For thousands of young Westerners, South Korea is an escape from reality. It is a place where money is easy and booze is cheap. By day they toil in crooked cram-schools, teaching the peninsula's violent, video game-obsessed youth. At night they cut loose and embrace Korea's famous drinking culture.

Among these disaffected young teachers is Alexander. Young, naive and a little drunker than most, he is struggling to cope with life on the "wrong side of the world." In The Dog Farm we follow Alex from girl to girl, beer to beer, across Korea, to Japan, and back again, in an unlikely love...