If you follow me on Instagram or know me personally, you’ve heard that I packed up my belongings and left Korea on March 8th. For the past month, I’ve been living in Chiang Mai, Thailand and volunteering on a farm in Mae Wang, about 40km from the main city. The story of why I left Korea and how I ended up on this farm is long and complicated, but it’s probably about time I tell it. Each section comes with a nifty TL;DR section if you don’t want to know every single detail of my life.
Why did I leave Korea?
I was teaching English in South Korea at a public school through the EPIK program. When I signed my contract last year, I was tied to my school for exactly one year, and the option to renew for an additional year presented itself in December 2016. I have to admit, I was tempted to sign the papers and stay another year – my rent was paid for, I was saving a good amount of money every month, and I loved my kids. But in my past, I have had a tendency to settle for the most comfortable option, instead of seeking out the correct one. And as much as I would have been comfortable in my stable Korean teaching job, I wasn’t sure I was going to be learning anything new.
The curriculum would remain the same. My co-teachers would remain the same. And from what I understood, we would be doing many of the same activities we had done over the past year, just with new students. Classes would be taught based on the same book, with the same television in the front of the classroom and only slightly different PowerPoint presentations, altered for quality but never remade. As a teacher, I had this lingering feeling that there was more I could do in a different environment. If I was only thinking about my financial stability, healthcare availability, and quality of living, I might have signed the renewal offer, but there is more to life than that.
I do miss Korea, but it was the right choice to leave.
So I didn’t sign the renewal contract. Instead, I was on my own to figure out my next steps. I had a few leads in different countries – working for a nonprofit, volunteering for food and housing, traveling and having an extended holiday, teaching in another school or in another country, or moving to another country first and finding a job afterwards.
Tl;DR: I left Korea because the world is big and there is more to learn in other countries or jobs. Staying would have been settling for comfort over personal growth.
Why did I go to Thailand?
I’m at a point in my life where I don’t know what I want for a career. What I do know is that I want to continue traveling, continue learning, and continue helping others. Whatever form this takes is fine by me. It’s not a lot to go off of, but it nudged me in the direction away from another year in Korean public school.
I met a man in Nepal back in August who identified as something called a “Digital Nomad,” or someone who works mainly through the internet, maintaining a location independent lifestyle. Digital Nomads can be online teachers, web developers, virtual assistants, business owners, or any job that doesn’t require a physical presence in a single place. This man was a mobile app developer, and he took freelance jobs to fund his travel, working his way from place to place and volunteering in his free time. Needless to say, I was inspired by this and set it as a temporary end goal.
Co-working space in Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai, located in Northern Thailand, is a hub for Digital Nomads, with co-working spaces and expats popping up there over the past years. I visited Thailand on holiday while working in Korea, and I liked Chiang Mai enough to decide to move there and see if I could catch the Digital Nomad bug, maybe working with an already-established business owner in return for learning new skills that could make me location independent. The extremely low cost of living helped as well – it is possible to get a private room in a hostel for about $130 a month, and meals can be budgeted to be about $1 a meal.
…and it’s delicious
Anyway, that was the original plan, but we all know that life is mysterious and unpredictable, so it’s not exactly what ended up happening. Prior to leaving South Korea, I fell in love with a potential job in a private school in Seoul. Different from public schools, this private “alternative” school followed no government curriculum and didn’t even administer tests or quantitative assessments. The aim of Korean alternative schools is to provide education for students who do not do well in the traditional Korean school system. Each student learns best in his or her own way, and these schools try to identify these differences and help the students thrive. If I had to compare it to something back in the USA, I would say it is similar to a charter school, but it is its own thing in its own right.
Either way, this alternative school had an opening for an English teacher. The position would be responsible for teaching English, but also other subjects in English, such as debate or maybe even science. I would be able to design my own curriculum and even pitch entire courses to the school that I would be able to teach if they were approved. This school’s vision and how they approach education was so different from anything I had ever experienced in Korea that I knew I had to give it a shot, so I applied.
