of the ocean, digging for stones and throwing them against its window pane. Take it down dreamer, take it down deep. - Other Families
i've had an asian gf before so i'm not going there to chase any strange fetishes or obsessions. of course, going somewhere where the locals are attractive is important. it's the same reason why i would never think of teaching business english in a gulf state, despite it paying near 6 figure with zero tax. being simpatico with the locals and having an, ahem, full social life is kinda important.SuperJail Warden wrote:
I hope you find an Azn girl to settle down with out there and have some hapa kids. Most hapas are bitter at their ancestry so you should give at least one of them the middle name Mac to really rub it in.
i dated a ridiculously rich heiress from hong kong for a while and got that out of my system. i have some amazing anecdotes about that phase. i can't remember if i shared them here before in the past. a discussion for another time.
this music festival is internationally recognised and most of the roster are in fact european artists. the techno/ambient scene in japan has a huge overlap with NA/EU. it's very outwards looking. i read you on the social conventions and mannerisms, though: korea has them too. things like always using two hands to give or receive anything, otherwise it's taken as a huge insult. even when passing someone your credit card in a store, or a drink, or something. if you see how english people interact and gesture in a pub in england, you'll know how funny that notion is.On the music festival--one thing I found really tough was all of the social traditions/mannerisms that really run deep in Japan. It's little things, like who bows first, or who sips the tea fist, or who can and cannot be left alone together. Now, if you get it wrong the typical Japanese person isn't going to drop-kick your uncouth ass, but my recommendation would be to bring along someone who can excuse you in Japanese when you get it wrong.
the two hands when giving/receiving anything is pretty standard for east asia. You hand off/receive a business card that way as if you are exchanging a delicate papyrus scroll
i have never been to east asia at all (or south america, for that matter), which was a huge impetus for the trip in general. i'm 30 years old. it's about time i go check out that whole fucking half of the world. i am very green and out-of-depth but that's not an unpleasant feeling. europe feels like household furniture at this point.
i did not like japan very much tbh. It's very clean and neat but as you touched on, it's very anachronistic in their way of doing a lot of things, especially business dealings. And severely lacking in english, which sucks if you don't know the local language. I found that while not overtly rude, they are closed-minded and judgemental in a lot of daily interactions. I haven't spent a lot of time in Japan though, and have only been around Tokyo, so my experience is not by any means exhaustive.
Koreans like to work hard and party hard. You will see old men in suits shitfaced at 4am on a weekday, only to have them show up to work at 7am and knock 12 hours of work out. It's kind of insane, and, like Japan, they respect their seniors to the point that the junior staff will not leave the office until their bosses or big bosses do. They also love to add corn and sugar to their street food.
Koreans like to work hard and party hard. You will see old men in suits shitfaced at 4am on a weekday, only to have them show up to work at 7am and knock 12 hours of work out. It's kind of insane, and, like Japan, they respect their seniors to the point that the junior staff will not leave the office until their bosses or big bosses do. They also love to add corn and sugar to their street food.
So, you'll be in the same time zone as me?uziq wrote:
i will be here every single day from a cafe in hongdae or itaewon to tell dilbert he is a schmuck.
Its bad enough being in the same time zone as India, thankfully the govt listened to me and is doing something.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-02/ … r/12940202
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
I've spent the last 2 days setting up Christmas decos. Best time of the year.
Seems like a good choice to stay if you want to explore the region, universally people are positive about SK. Definitely go and spend some stretch of time in Indonesia too, the archipelago has some absolutely beautiful nature and waters and is quite western friendly too. I've also heard good things about Myanmar lately.uziq wrote:
it's just by far the best 'base' in that region for your average westerner. modern, convenient, relatively affordable, high level of english language skills and literacy (yes, i know, but spare me; i'm not learning a brand new language to fluent level for the sake of 12 months, and korean doesn't really have the global usefulness that something like mandarin would carry). fastest internet in the world, super modern city transport (that's like a dollar per day to use), amazing food, good culture scene (lots beyond k-pop and k-drama). oh and the women are of course the best in asia, let's face it.Larssen wrote:
So what made you choose SK?
japan might seem the obvious choice but as well as being very expensive (same as living in the UK effectively, and i want to cut my hours not increase them), english fluency is very low, and it's just a pain in the ass in so many ways for foreigners to exist there for longer than a holiday-term. i mean day-to-day things like bureaucracy, medical care, even being able to withdraw cash and pay for things in shops ... japan is basically still in the 1980s for its services, for some reason. plus, japan has been super closed off during covid and not interested in giving out visas.
china: just no. we're covered that extensively here before. taiwan would be a maybe but i figure a place to stay for 3 months on a tourist visa. based on scant research onto the topic over the last 12 months, it seems that most advice trends towards avoiding china. it has become a far more hostile environment towards gweilo foreigners in the last few years since xi started upping the ante.
