RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

Yeah that's getting to me a lot.  Sometimes I think to myself "I really miss my own culture" but then stop and wonder if it's racist to think that lol.  I remember saying something about "my country" on here and someone replied with "people don't own countries".  Mental really.

Yeah mental. 'My wife', people don't own other people, ' my neighborhood' people don't own neighborhoods etc etc..Also lol that young people today think it's racist to like your own culture, crivens, what's the world coming to?

But yeah, I really miss the culture.  Isolation can be a huge problem here, I definitely realise that now.  Good point about marriage.  That's one reason why I'll never get married here because that's basically admitting that you'll never live in England again.

Most of the British guys I know who got married to Koreans moved away from here. Some took the PGCE route, others got into EAP teaching at universities, one works for IELTS in Cambridge, another's doing the online IELTS writing marking, one left teaching and works for his Brother's company.  I'm planning to do the same soon, maybe 2or possibly 4.

I can see us teachers having lots of fun walking 100m through snow and rain to get to and from our cars.

LOL. I walk 3500m to work every day. Sun, rain, or snow.  And 3500m back again. How soft are you? Tapioca? Velour?

Good for you, Frodo.

There's a time and a place for everything.
In the Winter I usually spend many weekends surfing in gisamoonhan, on the East Coast near the DMZ. That's surfing in subzero waters, with snow on the ground and Siberian winds piercing through your wetsuit.

When it's time for work, I like to arrive in clean and dry cotton and cashmere, and my person smelling daisy fresh.
I like sleep too.

Aside from me, the staff at the school like to get pregnant and stuff.

Why stop at 3500m?  Why not say 350000cm?

Yeah that's getting to me a lot.  Sometimes I think to myself "I really miss my own culture" but then stop and wonder if it's racist to think that lol.  I remember saying something about "my country" on here and someone replied with "people don't own countries".  Mental really.

Yeah mental. 'My wife', people don't own other people, ' my neighborhood' people don't own neighborhoods etc etc..Also lol that young people today think it's racist to like your own culture, crivens, what's the world coming to?

But yeah, I really miss the culture.  Isolation can be a huge problem here, I definitely realise that now.  Good point about marriage.  That's one reason why I'll never get married here because that's basically admitting that you'll never live in England again.

Most of the British guys I know who got married to Koreans moved away from here. Some took the PGCE route, others got into EAP teaching at universities, one works for IELTS in Cambridge, another's doing the online IELTS writing marking, one left teaching and works for his Brother's company.  I'm planning to do the same soon, maybe 2or possibly 4.

What about people that own slaves? They own people. :O
(just some bad humor, don't take this too seriously haha).

Yeah, I guess people like the Duke of Westminster own neighborhoods too.

honestly, the reason i've been here so long is because england is...worse

You mean financially, opportunity-wise, culturally or some other reason?

well, i'm currently in a job i like, earning a very decent amount of money (with decent hours), in a new apartment which doesn't cost me much per month, while living right in the centre of seoul

i know i wouldn't be able to achieve even half of those things in the uk. plus, it's very difficult to bring my wife back to the uk anyway (which generally pisses me off). not that i really know what i'd do in the uk, besides.

i miss the culture though. and my friends :(

I know a British guy who left a few years ago and it took him 2.5 years to get his wife a visa to be able to come over. That's insane. I'm sure there is immigration fraud and fake marriages, but is it really to the degree where you are waiting years for it to get through. And thousands of pounds. His wife was Vietnamese, so maybe that makes the process longer than it would be for a Korean spouse? Either way, shithouse.

honestly, the reason i've been here so long is because england is...worse

You mean financially, opportunity-wise, culturally or some other reason?

well, i'm currently in a job i like, earning a very decent amount of money (with decent hours), in a new apartment which doesn't cost me much per month, while living right in the centre of seoul

i know i wouldn't be able to achieve even half of those things in the uk. plus, it's very difficult to bring my wife back to the uk anyway (which generally pisses me off). not that i really know what i'd do in the uk, besides.

i miss the culture though. and my friends :(

I know a British guy who left a few years ago and it took him 2.5 years to get his wife a visa to be able to come over. That's insane. I'm sure there is immigration fraud and fake marriages, but is it really to the degree where you are waiting years for it to get through. And thousands of pounds. His wife was Vietnamese, so maybe that makes the process longer than it would be for a Korean spouse? Either way, shithouse.

