BURNED BY BRYAN KANG
Just a note to anyone thinking of joining BRYS Foreign Language Institute in Taejon. The hagwan owner is known as BRYAN KANG and has a history of foreign worker abuse, mistreatment and theft. Just look at any site to view some of the remarks over this man.
I myself worked for Kang for 5 months and witnessed the condecension and negative environment of this school. Staff turnover was high. I left at 'midnight' to work in Seoul in order to salvage some visage of decency and experience from my stay. Avoid him and his school.
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Bryan Kang has more bad reports about him than the current Iraqi regime. He has been accused of all sorts of dodgy acts from on seeling teachers to other schools without their prior consent, to firing teachers with no warning, to providing sub standard accomodation. One person even claims they watched him kill a dog one day for kicks. Be very careful if dealing with this guy.
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I sent my original diploma to a recruiting firm in Seoul. I saw never saw it again. I sent Bryan Kang of Lecture Korea a duplicate issued by my university. Bryan assured me that when I got to Korea, he would go with me to the school that has my original. That never happened.
The longer I waited, the better the chance that diploma would disappear. So I went with a Korean friend to Seoul. We got the runaround. We were running out of time and money. So I had my Korean friend call Bryan, who says, "He can call me himself. I don't have to deal with you. You're just a third person." But I had already called and emailed Bryan several times. I spent a lot of money in Seoul. He's been there several times and has the experience to deal with these things. Then he calls me and tells me I should be in class instead of in Seoul tending to personal business. I was in Seoul because he didn't get that diploma back.
Nor am I the only person he has done this to. There was an identical situation with one of Bryan's own teachers, who kept asking Bryan to go to Immigration and get his diploma back. Finally he goes and gets it himself. So when Bryan shows up, the people at the Immigration office look and look and can't find the diploma. Finally they discover that the teacher has already signed for it, and start giving Bryan a hard time. Bryan is upset because he lost face at Immigration. He gives the teacher a hard time. The teacher was already disturbed at the way Bryan treated the person discussed below. He decides he's had enough. They part company.
While I was getting ready to come to Korea, he called me up and talked me into taking a position in his town instead of the one in Seoul, so I could recruit for him. He did something similar to another one of his teachers. As the teacher's contract renewal approached, he said, "You're the only one of my teachers who's completed his contract," and invited him to recruit. After signing another contract and bringing several teachers to Korea, he was abruptly told that he was out of recruiting. He was never compensated for his recruiting work. Meanwhile, I referred several candidates to him and told him, "Don't worry about the money. Just get my diploma back. That'll be enough for now."
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After I blacklisted Bryan Kang of Lecture Korea and BRYS, a teacher I mentioned left. Mr. Kang called a friend of teacher X on a Sunday night at midnight and said, "Where's teacher X." You would think that Mr. Kang would figure it out when I appealled to him a couple of times to get his act together before I blacklisted him. You would think he would sober up after being blacklisted. After teacher X did the midnight run, did he sit down and ask himself, "What am I doing wrong that one of my teachers would run away from me?" Apparently not. After he left, Teacher X got an email from another one of Mr. Kang's teachers. Teacher Y finished her contract with Mr. Kang, applied elsewhere, and was offered the position, only to be told that her visa was being held up. A Korean friend checked with Immigration and discovered that Mr. Kang is at it again. 4 teachers and 2 recruiters. But I keep thinking that he's going to figure it out. He's much savvier than your average recruiter. After speaking with him for only a few minutes, it was obvious that he knew exactly what he was doing. If you want to get to Korea, he's your man. This is assuming he's still recruiting. He told teacher X he wasn't doing any recruiting. After hearing this, I called him and asked if it was true. He told me he was still recruiting. So where were his ads? I keep hoping for Mr. Kang. Maybe not. Maybe he's just a snake.
