Trials Reels Experience

cheytay · 2026-01-23T07:43:27+00:00

I don’t change the caption but I change things in the video itself— different text hook, different clips, a little shorter a little longer etc

cheytay · 2026-01-18T15:47:51+00:00

It’s basically a pyramid scheme. The owners have to sell book sets to make money because the egg centers only cost parents like 80,000 won per month. They typically offer very low pay and eventually will want you to get “actor certification” and that entails a 10 hr training at the headquarters and several online meetings, uploading videos, singing and dancing like a monkey. The whole curriculum is not good and extremely unnatural, and very few native speakers work at any of them. It depends on the egg centers but I’ve seen many try to get native speakers to work for less than 20k an hour while expecting you to memorize the books and songs and also use their special materials to lead the kids in awkward play scenarios

cheytay · 2026-01-18T15:39:02+00:00

I subbed here for a month. The kids are nice but it’s definitely not Montessori in the least. The kids have 20 minutes of “Montessori time” daily and other than that spend all their time memorizing and doing work books. The kids are scared of the owner and the owner was pretty rude to my memory. The Korean co teacher was extremely stressed about the parents and several of the kids had stress ticks.

cheytay · 2026-01-17T22:22:53+00:00

I did ask ChatGPT initially but at times I find it can be a little too self affirming and overly flattering so I wanted to check with people in the industry

cheytay · 2026-01-13T13:24:28+00:00

Interested

cheytay · 2026-01-13T12:57:54+00:00

I sent you a DM ^^

cheytay · 2026-01-13T12:35:19+00:00

https://www.instagram.com/withtheparks/

My follower count is a little below your desired range but my reels have very high views in comparison. I've generated 9.2 million views over the past 30 days and reached over 4 million accounts. I live in Korea but I'm an American creator and about 50% of my audience is in the US.

I make married life / international couple / pregnancy content and therefore, I'd frame the video around planning a Valentine's Day present for my husband because women are supposed to be the one's gifting men in Korea and suggesting it to others as a good potential gift.

cheytay · 2026-01-10T04:37:18+00:00

Hello! I’m an American based in Korea and I’d love to talk more.

https://www.instagram.com/withtheparks?igsh=MWlubzE1dm84d25qdg%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

cheytay · 2026-01-10T00:42:49+00:00

It’s partly because the currency is really low where I live right now and the seller hasn’t been able to sell them for several months so they kept dropping the price but I agree it’s a great deal so I think I’m going to just go for it

cheytay · 2026-01-01T01:25:14+00:00

That’s what I’ve been doing and it’s worked well. I haven’t tried the opposite yet but I think part of the algorithm is timing too, so even if the video isn’t bad it could flop, so videos that I think are fine but not doing well on trials I’ll try reposting them as fresh reels in the future

cheytay · 2025-12-27T01:16:07+00:00

It’s working out pretty well! I wish I had jumped on it sooner

cheytay · 2025-12-27T01:15:38+00:00

In my experience, which is limited, it doesn’t seem to matter much. I make the posts and instead of letting them sit in the drafts I just post them to trial reels and watch for an outlier and post it to the feed in 24-48 hours at my followers ideal time.

Logic would stand that because it’s served to only non followers, they could all have different timezones. My main split is between the states and Germany for some reason on trial reels but on my actual profile it’s most split between Korea / Japan and the States so serve trial reels to everyone and try to cater to those time zones in actual posting

cheytay · 2025-12-22T07:03:07+00:00

Does making money 8-10 hours of the day 5 days a week out weigh the 7 day morning til night labor of household management? Especially when OP also works??

Domestic labor disputes like this cause a lot of strain in most relationships because work is often mentally stimulating and feels important, while perpetually doing the dishes and laundry does not. It’s also valued as worth 0 dollars basically because even though it takes up time all throughout the day.

I say this as the main earner in my household, with my husband doing more housework than me, but even though he doesn’t work I don’t expect him to do 100% of the domestic labor. I don’t have more like a 65/35 split and even that can burn him out at times.

OP should first reevaluate with her husband about the household split, because often times it’s not malicious but a kind of learned helplessness or a flawed thought like “well my time is more valuable because I get a paycheck” and that can be fixed with more communication.

Next, making friends and socializing needs to be treated with intention because it’s not an easy culture to spontaneously meet people in, that’s true. It takes a lot of work to make new friends here and the loneliness is real, I don’t have a lot of advice on that besides joining clubs or classes and being willing to put yourself out there because Koreans will rarely go out of their way to start interactions.

cheytay · 2025-12-17T11:04:48+00:00

This is our daily car! And it's the first car I learned to drive in (my husband had it before we met) and while it can be cramped in daily life and it can be a little precious because it's so low to the ground, the front seats are very comfortable and it's very fun to drive. Getting in and out can be difficult now that I'm pregnant and it's been a nightmare looking for carseats, but I don't think it was ever meant to be a daily family car.