That's the big thing and also with how fukcing Brekshit is going at the moment, it could probably get even harder.  In the end, it hardly seems worth it for the 'riches' that would come from living in England.  I'm pretty sure you can make a more exciting, comfortable life in another European country (again depending on the fukcing crap that is going on now) and be within touching distance of family, Marks and Spencers or Sports Direct etc in the UK.  I was musing driving to school yesterday about would I vote for Brexit if it meant I get my 26 million pension, and after a brief second of 'hmmmm!', then came the 'no fooking way!'

Christ, am I the only British person here who actually likes England haha?!! 

I know someone with a Canadian spouse who went through the UK immigration process a few years ago . I don't think the spouse's country of origin makes a difference - all non-EU countries are treated the same (and current EU countries will at some point be subject to the same rules, presumably). It's a very piecemeal and expensive process, and the rules change on an almost annual basis, it seems like the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing, and it's easy to make a minor technical error and have your application delayed or rejected. It's kind of a different story, but someone I went to university with did his PhD in the UK and got tossed out immediately afterwards because his part-time uni lecturership didn't pay for him to qualify to stay, even though he was actively trying to get more hours or a more permanent contract. Anyway, as I result of his situation I ended up reading quite a lot of stuff about the frequent and unpredictable policy changes, and how they screwed people who were actually trying to do things correctly. 

I don't know if things have changed, but when I studied in the UK as an exchange student in the late 90s,  the immigration "services" were almost comically hostile. I remember pleading with a phone operator to speak less aggressively to me, as I was asking a fairly straightforward question and had been nothing but polite. I've visited a few times since and every interaction with the immigration officials at Heathrow has been similar.

Christ, am I the only British person here who actually likes England haha?!! 

You're confusing your feelings for England with your love for Greggs. 

Christ, am I the only British person here who actually likes England haha?!! 

You're confusing your feelings for England with your love for Greggs. 

I could murder a sausage roll to be honest.

Yeah that's getting to me a lot.  Sometimes I think to myself "I really miss my own culture" but then stop and wonder if it's racist to think that lol.  I remember saying something about "my country" on here and someone replied with "people don't own countries".  Mental really.

Yeah mental. 'My wife', people don't own other people, ' my neighborhood' people don't own neighborhoods etc etc..Also lol that young people today think it's racist to like your own culture, crivens, what's the world coming to?

But yeah, I really miss the culture.  Isolation can be a huge problem here, I definitely realise that now.  Good point about marriage.  That's one reason why I'll never get married here because that's basically admitting that you'll never live in England again.

Most of the British guys I know who got married to Koreans moved away from here. Some took the PGCE route, others got into EAP teaching at universities, one works for IELTS in Cambridge, another's doing the online IELTS writing marking, one left teaching and works for his Brother's company.  I'm planning to do the same soon, maybe 2or possibly 4.

yeah, i mean, it's not impossibe to land a good job. but it's not easy. and it would require more qualifications than i currnently have- and, probably, more experience.


zola: yeah. i know a guy and it took him 3 years for a visa. and that was with going the savings route- having 62k or whatever it is in the bank. i mean, **** it. i don't want to go back that badly. last time i went through an airport i was interrogated for 40 minutes about why i'm here (with my wife). apparently "visiting my dying grandmother" wasnt ****** enough for the cunts. i was visiting my own country!

Takes 2-12 weeks according to this.

https://www.visalogic.net/uk/uk-spouse-visa/4/103

Christ, am I the only British person here who actually likes England haha?!! 

You're confusing your feelings for England with your love for Greggs. 

I could murder a sausage roll to be honest.

My Pops is coming over for Christmas, so my brothers and sisters asked if there was anything I wanted him to bring and all I've said so far is mince pies and crackers.  That's it. 

One of my best mates is married to an American girl. Should have seen the stack of papers he had to send.

