Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Jondo]

I’m a Korean American male living in Seoul. Even I find it really hard sometimes. People cutting me off, barging into me and blatantly staring for a long time even after I’ve looked back at them. Today, I went to the local barber. I saw 3 customers inside and I knew I’d get stared at even though I am Korean, so I made it a point to slowly announce my presence in order to give the customers enough time to stare at me come in and then get back to whatever they were doing. So I opened the door slowly and walked in while the whole time I looked at the barber lady who knows me well. Ie. I was looking away from the customers. But when I entered and spoke to the lady barber one guy my age who was waiting for his haircut turned his head to stare at me. I knew he was staring so I gave him enough time to turn away and then walked in his direction to sit down in the waiting area where he was sitting. But when I got there he was still staring at me. So I returned his stare, but he kept staring at me. I felt uncomfortable and so I averted my gaze. I was talking to the lady barber so I did not want to look at the rude guy and not look at the lady barber who I was speaking with. I still do not know the reason why he stared at me for so long. Was he challenging or disrespecting me? I do not think he was curious, since I am Korean and was speaking fluent Korean with the lady barber. I also visited Canada a few weeks ago. Some young Korean woman at a train station food court was walking towards me but about 3 meters right of me. Suddenly she walked diagonally towards me with her food tray and blatantly cut me off so that I had to immediately stop in order to avoid bumping into her. I was dragging along my big suitcase. She then promptly sat down next to her husband and started eating. I was so angry, that I walked towards their table and in front of the husband I calmly and in a low tone told her in English that she was rude and needed to learn some manners. She looked down at her food and said nothing. I walked away thinking that was that, but her husband chased after me and loudly demanded in a most arrogant tone where I was from. As he stormed after me he yelled "HEY HEY, where are you from?! Where are you From?! I am from Korea! Where are you from?!" He got right in front of me and said his wife had not seen me, which is a total lie because she clearly had because she had all the time in the world to see me, before she cut me off. And besides, he was sitting at his table and so had not seen what was going on. He then once again yelled in a loud and arrogant commanding voice demanding to know where I was from. I told him I was from New York and he laughed. He then made physically intimidating gestures by pretending to punch me with his arm. He then demanded to know if I wanted to fight him. I was so embarrassed because we were in a very quiet Western food court with civilized people quietly shopping and eating. So I told him in an even toned yet disgusted voice that I did not want to talk to him, let alone look at him, cos he was a barbarian. He then told me I was a barbarian. I made some monkey grunting noises to imitate his pretending to punch me with his arm. He then laughed and walked away and I walked out of the food court without buying anything, because I was so disgusted. About 10 minutes later I went back, because I was really hungry as I was 2 hours late for lunch and my train was leaving in 30 minutes. Normally, when people have had an altercation and then walked away, they avoid looking at each other when they see each other again, but when I walked back into the food court again, the rude woman/wife looked up at me from her table and stared at me with a smirk as if to challenge me. She kept her gaze and I was so aggravated that I told her she was an ugly barbarian and walked by her to buy some food. After I got what I needed and tried to walk out she stared at me again. I was so fed up by her that I took a photo of her with my phone. At this, her husband got up from his table and immediately chased after me and demanded that I delete it. His wife then came up to us and told him to call the police. She looked at him and said in English “Mmmm police.” I found this really ridiculous and self righteous, because she had started the whole thing and then had tried to escalate it and her husband had indeed escalated it and was physically intimidating me.
I walked away towards my train platform and he chased after me the whole time. He then got the attention of two train officials and lied that I had started the whole thing and conveniently left out the fact that his wife had cut me off and that he had physically intimidated me with his punching motion etc. The two train officials told him they weren’t the police and could not help him. I thanked them and walked away. The husband kept following me and demanded that I delete the photo. So I told him in a low angry tone that if he touched me I’d kill him. At this he gave a nervous laugh and finally walked away. I get barged into, cut off and stared at all the time in Korea and it bothers me, but to have this sort of nonsense happen in Europe when I am on holiday mode and enjoying my peace and quiet time away from Korea was like a really cruel joke. Now I am back and every morning I leave my house, I wonder which Korean will be rude to me that day. As I mentioned earlier, today at the barber shop the Korean guy who constantly and blatantly stared at me and refused to avert his gaze even after I returned his stare is a perfect example of the sort of thing that I wish did not happen.

[CentralCali]

Do you know what a paragraph is?

[caniff]

Best tourism promotional slogan:

"Korea: Please Understand."

[Jondo]

[liveinkorea316]

Bro I think I can help you. What you described does happen on a daily basis here and I've been here 5 years and used to approach things like you and got frustrated aswell.

In Korea you need to be more aggressive. Push first - apologise later. In the case of the kid in the barber shop you handled it in silence buy you could have said "Hey Bro what are u lookin at?" in an angry voice. With the lady... Drop your shoulder. And bang into her. You'll get much more satisfaction including with her a$$hole husband. You get to show her the actual result of her actions.

In reality, you will find 99% of Koreans will pull away at the last minute. The ones that don't will meet your shoulder and it wasn't your fault. A short apology and you have no frustration.

[Jondo]

[Keeper]

I read your post and after doing so have to say that you need to take a break from this place. I urge you to get out of Korea until your mental state of mind is a bit stronger. Telling someone that you will kill them is plain wrong. People stare at other people all the time so get over it. People will meet your aggression with a call to the cops and it's just a matter of time before you would get into trouble. You are the guest, not the other way around. If you don't like it then it's time to go home.

[Jondo]

[CentralCali]

[sligo]

[goat]

[goat]

And to the right of America (Alaska).

[Underwaterbob]

Dave's really has gone downhill. Spliff regularly trolled so much better with just one obnoxiously unhelpful sentence. Now we get massively unreadable blobs of text.

[Keeper]

[Stain]