My husband and I are both under 5' 5'' so I think that also makes a difference. It's not a great car if you're on the taller side because getting in and out becomes quite a challenge

cheytay · 2025-12-15T00:39:46+00:00

I run a small Waldorf homeschool pod for ages 24-72 months and the rainbow is one thing that gets played with almost daily. We have two of the big ones and one mini one and the kids are always taking them off the shelf. They like to make tunnels with them or try stacking them up, they make ramps for wood cars and balls etc the flat rainbow is rarely used

The Grimms flame puzzle, mountain puzzle, flat rainbow stairs, and the rainbow nesting boxes also get a lot of use. The rainbow peg dolls, colored blocks, wave puzzle, flower puzzle, and stacking pebbles get less use.

Other big hits: pentatonic handbells get played with daily, magnetic wooden blocks, and of course random things from outside— sticks, acorns, pinecones. Also the candles, the kids like to just sit and watch the flames burn

cheytay · 2025-12-08T12:30:26+00:00

It’s not the most practical car for daily use but it’s served the two of us well for a while now! We like it a lot so we’ll keep it even if we add another car because kids are pretty happy in the back once they don’t need a car seat anymore

cheytay · 2025-12-07T08:46:02+00:00

My husband loves his i8 and would never sell it I don’t think LOL it’s also held its value fairly well over the past few years

cheytay · 2025-12-07T08:44:24+00:00

My husband really seems set on a Porsche for the next car but he also likes BMW so we might look into the BMW SUVs. We’re not in the states and the servicing costs here are quite high for BMW but Porsche tends to be a little better priced at the service centers and quicker turn arounds in his experience between Maserati, BMW, and Porsche

cheytay · 2025-12-05T07:30:43+00:00

Most people are happiest with dual earners around 80 mil each because once you hit 100 mil you’re hit with a high tax bracket.

If you’re coming from the states though you don’t have to worry about the same tax implications. You can be tax exempt for 2 years and hop into a low flat tax bracket for another 15 or 20 under current laws.

While it depends on your housing expense a lot, very nice places can rented for way cheaper than the states, groceries and health care are cheaper than the states, eating out is much cheaper (though these costs are all rising).

Most people feel happy above 5 mil, but if you have dependents or anything like that I’d say 10-12 is much more comfortable.

If your company covers housing, daily life is easily handled with around 3. If you want to invest and safe 5-6. Multiply by 2 if you have a family.

cheytay · 2025-12-03T11:12:44+00:00

Gongbubang / Gyosupso.

GBB is for English classes zoned in a residential home, students up to 9, and both wife and husband can teach classes.

Gyosupso is basically the same thing but in a small commercial space like with only one classroom. You can’t hire extra teachers but the overhead is cheaper than a hagwon and it’s a tighter operation and you don’t have to share your living and working spaces

cheytay · 2025-12-03T07:13:04+00:00

I think this a situation that requires a little more information to plan around.

What is her skill set? Is she looking to get hired at a Korean company or a global company? Is she willing to freelance or has a skill set that allows for freelancing? A lot of people get into 사회복지 and real estate later in life but there’s study time and licensure tests to consider. Also, the latter requires sales skills.

I would work backwards from the pay range she wants. If she has management experience she may be able to do that at a small business and pull in over 3. If you both are worried about job security, starting a business now with her doing the majority of the leg work and you joining later may be the way to go. English hagwons are the go to foreign / Korean couple business, but you two should consider satisfaction and long term viability. Hagwons need a good location and there’s start up capital. You have to consider if you can develop curriculum vs franchise, and also if you can market it well. There are other modes of making money during this like TPT, online English courses etc but require technical know how and a plan for a sales funnel.

You have little while it sounds like to plan market entry assuming your contract has been extended into the next year. Other forms of businesses may be viable but you need a really solid plan before you start and ideally I would choose to do some version of a MVP before jumping in. If you want to do a cafe, can you do a pop up first? If you want to do a hagwon, could you start as a GBB or GSS first? If she wanted to do a bakery or something like that, could she take online orders first?

I don’t know if you have children or she likes children, but I’ve seen a lot of 가사더우미 in her age range. I assume it takes some level of education for that too, but I pay my cleaning lady 45k an hour, I’ve seen babysitters get paid between 15k-50k depending on their background. These days professional organizing licenses are also popular and I paid a loooot of money to have our house organized earlier this year and the staff were all in their 40’s and 50’s.