I hear it is streamlined to a a certain extent these days, so long as you meet the checklist. 18.6k/62.5K, place to live, etc etc... I'll be doing it in the near future with my wife, but it certainly is an expensive sausage roll!

Takes 2-12 weeks according to this.

https://www.visalogic.net/uk/uk-spouse-visa/4/103

I'm not sure why the info isn't more up to date, but the most recent published stats suggest an average wait time of 123 days from the application date for people applying outside the UK and 211 for those already in the country, extending their stay as a partner of a UK citizen or permanent resident:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/average-processing-times-for-set-o-set-m-eea3-applications-spouse-visa-tier-1-and-tier-2-visa-extension-and-nationality-applications/average-processing-times-for-set-o-set-m-eea3-applications-spouse-visa-tier-1-and-tier-2-visa-extension-and-nationality-applications

It could be faster now but that seems unlikely (considering the stricter rules and consistent application numbers). Anyway, it's not the waiting period from the date of the application submission that takes forever, it's collecting all the paperwork and making sure that it matches the requirements that takes forever. And there are various ways that you can fall into a trap on the minimum income requirements - like one of you hasn't worked for a few months before your application, even though you've been working consistently for years prior. Or you could find that, because of an exchange rate fluctuation, you qualified last week but this week you don't. That kind of thing is surely more exception than rule, but it has happened to people who did their best to play by the rules.

One of my best mates is married to an American girl. Should have seen the stack of papers he had to send.

I hear it is streamlined to a a certain extent these days, so long as you meet the checklist. 18.6k/62.5K, place to live, etc etc... I'll be doing it in the near future with my wife, but it certainly is an expensive sausage roll!

One of the advantages of the US green card system, though, is that the document submissions and payments are spaced out, so if something goes wrong at one stage you have a chance to rectify it before moving forward. I could be wrong, but insofar as I understand the UK version, you submit everything in one go, gambling a small fortune on its success. Plus, a green card lasts for 10 years before your next check-in. In the UK I think it's 2.5 before you have to submit another pile of paperwork and an extra 500 quid.

Great. We've gone from Let it Go, to AAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY-OH to

Whatever the hell that new frozen song is.

Aahahhhaaahhahaaaha ahhhhhhhhh

Christ, am I the only British person here who actually likes England haha?!! 

You're confusing your feelings for England with your love for Greggs. 

I could murder a sausage roll to be honest.

My Pops is coming over for Christmas, so my brothers and sisters asked if there was anything I wanted him to bring and all I've said so far is mince pies and crackers.  That's it. 

EMart has Waitrose baked beans and canned peas and some HomePlus locations still carry HP sauce.  You're spoiled for choice.  The only Canadian product I ever see here is maple syrup. 

Christ, am I the only British person here who actually likes England haha?!! 

You're confusing your feelings for England with your love for Greggs. 

I could murder a sausage roll to be honest.

My Pops is coming over for Christmas, so my brothers and sisters asked if there was anything I wanted him to bring and all I've said so far is mince pies and crackers.  That's it. 

EMart has Waitrose baked beans and canned peas and some HomePlus locations still carry HP sauce.  You're spoiled for choice.  The only Canadian product I ever see here is maple syrup. 

Bummer about the maple syrup.    The Waitrose bit is good.  I always pick up a couple of boxes of the Waitrose Raisan Bran Flakes (not sweetened like the Kelloggs version) and the spaghetti hoops when I'm in Yongsan.  Just fancy some mince pies and Christmas crackers.  Christmas lunch just isn't the same without wearing a cheap paper hat and telling a crap joke.

A lot of the kids here don't know that maple syrup is derived from tree sap.

Whenever I'm teaching very small classes (1-3 students), I let them try authentic maple syrup from my personal stash.

If I don't tell them where it comes from before they try it, they generally like it, although they might complain about it being too sweet (nevermind the fact that they eat foods far sweeter, but the first impression about foods you're not familiar with is always stronger than it is for foods you are familiar with).

If I do tell them before they try it, they say they don't like it because they say it tastes like tree sap.

lmao