the rest of indochina looks very good and is always highly recommended in the 'digital nomad' subculture but it seems more of a tourist/backpacking/travelling style thing. i don't really imagine myself in an apartment in saigon or bangkok, working remotely.
one of my best friends did the TEFL thing after we finished university, segueing into working in offices in china and generally travelling the region. he said whilst places like japan have their more unique stand-out attractions, by far the most liveable city was seoul. public transport links are everywhere, open spaces and mountains/hiking are always near, world-class coffee shops litter almost every other street, etc. it just seems very, very amenable to the sort of remote/freelance working lifestyle that i want to lead. you can basically get 100Mbps mobile internet using a dongle anywhere in the city.
there's a large english-language publishing industry, predominantly educational and business writing, for obvious reasons, in places like south korea and japan, so who knows, it'll be good to make some contacts out there and see what it's all about. if i had any expectation of being there for longer than a working holiday visa stay, of course i'd look into language classes, etc.
I don't think China is that hostile really, but having been there for some 2 months (though 6-7 years ago) I would recommend against staying there as a base of operations. Mostly because China itself just has this air of depression/suffocation in it if you ask me. It's also very difficult to navigate because quite a few western internet services are blocked, nobody speaks english and of course all infrastructure is only in Chinese. If you don't link up with someone who speaks mandarin it's hard to find your way. The culture shock is worse than anywhere else in Asia too. And the locals are kinda racist in their own way, outside the coastal areas you can expect to have a crowd gather wherever you go because white europeans are like unicorns there.
Having said so you should consider spending some time there, just to see what the country and people are about. Yunnan and zhangjiajie in Hunan are worth a visit, as is the mutianyu section of the great wall and some other places. I also loved the food when you get close to the xinjiang region - it's a fusion between turkic/muslim and chinese cuisine.
Re; Japan - haven't been there but Abroad in Japan on youtube is probably one of my favourite youtube channels. Might also give you some good tips.
I assume you'll move after covid? Will be a great time I'm sure.
i’m moving next month. south korea’s covid has basically always been under control, hence why they’re giving out visas and the embassy is open (in the U.K. at least, the RoK consulates are more fussy and closed in some other places).
china has become actively hostile and suspicious to foreigners. i don’t mean every chinese person is going to treat you like shit – i have chinese friends, after all – but the groupthink there is very very strong and xi has china in a ‘us vs the world’ mode. as we’ve discussed at length, too, the media and cultural blackout there is almost like living in an alternate reality; it would be like living among a bunch of qanon people 24/7. several of my chinese contacts, including a girl i’ve dated, and who i consider perfectly normal, rational, intelligent people, are now all saying quite seriously that covid was brought to china by the american military, for e.g. they swallow the state media line whatever.
more practically, living there behind their internet firewall and under low-key surveillance sounds horrible. there are any number of youtube channels dedicated to travelling in china, or china-based vloggers, who talk routinely about being taken to a police station for questioning. when you arrive in the country for a long-term stay, you effectively have a police officer assigned to you for the duration of your stay. that’s horrendous.
as i said, china: no. i am never going to china.
china has become actively hostile and suspicious to foreigners. i don’t mean every chinese person is going to treat you like shit – i have chinese friends, after all – but the groupthink there is very very strong and xi has china in a ‘us vs the world’ mode. as we’ve discussed at length, too, the media and cultural blackout there is almost like living in an alternate reality; it would be like living among a bunch of qanon people 24/7. several of my chinese contacts, including a girl i’ve dated, and who i consider perfectly normal, rational, intelligent people, are now all saying quite seriously that covid was brought to china by the american military, for e.g. they swallow the state media line whatever.
more practically, living there behind their internet firewall and under low-key surveillance sounds horrible. there are any number of youtube channels dedicated to travelling in china, or china-based vloggers, who talk routinely about being taken to a police station for questioning. when you arrive in the country for a long-term stay, you effectively have a police officer assigned to you for the duration of your stay. that’s horrendous.
as i said, china: no. i am never going to china.
Last edited by uziq (2020-12-02 13:59:49)
this guy has vlogged from china for about a decade. i'm pretty sure he was the first youtube vlogger about life in china. he's married to a chinese woman, has a mixed-race kid, speaks fluent chinese, loves the place, etc.
in this guy's own narrative of accounts - and you can see it develop over several years of content on his channel - the tone has markedly changed in china since you were there 6-7 years ago.
in this guy's own narrative of accounts - and you can see it develop over several years of content on his channel - the tone has markedly changed in china since you were there 6-7 years ago.
Last edited by uziq (2020-12-02 02:56:20)
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +635|3719
When this pandemic is over you are going to have to begrudgingly force a lot of work from home people to go back into offices. Working from home from 9 to 12:30 freed up a lot of time and energy to do a lot of other things for myself. Not having to shower in the morning, get dressed up, commute etc. also saved a lot of patience and stress.
I think it is fair to say that Uzique's decision to get up and move to Asia is at least partially due to the fact that you realized you can do everything you need to make money from home whatever part of the world that is.