After meeting the departing native English teacher, some of the faculty, and sitting in on classes for a day at the school, I was told that the school couldn’t hire me immediately because of budget reasons, but they wanted me to return in a few months and see how they were doing then. In the meantime, one of the teachers at the alternative school had family in Chiang Mai, so they suggested I look them up to see if we could connect. So, another reason to move to Thailand presented itself, and I took it as a sign.
TL;DR: Digital Nomadism, Alternative Schools, a fantastic holiday, affordable living, and warmer climate all led me to Thailand.
What have I been doing for the past month in Chiang Mai?
I ended up looking up the Korean family in Chiang Mai, and it turns out they own a farm that they are prepping to open for farm stays and spiritual retreats. But before I met up with the family, I had a few days to spend in Chiang Mai on my own, so I hit the Digital Nomad scene, checking out some of the co-working spaces and trying my hand at some web development. I ended up building my own website that I can update and hopefully use later on in life to get some contracts as a digital nomad once I build up my portfolio.
Working at CAMP, co-working space
When I finally met up with the family and moved all of my belongings to the farm, I learned that the husband lived on the farm alone while his wife and three daughters lived in a house closer to downtown Chiang Mai in order to be closer to their school. As a result, I have spent a lot of time with him and less time with the rest of the family. The farm, located in a part of Chiang Mai called Mae Wang (40km from the main city) is called the Eco Healing Farm, and is based on an Eco School that the husband helped run back in Korea.
Natural beauty on the Eco Healing Farm
When the farm is completed, they will offer anywhere from one day stays to month stays where visitors can partake in yoga, meditation, massage, and many other activities around the farm. All food served on the farm will be grown in the organic garden or sourced from local farmers. The farm stay program will serve as a place for visitors to disconnect from the busy world around them and connect with the natural beauty of the Thai countryside.
Beauty around the countryside
But my time on the farm has been spent mostly on construction of guest houses/a clay oven as well as helping the farmer out with a website. While my personal site is fairly basic, I have been working on a website for the farm for much longer. By the time I leave, most of the site will be functional, with the exception of some of the language translations for foreign visitors. On weekends (and when our water pump system breaks…which has happened about three times so far), we visit the rest of his family and see the sites around Chiang Mai or work on the website in the city’s co-working spaces. Either way, I am continuing to learn a lot, from web design all the way to some of the Korean language while volunteering on this farm.
When we are on the farm, we interact with the local community pretty often, from visiting the markets to purchase fresh produce to sitting at restaurants and enjoying a $1 meal. The farmer has been in the area for about a year and a half, so he has built up some great relationships with the locals, even though communicating with a common language is often difficult. But every time we get on his motorbike or in his truck to drive around Mae Wang, the wind rushes past my face and I feel thankful for this opportunity. I’ve started to prefer living and experiencing day to day life in foreign countries over coming as a tourist, so this has definitely been a great decision.
TL;DR: I’ve been volunteering on a farm with construction as well as learning how to code so I can make websites and hopefully eventually become location independent.
What will I do when I leave Thailand?
Unfortunately, my stay in Thailand is limited to 30 days at a time (with an extension opportunity that I didn’t learn about until I had purchased an exit flight already), so I will be leaving Thailand on April 5th. Right now, my next steps are a little bit of a secret that I’ll be using to surprise some people, but suffice it to say I will be staying in Asia.
While I do have some savings, I prefer not to spend so much at a time, so I’ll be looking to live in places that are equally affordable (and perhaps find myself back in Thailand sometime soon). I’m looking to volunteer or find a paid opportunity to do some web design, so if you know anything, let me know!
I’ve also been in contact with the alternative school in Korea and while they are still not ready to bring me on board, it does sound like the opportunity may present itself in the coming months, so I am staying optimistic about that. Until then, I’ll keep a backpack by my side and a sense of adventure in my heart.
TL;DR: Haha, I can’t tell you.
So, that’s my life right now. Love you all! Sorry for the lack of posts!