A co teacher and I worked at E Bo Young Hagwon, in Shin Bang Dong, Cheonan, for 10 months before being fired.

Why, you may ask, we ask ourselves the same question…

Here are a few of the problems we encountered:
• We arrived in South Korea October 17, 2012, started working the next day, but our contract start date was written as November 2, 2012…
• We worked from 1pm-9pm, Monday to Friday, with one 10 minute break…
• Found out that we were never given insurance and hence no pension…
• Didn’t take one sick day. The one day my director took me to a doctor and drove me straight back to school…
• In June the director said he was moving to the USA and said not to worry because whoever buys the Hagwon will continue our contracts…
• In July asked for the key to our apartment because he was liquidating his assets but not to worry because whoever buys it will rent it to us…
• In July asked us if we were interested in buying the Hagwon…
• In August told us that money was a problem and that he might have to take out a loan to pay our severance and buy our return airfares on his credit card…

So, as I’m sure you can understand, we started to stress a little.

In a meeting on Tuesday 21st August 2012, we were asked why we were unhappy and we mentioned a few things from the list above, his reaction was to stand up, punch the wall 5 times and tell us to ‘get the fuck out of his school’ and that ‘we were fucking fired’!

Having previous experience with his temper, we packed up our things and left. An hour later we got a text message telling us to move out of the school apartment by that evening. Thank goodness for friends as we managed to pack up and move out in time.

We texted him to tell him that we were out the apartment and would come by the school the next day to drop the apartment key and cellphone, and would he please have our letters of release. We received a text the next morning asking what time we were coming and that he only wanted to see one of us, not both.

I arrived at the school and was asked to hand over the key and cellphone. I asked if he had our release letters. He told me that he was not giving them to us. After pleading not to fight and just end this amicably he told me to give him his stuff or he was calling the police. I told him I was calling immigration and The Labor Board, and left!

To end, we had to go to immigration, apply for a D10 visa, which negates our current visa, allows us to stay in Korea and look for another job.

Stay away from this Hagwon and perhaps ALL E Bo Young Hagwons, we have heard that they wish to have the largest franchise in South Korea, so sell the ‘rights to the name’ to any Tom, Dick or Harry!