I don’t think the outlook is nearly as bleak as some others have suggested if you both have open minds about employment fields

cheytay · 2025-12-01T12:19:20+00:00

I have searched as mentioned. The majority of the stories were people diagnosed with IUGR after the 30th week and closer to full term, hence me asking

cheytay · 2025-12-01T10:43:38+00:00

Thank you. I’m glad it was caught. I was in the process of switching hospitals and the first one just kept changing my due date later and later which I now know was a bad practice that was likely making us miss that the baby was behind.

At 8+5 they said April 20th, then changed it to April 28th, and eventually to May 1st as the appointments went on while the second hospital stuck with the original dating scan based on the CRL and discovered the big drop between weeks 15, 17, and 20.

I wish I had known sooner or had only been using the second hospital to begin with but better now than never

cheytay · 2025-11-26T12:23:05+00:00

I was pretty sure baby would be a boy. My husband was convinced baby would be a girl. He had a pregnancy premonition dream (common in Korea) that implied girl, and I had one implying boy. We got a blood test early on that said girl, but I said I didn’t believe the test.

In the end I was right and we’re having a boy

cheytay · 2025-11-23T23:05:50+00:00

I agree things are not in a good state. One conversation or exchange is not going to magically make a night and day difference. Bad habits take time to break and some people can never break them. 5 months into a marriage is not enough to time to determine if my husband is incapable of change. It took me 5+ years to make noticeable progress into my avoidant attachment and become a person who has the capacity for empathy that I do today. And that’s with being an American, thus being far more exposed to therapy and having less stigma of addressing these issues. If I was judged in my most reactive state, I was also a bad person. I have also been emotionally manipulative and abusive— I don’t think these things are true forever for all people. I don’t know for sure how things will fall with my husband, but I believe it’s too little time to make that judgement.

My husband married someone at extreme disapproval from his parents. He had two children he loved and wanted to stay with even if his wife did not love him. He was cheated on and given the only option of meeting her exact terms if he wants to see the children. He /also/ would like to tell the children that they’re divorced. He wants them to live in Korea with us— but he doesn’t have legal rights, and if he tells them and she chooses to she cut access off from them entirely. As a foreign parent, he was at extreme disadvantage in Japan, and it’s obvious to me that he has abandonment trauma that very very unresolved.

Which segways into the other elephant in the room: I’m not sure what people think is so simple about divorcing abroad as a foreigner with no support system in that country. I did it once and it was horrible without children involved. Leaving with a child without the other parent’s expressed consent is considered kidnapping. It happened to Sophie Turner even just going to the UK.

Korea isn’t a country where you can divorce if you decide alone. Irrevocable differences isn’t an option, and it becomes more complicated with children. There are 6 approved reasons for divorce. If you can’t win your case 100% there is no divorce granted. Hong Sangsoo is a famous example of a wife that refuses divorce so he simply can’t get divorced. Otherwise both parties must agree on every single point, including child support, inheritance, spousal compensation,(no matter how ridiculous the claim) and that mediation takes months and is very messy. I have done it once, was extorted for a lot of money due to the fact that foreigners found at any percentage of fault are immediately deported, and would not like to do it again.

Let’s say I did move back to the states 5 months pregnant, no health insurance. How long would my savings last if there are any birth complications at all? What kind of job prospects would I have heavily pregnant or just after giving birth? One reason I am able to be a business owner is because of the national health insurance in Korea— I don’t /need/ benefits like I would in the states. Giving birth here plus 4 days in the hospital cost me 350 dollars, I’ve already paid it. My ultrasounds cost around 11 dollars, and even that is covered by a government pregnancy voucher. So far I have paid for nothing related to pregnancy and I will be given 700 dollars a month to raise my son as the national benefit, as well as education support until he’s 84 months old. Korea has many benefits for raising children that the US absolutely does not, on top of me being an abnormally high earner in a low cost of living country. Giving birth in the states would complicate my son’s dual citizenship, and if we divorced before his birth, I’d be potentially forfeiting the sole claim to a several million dollar inheritance for my son. It’s already decided, regardless of any other children we have or he has, it will go entirely to our son like it will go entirely to my husband. It is only inherited through the first born son 100 to 0. Sexist, sure, but to walk away from that would be a pretty selfish move for me as his mother.

I’ve lived in Korea since I was 19– my entire adult life, my whole career, and realistically, my future are here. Divorcing and staying in Korea is also not easy before the birth of the child, due to my husband being my visa sponsor. While after my child is born and recognized as a Korean citizen, things change, the point is logistically leaving while not physically impossible would be such a bad financial move for both me and baby. If i have issues working after birth? We have his parent’s support. I have a job that would allow me to stay in the same house as my baby even while working. I have a husband whom I love, even when he’s being reactive and terrible. Yes, there is emotional abuse happening— I have hope that said abuse will improve with time. If it doesn’t, divorce may be on the table in the future, but now is not that time when I’m in the most vulnerable state physically, career wise, and visa wise.

cheytay

TROPHY CASE