In response to That's one thing I've not been able to get out of people (Rheno747, B.A., M.A., PhD, Hard Knocks U)

You probably create some of your own Hard Knocks, being a tad bombastic. I got out of the hogwans after a year because I did have degrees. Does that chafe you? Too bad. Read some of my text books. This is a website for teachers. I went on to highschools, universities and college jobs. Rheno you will run into the same cow dung everywhere. Don't expect much honesty from admins. You are a foreigner, a way-guk, and Koreans are jealous of your good job and tend to blame many of their problems on foreigners. Now it's the Americans and foreign workers but they also blame the Chinese and Japanese. Korea let the Japanese take over their country without a single gunshot of protest (similar to take over of Manchuria). Much of the Korean army had bows and arrows, the Japanese modern rifles. The upper class, rich, feudal and Neo-Confucian had the main population in a state of poverty, ignorance, total passivity. It suited them. They had every thing they wanted. They did not want the peasants armed and trained. The poor sharecroppers had no access to foreign medicine, they wore straw sandals in winter (snow) and scratched their infected mosquito bites all summer..no screens or window glass. Japan lived under a similar feudal isolation a bit earlier and the fact that they modernized first led to their colonial asperations. They emulated Europe which was pushing into all areas of the Pacific (still occupy many islands).

Rheno the college and university jobs are better than the hogwans but they too have become hogwanized. You will have a slightly better work load but they will boot you out if you don't learn boot-licking, fast. It's the Korean way. Take your money, then leave.

Regarding your not knowing if you are barred from working a new contract in Korea: You and your new employer have to contact Immigration, nobody else. They will tell you if your last employer laid a complaint against you. Often they do not bother so there is no record. You can protest a complaint, if you want to do that, and demonstrate that your contract was violated by the employer. I recall you saying you had been deceived about teaching kid classes. Many colleges require the same kid teaching. It's a money making thing for Korean colleges. It's all about money not education.