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I too was s______ by Bryan Kang a few years ago. I thought he might have changed but I can see that he has not. He ripped me off for thousands of dollars by firing me 9, yes 9 days days before my contract was fulfilled. I hate the fact that he kept telling me how he was a Christian. Yeah, right! Please do not take a job with this man, he is bad news.
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I also had the displeasure of working for Bryan Kang for one year. In fact, he thought that I did such a great job that I was the first foreigner ever to receive a bonus. Then, he went and tried to prevent me from obtaining employment with other schools for no reason. Hey! what should we expect from a guy like Kang anyway. At BRYS, lies, deceit and treachery are the order of the day. If ever there was a case of Mad Hakwan Disease then BRYS is the epitome of it.
When I first arrived at BRYS, five Korean lady teachers walked out for apparent bad treatment and two British teachers were immediately sold into indentured servitude to other Hakwans. So much for first impressions. Kang called an emergency meeting to lay out his spiel about "the Brys system" and how well it was working. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions on that one.
We were housed in an apartment complex conveniently adjacent to the security guards who reported back to Kang on our comings and goings. Conditions in the apartment were horrendous. There was mold in the ventilation shaft which later resulted in a fellow-teacher contracting Fungal pneumonia. He was hospitalized for one week and accrued a 2.0 million won hospital bill. As there was no medical insurance, Kang offered to pay the bill provided that my colleague pay him back the principal plus interest. Can you imagine?
Weekly meetings at BRYS were a dreadful ordeal. Kang would often allege that the parents of the students would call in to complain about the teaching methods of certain foreign teachers. Once, I asked the lady Manager if this was true, she irrevocably denied that such phone calls ever took place. It was just another lie hatched by Kang. Foreign teachers were reprimanded at great length for as little as leaving a pencil in a classroom. This was an absolutely heinous crime at BRYS.
Any foreigner or even Korean for who works for this institute will be treated badly no matter how hard you work or how much ability you have. Foreigners take heed; Kang has a 101 ways to cheat you out of your hard-earned money and he enjoys all the conveniences of home field advantage. If you have a contract pushed your way at BRYS, don't even think about putting your signature on it.
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I knew almost from the start that there was something rotten with the kimchi at BRYS Foreign Language Institute in Taejon. Five Korean teachers left without warning and two British teachers were sold into indentured servitude to other Hagwan owners. This was done in order to prevent foreign teachers from getting their bonus as well as their round-trip airfare. Are you catching my drift?
There were a host of violations of the Korean Labour Code committed at BRYS and lies, deceit and corruption were the order of the day. The Director would pretend that the students parents would phone in to complain about certain teachers methodologies. Upon asking the Korean teacher who alled=gedly took the call if this was true, she irrevocably denied that such a call ever took place.
The accomodations were absolutely horrendous. One colleague of mine was housed in a dungeon-like apartment that resembled a burned-out rats nest. There was a fungus in the air vents which caused him to contract Pneumonia and he was hospitalized for a week. He had to pay all of his medical bills since there was no medical insurance provided by the Director.
He even attempted to persuade a Korean lady teacher to move into the foreign teachers residence. When she refused, she was immediately sold to another Hagwan owner. Government officials were routinely bribed in order for special favors at immigration and the Department of Education. Bribes were also given to the security guards in order to report on our comings and goings.
Other instances of irregularities consisted of late pay. The Director would often pay us late and hge would fudge the books in order to swindle us out of our hard-earned money. Once he had the audacity to tell me that since the deposit was already made for the day, it would cost him 600 won (50 cents) to withdraw the funds so I would just have to wait. Please avoid dealings with this school at all costs. Any questions, please direct them to me:
Phil Sheridan
expat@yahoo.com
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I worked for Bryan Kang one year. He got one of the teachers at his school to recruit a teacher for one of his friends. Turns out the teacher had a disability. The director refused to hire him, and also refused to pay Kang the airfare. So Kang took the airfare out of the teacher's paycheck (the one who did the recruiting.) I would stay far away from this person.
