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My story in a nutshell is that I want to teach English as a "foreign" language or EFL abroad. I want a city that is diverse, somewhat progressive, yet laid-back and genuinely friendly or welcoming. It would have to also be a place with good health care and a minimal amount of air and water pollution, since I have multiple chemical sensitivities or environmental illness.
I've heard that Argentina and Chile are good to ok. If environmental sensitivities are a problem for you--asia is out. You can forget the EU because of work visa problems and oodles of Brits with EU citizenship.
Actually, you might want to consider central asia. There is some real demand for EFL teachers there due to the gas and oil boom, and the environment isn't urban, hence polluted. Khazakstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan. Also Ukrania. Possibly Russia if you're willing. There is some money to be made in Novsibirsk and other Russian locations.
Not sure what you mean by "progressive", that's a western value. Doubt you'll find that in any clean country looking for foreign EFL teachers. Good health care in these places can also be iffy.
You can teach EFL in obscure places and make a living.....or you can live a progressive environmentally healthy lifestyle--at home. You can't have it both ways.
The city itself is, of course, the opposite of "laid back", but in all the surrounding residential suburbs there are peace and quiet and trees and birds chirping, little neighborhood shrines, and tiny magical mom n pop-type restaurants where you can hang and let them "adopt" you and teach you a bit of language and culture.
The Japanese themselves are almost all welcoming, friendly and warm to foreigners who try to be polite, speak some Japanese, and learn some of their ways. They love foreigners who do that. And the Japanese in those little residential neighborhoods will treat you like royalty. As for air, sound, light, chemical and etc. conditions, the Japanese have done wonders with their world in the past 20 years and are, in a cultural commitment, very sensitive to pollution.
There is constant, intense demand in Tokyo for American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealander and British TEFL teachers.
Well, I would go to Russia, Ukraine, or maybe Central Asia, but then again I have pretty good conversational Russian myself.
Moscow is not squeaky-clean, but when I have been there, not bad, from an environmental point of view. And Kiev is beatiful. Pictures of Kazakhstan I have seen are impressive, but I have not been there (yet).
Seoul is ferociously polluted, some of the worst in asia. I've know people who taught EFL there as Korea has a big demand for English teachers.
Korean households burn raw coal. The air is acrid.
Where on earth did they live in Seoul!?? I was in Seoul for a few months and I LOVED it. I stayed a posh district, but I did travel around the city. The traffic was terrible (as in many big cities) but the air and the entire city were incredibly clean and well kept. The city is very modern in the places I visited. ULTRA-modern compared to places like NY where we have mostly older buildings. The architecture and technology are really awe-inspiring. I love tall buildings
Not to mention Korean guys in general are very cute (fuller lips and butts and nice teeth, which are HIGH on the list of goodies).
Fun
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Koreans love to dance and the culture seems really music-oriented. That means even R&B, techno and classical music. There are dance clubs to have fun if you like club dancing. If you like to SHOP, there is lots of cute stuff to buy.
If you are a girl you will LOVE dressing up in Seoul. You can dress like a DOLL and get away with it. I'm not kidding, even adult women wear cutsie clothes with ruffles and lace and ribbons on them. . . But with Heels. Better yet "mules" which almost all girls wear because you need to take your shoes off before sitting at the restaurant or entering a home.
DoreBang - Karaoke in little rooms. I actually prefer to sing my karaoke in front of drunk strangers, but lots of Koreans go to little rooms to sing karaoke with just friends. If you are bored, you can always go by yourself and sing some English songs .
Hiking
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You can hike up to the mountains in Seoul esp. as the summer gets really hot and Humid. I went to a mountain near the city. There were lots of people, and a long, fun and tiring climb to the cool summit. Lots of "tents" set up with street food, cool things to buy and a spring with real mountain spring water. Maybe I'm easy to please, but I had a blast.
Drinking
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Korean guys like to Drink. I think young girls go out and drink a lot, too. But make sure you go out in a group and don't take guys home. The country has a lot of Christians who stay virgins until marriage. That's for girls AND guys. Ppl usually go out in groups, and only as a couple after marriage or on a DATE (setup to pick a husband or wife). You can drink a lot and stagger home with your friends, and SOJU whiskey costs very little and will help you eat the weird. ..
Korean FOOD
Is interesting and delicious! Food is soo much cheaper than in the US so you can eat out every day. The food I like the most is spicy and sour, but there is mildly-flavored food and cuisine from all over the world. Ppl in Seoul love Italian food and the ice-cream is delicious. The only thing that's hard to get, I think is maybe steak and potatoes. But you can eat blugogi or the barbeque that you make right in the restaurant. You get 6-12 little "sidedishes" with your meals and some of them are weird. Tiny raw fish covered in chile But most are like "tapas" and "pickles." I am sure if I had drunk enough SOJU some of the weird food would have been just fine
I would definitely go to South Korea to teach English. I can pretty much guarantee you'll have a great time. While you are there, I recommend learning some Korean. I studied both Japanese and Korean (not that I speak either of them) but the words are very similar with more drawling accent for Korean.
You can just go to Brazil on spec, and find a place you like, and ask around. I was offered several jobs there teaching English. Brazil would be a very nice country to live in. The pay for teaching English in Chile is very low, but I don't know about Argentina.
I spoke to a number of Americans in Korea that were there to teach English, and most of them complained that when they got there, their employers reneged on a lot of the conditions that they expected, and their living conditions were less than they expected.
In some countries where English is already a pretty strong second language, you might be offered a job as a full-time teacher in an all-English private regular school, if you have a fairly well-rounded education, no certificate required.
I've known of a few Americans who've had a tremendous experience teaching English in Seoul. Might be worth a look.
There is a whole section on the US State Department website for South Korea on Americans teaching English in Korea. While I know of people that found it rewarding, I have also heard from a number of people that it was far less satisfactory.
Check out the website for a balanced presentation:
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