Also, I finished my gaming chair, going to assemble my desk, and do some other stuff. As of writing this during pre-pandemic times I would be filling out forms because some kid cut class or cursed me out. I hope high schools never reopen.
I think it is fair to say that Uzique's decision to get up and move to Asia is at least partially due to the fact that you realized you can do everything you need to make money from home whatever part of the world that is.
Also, I finished my gaming chair, going to assemble my desk, and do some other stuff. As of writing this during pre-pandemic times I would be filling out forms because some kid cut class or cursed me out. I hope high schools never reopen.
Personally I hate 100% work from home. Meetings on my goddamn mobile or laptop are so tedious, sometimes awkward and above all ineffective. A lot of my job is people management and stakeholder engagement and presentations, it's immeasurably better if those meetings esp. the important ones could be in person. Seeing people's faces, body language or reactions are really important cues for me, missing the in-between small talk is no good either. Worst is that I personally feel less confident, prepared or comfortable in my message when talking to people from behind a tiny screen.
Not to say that I would be overjoyed going back to the office full time, but a healthy/flexible balance would be nice. 2 days at home or so, 3 days flexibly in the office and most necessary meetings in person.
Not to say that I would be overjoyed going back to the office full time, but a healthy/flexible balance would be nice. 2 days at home or so, 3 days flexibly in the office and most necessary meetings in person.
mac, i was already working remotely for 80% of the time, anyway. i was only contractually obliged to have 1 day a week in the office to catch-up with team/department stuff, see authors, etc. it's the norm for editors in mid-career to move to the south of france or something or just generally to get the hell out of london/new york/etc. so whilst it's very true that office life is not going to 'return to normal' after this pandemic, i don't think i'm as affected by this as the vast majority of people. my work was already extremely mobile.
the real motivation to get up and do it now was that the working holiday visa programme is not available to people who are 31+. it was a good convergence of factors making me more inclined to go away than to stay. i could conceivably just slip away and continue with my salaried work, accommodating for the time difference; but i just want out of full-time work altogether at this point, at least for a spell. having almost nothing to do for a whole year except work, work out, and shitpost on bf2s has naturally made doing something else seem hella fun right now.
i think the economy and job seeking generally will be fraught for the next 12 months. the recovery will be much slower than expected and, as usual with these things, a certain number of jobs and opportunity will probably just vanish forever and never come back. ditto university places: there's a huge wave of deferrals and interrupted studies waiting to resume in 2021. so going back to grad school doesn't seem very opportune or particularly fun right now, either.
the real motivation to get up and do it now was that the working holiday visa programme is not available to people who are 31+. it was a good convergence of factors making me more inclined to go away than to stay. i could conceivably just slip away and continue with my salaried work, accommodating for the time difference; but i just want out of full-time work altogether at this point, at least for a spell. having almost nothing to do for a whole year except work, work out, and shitpost on bf2s has naturally made doing something else seem hella fun right now.
i think the economy and job seeking generally will be fraught for the next 12 months. the recovery will be much slower than expected and, as usual with these things, a certain number of jobs and opportunity will probably just vanish forever and never come back. ditto university places: there's a huge wave of deferrals and interrupted studies waiting to resume in 2021. so going back to grad school doesn't seem very opportune or particularly fun right now, either.
Last edited by uziq (2020-12-02 13:08:26)
I'm in the same boat. I'm already used to working with remote, cross-functional teams in different time zones and across multiple languages so the frustration around the lack of in-person meetings has already left a long time ago, but the meetings themselves are just less effective when remote. More distraction, less ability for break outs and parking lot type follow ups. I'm more comfortable talking to a room of people than I am into a computer screen, regardless of technological advances that have made these meetings seemingly more fluid.Larssen wrote:
Personally I hate 100% work from home. Meetings on my goddamn mobile or laptop are so tedious, sometimes awkward and above all ineffective. A lot of my job is people management and stakeholder engagement and presentations, it's immeasurably better if those meetings esp. the important ones could be in person. Seeing people's faces, body language or reactions are really important cues for me, missing the in-between small talk is no good either. Worst is that I personally feel less confident, prepared or comfortable in my message when talking to people from behind a tiny screen.
Not to say that I would be overjoyed going back to the office full time, but a healthy/flexible balance would be nice. 2 days at home or so, 3 days flexibly in the office and most necessary meetings in person.
That doesn't even cover the inability to properly resolve outstanding issues by getting on a plane and sitting down with key contacts to come up with solutions. I can email, demonstrate, build out slide decks, etc until my face is red but the best way to resolve a lot of issues is to sit down with the key stakeholders and get everyone on the same page. I need to go to Taiwan badly but I can't afford to sit in a hotel room in quarantine for 14 days before I can talk to people. It's a waste of time at this point.
It's been very difficult to navigate these new issues, but it's also a testament to personal and communal resiliency that we still find a way to move forward, even if the solutions are expedient.