Paju English Village

I spent a year living in the city of Paju, just north of Seoul and it wasn’t until I was about to leave that I finally visited English Village for the first time.  I had heard rumors about this place from the very start of my time in Paju.  Apparently, there was an area set up to look like a foreign village and acted as an education centre for students to learn English.  I found out later on that there were quite a number of these all over Korea. 

One of my friends from Paju taught at a school that was quite close to the English Village and a few times a year, she was responsible for taking her students to the English Village as an after school activity.

When I finally went to explore this place, I was quite surprised at how empty and different it was from what I had imagined.  I had heard rumors that there were up to 300 foreign native English teachers that lived within the village and they were known as edutainers, since they acted as part time theme park employees and part time teachers. 

Within English Village, was a little area called Provence, which is where I spent the afternoon having lunch and walking around.  Provence is lined with colourful shops and restaurants and appeared to be the busiest place within the village.

I am honestly not sure about this whole English Village set up.  I understand the point and I do applaud the effort to create an English environment for its citizens but this place looks like a great deal of money went into building it, but yet I don’t think anyone is really reaping the rewards.  It is also not the most convenient place to get to.  From Geumchon, we took a 20 minute taxi to English Village and on the way back, we tried to take a bus, but we waited for about 30 minutes without seeing one, so in the end, we grabbed a taxi to return to Geumchon as well.

Paju English Village
Address: 40 Eoreumsil-ro, Tanhyeon-myeon, Paju-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
Phone:+82 1588-0554