Daily Life as a Nepali Worker

The money works. That is why people come, and for most workers it does what they hoped. What actually decides whether four years in Korea go well is rarely the wage - it is the accommodation, the shift pattern, and whether you build any life outside the factory.

This page is the living side. The law is at your rights as a worker, and the visa is at EPS: working in Korea.

Housing, and what can be deducted

Most EPS workers live in accommodation provided by the employer, often a dormitory on or near the site, sometimes shared rooms.

Two rules protect you. A deduction for accommodation must be agreed and documented, not simply taken from your wages - if a figure appears on your payslip that was never in your contract, that is a question to ask. And accommodation is expected to be a habitable building with heating, sanitation and reasonable occupancy. There have been well-publicised cases of agricultural workers housed in unheated temporary structures, with fatal results in winter.

Unfit accommodation is a complaint you can make, and it is also one of the employer-fault grounds that can justify a workplace transfer without using up your allowance. Photograph it. Making a complaint in Korea covers filing.

If you find your own place instead, read renting in Korea first, because the deposit system puts a very large sum in a landlord's hands.

Hours, and the honest picture

Overtime is where the money is, and most workers want it. That is legitimate, and so is the fact that there are limits on weekly hours and that overtime, night and holiday work all carry premiums on top of your ordinary rate.

The thing worth being careful about is the difference between wanting overtime and not being able to refuse it. Keep your own daily record of hours worked, in your own handwriting or on your phone, from your first week. It costs nothing, and it is what turns an unpaid-overtime claim from your word into a case. Wages, overtime and severance covers how the premiums are calculated.

Food

Easier than most people expect. Korean and Nepali cooking share more than they differ on - rice as the base, lentils, plenty of chilli, pickles alongside the meal - and the staples are cheap here.

	Where
Rice, lentils, vegetables, chilli	Any supermarket or market, cheap
Nepali and South Asian groceries	Shops in the migrant quarters, and online delivery nationwide
Buffalo and goat	Halal and South Asian butchers in the larger migrant areas
Nepali restaurants	Concentrated in Ansan and the bigger cities
Cheap everyday eating	Company canteen, convenience stores, local restaurants

Ansan functions as the centre of migrant life in Korea, with a multicultural quarter where Nepali grocers, restaurants and gathering places are easy to find. Even if you are placed far away, the online shops deliver spices and pulses anywhere in the country, which matters in a small town.

Note that beef is not a question here the way it is at home - Korean restaurants serve pork and beef widely, and buffalo is uncommon. Ask what is in a dish if it matters to you.

Saving, and sending money home

This is why you are here, so treat it with the same seriousness as the job.

Compare the total cost of a transfer, not the advertised fee - the exchange rate margin is usually the larger number. Licensed operators built for the Nepal corridor are generally far cheaper than a bank, and they are regulated. Informal channels through an acquaintance carry no protection and are illegal.

Expect transfer limits on a new account until you provide employment documents, which catches almost everyone trying to send a first salary. It is removable. Banking in Korea covers lifting them, and Nepal-Korea services covers the operators.

One honest piece of advice: decide a monthly amount to send and a monthly amount to keep, before the salary arrives. Workers who remit everything have no buffer for a hospital bill, a flight home for a family emergency, or the gap between workplaces.

Winter, and safety

Two things that genuinely hurt people.

Korean winters are colder than anything in most of Nepal, and the risk is not discomfort but inadequate heating in poor accommodation and inadequate clothing on an outdoor site. Buy proper winter clothing early, not in January.

Industrial safety matters because foreign workers are over-represented in serious workplace injuries here. You are entitled to protective equipment and to training you can actually understand, and raising an unsafe task is not insubordination. If you are injured, make sure it is recorded as work-related at the very first medical visit - industrial accident compensation covers the worker regardless of status, and reclassifying an injury later is far harder. An employer offering cash to keep it off the books is protecting themselves. Making an insurance claim covers the claim.

The part nobody prepares for

Isolation. A worker placed alone in a small industrial town, working long shifts, with limited Korean and family thousands of kilometres away, is in a genuinely hard situation, and it affects a lot of people.

What helps is ordinary and worth doing deliberately: find the nearest Nepali community, however small, and go to things. Temples, football matches, Dashain and Tihar gatherings, regional associations. Learn some Korean, which changes your relationship with the people around you more than anything else. And use the counselling services - public mental health centres operate in every district and migrant support centres offer counselling, free.

The Nepali community in Korea covers where to find people, and learning Korean covers the language.

Where this goes wrong

• Accommodation deductions never agreed in writing.
• No record of hours. It is the whole basis of an overtime claim.
• Remitting everything and keeping no buffer.
• Informal money transfer. Illegal, unprotected.
• Hiding a workplace injury. The cover is yours regardless of status.
• Buying winter clothing in winter.
• Never leaving the dormitory. Four hard years instead of a manageable one.

Where to go next

EPS: working in Korea covers the visa and the payout, and the Nepali community covers building a life outside work.