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I have been watching this discussion between all the foreigners and I can tell you that you are not the only ones to be treated badly by BRYS. I am a Korean male teacher who worked for Mr. Kang for awhile and he treated Koreans who are his own people equally as bad. He came to me as person who asked me to help him to take care of our children and to teach them some English. Later on he asked me to help him with a recruiting business he had. The recruiting was not good and so he fired me. I felt the least thing that he could have done if he was really about the Koreans children education was to let me teach again. But no, he fired me and a lot of other good people. It hurts me as a Korean to talk about our own people this way but it is all true. Foreigners and Koreans should not work at BRYS!
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I've been reading the posts about BRYS too, and there have been several strings. Sounds like this guy has burned every teacher and recruiter who has ever worked for him. You might be interested in knowing that the first thing Mr. Kang bragged to me when he tried to get me to recruit for him is how much money he makes, and you'd fall out of your chair if I told you. The second thing he bragged to me is that he wasn't on any of the blacklists.
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I was thinking about getting on the message board to say, "I was wrong about Mr. Kang." But I hadn't checked Dave's in a while and wasn't sure if anyone was still interested. What do I see but Kiss X using the blacklists I compiled about BRYS and Mr. Kang as a statement about recruiters. I thought that maybe he was a little shady but that surely I could bring him around. I believed in this man. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, and every chance. I was wrong, terribly wrong. It appears that he's burned everyone who's ever worked for him. His recruiting site, by the way, www.lecturekorea.com, was down last I saw. In his heyday as a recruiter, he was making a staggering amount of money. So don't feel sorry for him if he gets driven out of hagwon business. Not if he gets written up on the front page of the Korean Herald and becomes the scurge of all Korea. If you're interested in the figure for his recruiting income, he claims I'm the only one he ever told.
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Well, BRYS is at again. Two more teachers packed up and left and that leaves just one die-hard Australian left. Bryan Kang will just never learn that he cannot treat foreigners badly and expect to get away with it. Obviously, he will not learn. Obviously, he thinks he can and will treat people badly. Obviously, he is not getting away with it. The Chickens are coming home to roost at BRYS.
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Only one Aussie left? Kang must be getting desperate as he always used to say he would never hire anyone from Australia because, having watched an Aussie movie once, he couldn't understand their accent. Still pales in comparison to his "South Africans talk with Jamaican accents" lunacy though.
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Well Brys is at it yet again. They have such a high turnover of foreign teachers. Makes you wonder why they are advertising every six months or so? I worked there, so I don't wonder. Do NOT work for this man Bryan Kang. You have been warned. "No weekend work"...that's a laugh.
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Brys Hagwon. That has to be the worst hagwon in Taejeon. The owner Mr. Kang (even by hakwon director standards) treats foreigners badly. He has a reputation even among his peers for that. I'm not surprised he can't keep teachers. To date I don't know one person who finished his contract there.
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I was interested in BRYS myself and went to Taejun to speak with Bryan Kang, before I happened to read all the messages concerning him and the school. I only spoke with him for a little while, but, I thought then, so far so good. What would I expect as a teacher? Important thing is: will I get paid on time? If this isn't a good hagwon, can anyone recommend a GOOD one (reliable, on time, etc.) around the area between Taejun and Seoul? [Recommendations, experiences, and suggestions are invited. I understand that actual job openings and specific contact information cannot be posted here]. I'm here, so I'd contact them directly and save the academy all the fees. They go for that sometimes. Thanks!
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If you are concerned about being paid on time, don't go there. In all the time I worked there, I was only paid on time about 50%. Then there were all these "funny" deductions.....
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There's more. I know of 3 teachers, two I know personally, who haven't chimed in on Mr. Kang because they want to put the experience behind them. In the meantime, it should be interesting to see how he operates one of the largest language schools in Daejon without any teachers who speak English as their native language.
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